Upgrade to Sky Q – the things you need to know first
Take the plunge and embrace change
So here goes I thought I’d take the plunge and change over to Sky Q. I went for the 2tb version with 4K as I thought it would be more future proof and I might invest in a 4K TV at a later stage. Apparently, unless you go for Sky’s 2TB Sky Q box you won’t get 4K broadcasts. The engineer fitted a new LNB (that’s the part at the dish) and connected it all up. It was very easily set up and he had a picture on my telly in no time at all. There is no doubt it made my Sky+ HD box menu look a bit dated but I really didn’t notice any difference in the HD picture quality and viewing in SD seemed not as good as my older Sky+ HD box which was disappointing. That didn’t matter too much to me though.
No RF Outputs
I feed the output from the Sky box to 3 other rooms in the house but to my disappointment the engineer informed me that there are no rf outputs on a Sky Q box and in order to continue viewing in other rooms I would need to upgrade my subscription to multi – room at an extra £12.50 per month. What a bummer, I told him I wouldn’t be giving Sky anymore of my hard earned money. So no Sky TV throughout the house. The kids are not going to like that!
Up and Running
All seemed to work fine. I had to rush back to work so that was it until the evening, when I got a call from my wife. She sounded very exasperated “How do you get the Sky box to work?” “Why did you change to Sky Q?” I said don’t worry it will take a bit of getting used to it and I’ll be home shortly anyway. When I got home the TV was off and everybody looked glum.
No Pets allowed when watching Sky Q
Switching the TV on I grabbed the Sky Q touch remote and proceeded to demonstrate to everybody how easy it was to work. Oh boy was I so wrong. It really is an art to learn how to use Sky’s touch remote. Starting off you have got to have patience otherwise your liable to fire the remote against the wall. The closest I can get to explaining is the mouse on your laptop. Flick too much and you overshoot into another menu – frustrating to say the least. But best of all is the fast forward that takes an extra level of competence to learn. I forgot to mention also if your watching a recording make sure you leave the remote control down gently otherwise it will go into fast forward. Make sure you don’t have any pets as our dog Alfie jumped up on the sofa he didn’t even hit or press on the remote just the shock of him jumping up on the sofa sent Sky Q box into fast forward.
User Friendliness
All in all the menus looked great more advanced but harder to use (definitely not for older folk). This morning though was “the straw that broke the camels back” It constantly kept locking up and freezing so I rang Sky and I decided to have my faithful, reliable and easy to use Sky+ HD box reinstalled, which in my opinion is the best box ever produced. So glad I didn’t part with my Sky+ HD box when they were installing Q. Another point I’d like to make if you are of the older generation or have a disability the Sky Q remote control is small and very easily slips out of your hand. Button are small and and definitively not for older folk.
You don’t own your Sky Q box so you must keep Subscribing
Unlike your Sky + box you never own your Sky Q box so if you decide to cancel your subscription or postpone for some months they come and take away the equipment leaving you with nothing but a blank screen. Good thing about Sky+HD box is if you stop subscribing you can always have the Freesat channels