OK, so the stream puck arrived. It's like going back ten years in terms of quality.
Unless I'm mistaken, there's no way to watch from start unless it's BBC which jumps to the iPlayer, or itv channels that go to itv X. On sky stream when you select a channel you can always press a button to watch ANY PROGRAMME from start from sky's servers.
The picture quality is truly appalling. How you can call this HD I have no idea!
Attached are two photos from channel 4 news. Even at the low resolution this forum uploads, you can see the sky stream picture is pin sharp, but virgin stream is barely focused and far darker. I got those to get sky sports cheaper, but I'm loathe to give virgin a penny more if the quality is so awful
I'm very tech savvy, so please don't @ me will comments about trying different cables or whatever. The tv thinks it's receiving a uhd picture at 3840x2160, so the quality issue is clearly Virgin's.
Even the TV guide is kind of fuzzy!
These two issues are absolute deal breakers, which, after the ball ache I've had getting the puck, has made me even angrier than before!
The Stream box is designed to be non-recording, so my understanding is that the live restart facility is offered where the broadcaster provides those facilities through their VoD platform.
Sky stream has no recording functionality either. But you can watch almost anything from the start without using a third party app.
Streets ahead
Not strictly true. It’s just that not a lot of broadcasters allow you to use it. Both Sky Stream & Virgin Stream are capable of recording 1000 hours to the cloud, & this functionality is now common across the rest of Europe.
Try changing the VM box settings so it outputs at the video resolution of the TV program, rather than doing the upscaling. The TV & Sky box could have more CPU for doing the upscale, but who knows !!.
Try changing the VM box settings so it outputs at the video resolution of the TV program, rather than doing the upscaling. The TV & Sky box could have more CPU for doing the upscale, but who knows !!.
The Sky Stream hardware is pathetic and slower than VMs in every way. Whether its optimisation of code/build or the actual hardware; real life use of navigation and loading apps is slower on current hardware generation of Sky Stream.
If you have a decent TV let the TV do the deinterlace and upscale and set box to 1080i. That should normally look better than letting the box upscale (same on Sky Stream).
OK, so the stream puck arrived. It's like going back ten years in terms of quality.
Unless I'm mistaken, there's no way to watch from start unless it's BBC which jumps to the iPlayer, or itv channels that go to itv X. On sky stream when you select a channel you can always press a button to watch ANY PROGRAMME from start from sky's servers.
The picture quality is truly appalling. How you can call this HD I have no idea!
Attached are two photos from channel 4 news. Even at the low resolution this forum uploads, you can see the sky stream picture is pin sharp, but virgin stream is barely focused and far darker. I got those to get sky sports cheaper, but I'm loathe to give virgin a penny more if the quality is so awful
I'm very tech savvy, so please don't @ me will comments about trying different cables or whatever. The tv thinks it's receiving a uhd picture at 3840x2160, so the quality issue is clearly Virgin's.
Even the TV guide is kind of fuzzy!
These two issues are absolute deal breakers, which, after the ball ache I've had getting the puck, has made me even angrier than before!
I've had BOTH platforms together until recently. Although there are a couple of usability issues on VM's Stream, in my opinion its vastly superior every other way to Sky Stream (up to 1080). The picture quality is superior to Sky Stream for a start on SD and HD channels (I did not say 4K content/channels). Even QVC and Challenge TV are encoded correctly and not simple 1080i50 to 1080p25 as done on Sky's service.
Secondly, switching channels just works on VM Stream. SKY have had issues for months with "Please wait for the channel to load" messages that plagued their user forums and me even though had 1gbps connection in an area with no issues and clean WiFi which is confirmed at Sky's own box during a speed test. Whilst Sky made it much better some months after reporting it is still not totally fixed. Also, Sky do a weird thing with apps. Many like catch up are run like a remote session and that has had issues again with service continuity and reliability.
Want to renumber your channels on Sky Stream and remove ones you don't want listed? Well, its cumbersome due to lack of profiles, and you get 99 favourite channels only and you constantly have to go into Favourites to see them and as soon as you bring up the mini guide, it shows them as Sky's channel numbering! Contrast with VM where it just works and if you create a user profile and then do channel renumbering, the list sticks (and its UNLIMITED number of channels that you can re-order not just 99) unless you sign out and go back to default user profile login.
I have my own router that disables WIFI through the night as a daily schedule. Every day when the box was first powered back on, the Sky Stream box would not reconnect and I had to go into network settings to re-join the device to the network, despite having minimum power saving settings for faster standby and resume enable. Full power saving or none and it still wouldn't work whereas VM Stream did in this scenario.
I only defend VM where credit due, so please don't come on and worship Sky Stream because it was a pile of rubbish and I only recently left both Sky and VM. VM was because of a mess up over contract negotiations, broken web site for customer offers with "oops" errors and ridiculous pricing. Yes, Sky Stream has a couple of minor usability features but I was left completely surprised the garbage made it to market. Definitely a rushed out the door job in my experience. Many Sky customers returned to using their Sky Q satellite boxes and those who had bought Sky Glass (Sky stream inside a new tv basically) returned their sets over many issues.
Now VM Stream also had some firmware issues at the start of Stream like the famous Bird background connection error picture appearing just because you use your own DNS over TLS settings not VM's (I use my own router so VM's hub was in modem mode). They have since changed that and its now happy with DNS over TLS and non-VM DNS servers. At the very start there was also some issues with service reliability to their hub server which was confirmed in their Diagnostics menu; but these were likely unique to my area. Still ongoing, is SOME customers ability to add subscriptions on VM Stream as these often get stuck. I never had this issue and I always waited until the box confirmed the subscription was added before navigating away.
Thanks for your long reply, so here's mine bit by bit...
1. Aside from MTV 80s where the picture quality isn't really relevant I don't watch any SD broadcasts, as pretty much everything on sky stream is HD by default, and the picture is far better than virgin stream
2. The 'please wait for your programme to load' error is bad, I agree. I thought it was my connection, but even when wired it happens so it's clearly a Sky issue with the puck, the OS or the servers.
3. I don't really understand your issue. My favourites come up along the first rail and I use that constantly to select the channel I want to watch. It couldn't be easier.
4. Why are you disabling your WiFi? 🤷♂️
5. I'm not worshipping sky stream, it has many faults. But in terms of usability the UX is very good - similar in design to the brilliant Q, which I'd love to have but simply can't in my rented flat.
I wish virgin stream was good, but it really isn't. And dealing with virgin as a customer is perhaps the worst experience you could possibly imagine.
Thanks for your long reply, so here's mine bit by bit...
1. Aside from MTV 80s where the picture quality isn't really relevant I don't watch any SD broadcasts, as pretty much everything on sky stream is HD by default, and the picture is far better than virgin stream
2. The 'please wait for your programme to load' error is bad, I agree. I thought it was my connection, but even when wired it happens so it's clearly a Sky issue with the puck, the OS or the servers.
3. I don't really understand your issue. My favourites come up along the first rail and I use that constantly to select the channel I want to watch. It couldn't be easier.
4. Why are you disabling your WiFi? 🤷♂️
5. I'm not worshipping sky stream, it has many faults. But in terms of usability the UX is very good - similar in design to the brilliant Q, which I'd love to have but simply can't in my rented flat.
I wish virgin stream was good, but it really isn't. And dealing with virgin as a customer is perhaps the worst experience you could possibly imagine.
Its 99 favourites on Sky and when you use the mini guide, the renumbering of channels you have done gets reverted to default Sky numbering. You always have to select "Favourites" on the home screen to get your own list. On VM Stream, as long as you don;t sign in with default user profile, whenever you press EPG button on remote or use mini guide or the main guide; it always shows your renumbered list and it does not limit the list to 99 tv/radio channels either.
I don't need WiFi on during the night, so my router turns it off on a schedule as it allows me to as not using the rubbish ISP one except in modem mode.
Most of the SD channels on VM Stream are HD ones too with higher at a higher bit rate. The picture really is quite decent on VM Stream, I definitely found it to be better than Sky Stream on SD and HD. VM do not decode and recode an off air picture from aerial or satellite likes years ago for set top boxes, they have direct feeds from broadcasters now at higher bit rates than goes out on Transmitter MUXs.
For the Video resolution question, look up how Mpeg Dash actually works. There are multiple copies of each TV channel, but at different resolution & bitrates. Only one rate is used at a given time, depending on the network connection (primarily your router to stb WiFi). If the bandwidth from the Router to STB drops, then the STB will switch to a lower resolution in order to maintain the vdieo & audio. Clearly this will be more predominate on WiFi, and also depends on the distance from the router to the STB.
As said above if you set the STB to follow the stream resolution you will then see the TV switch as the streams change. Note: this will be annoying on some TV's, so only do it as a test.
Lastly, when changing channels the STB will probably start with the lowest resolution. Wait a bit for the streaming to switch to the higher rates. I don't know what chunk size VM uses, but it could be anything from 2-10 seconds, whci means it could take 30seconds to get to full resolution (assuming your WiFi can support it).
If possible, try the same tests using Ethernet from the router to STB.