This is the mode used for Blu-ray discs and some games consoles. If you've got a large HD TV, this is the best resolution. One thing you might want to disable, however, is the TV’s motion control sensor, which it uses to turn on the TV when you walk into the room. This might sound like a clever feature but you don’t always want the TV to switch on when you walk into the room, especially with energy prices so high. I also found that, if I left the door open to the room it was in, it would also turn on when I walked past. That’s not ideal. I eventually managed to connect it to my home Wi-Fi using the TV’s WPS button and the same on my Devolo Magic Powerline adapter. If you come across the same issue, you’ll have to (rather counterintuitively) select the “I have Sky Broadband” option, as the “third-party broadband” connection option doesn’t give you the choice of using WPS. The bad news is that to lower my carbon footprint I changed over to rechargeable batteries and there are no other normal batteries in the house, not even in other remotes and it had to happen today, of course, when the local shops are shut and I can't just nip out for some new Bunny electrocuters.

Comparing Sky Stream’s picture quality against Sky Glass on one mid-range OLED and one mid-ish range Mini LED TV brings home just how impressive Sky’s streamed service is capable of looking, regardless of whether you’re watching ‘live’ or archived content. On our two premium non-Glass TVs you can really appreciate how crisp much of Sky’s native 4K content looks, how rich colours can get with its HDR ‘broadcasts’, and how good contrast often looks. Unless you’re watching a dark scene in House Of The Dragon, anyway.

Our definitive verdict on the latest Sky TV lineup

The reason I ask is that my remote stopped working altogether. No channel change or programme index .... Nada. Sky has made a concerted effort to integrate various streaming services into the Sky platform, so you can now browse the likes Netflix and Disney+ content within the interface – so long as you have the dedicated subscriptions for each. It's worth noting that there are some advantages to the approach taken with Playlist on Sky Stream. And it remains the case that not all programmes are available to playlist in the same way they can be recorded on Sky Q. Match of the Day on a Saturday night, for example, won’t appear on your Playlist until the following Monday due to rights restrictions. However, Playlist has improved since launch and you can now add more programmes than ever, including BT Sport shows. Press the left arrow button. If the amplifier switches into standby, the correct code has been selected.

Despite all of those drivers, however, and the additional up-firing Atmos speakers, the surround-sound effect is limited. I wasn’t overly impressed with the way Sky Glass delivers bass, either; even with the Bass Boost option toggled on in the settings, there’s very little low-end thump and rumble. The Sky Q boxes create a Sonos-style mesh network, meaning the speed of your broadband isn't so crucial – the wi-fi network itself determines how well the system streams content around your home. If you have Sky Broadband, each box also works as a wi-fi hotspot.

Sky Plus Remote

There’s 215W of total amplification, too, ensuring that these deliver audio that’s far more forceful than most other TVs you’ll encounter, with vocals and speech delivery a real strength of the system. I fired up a John Legend concert recording on Sky Arts and both the piano and Legend’s voice came across in a convincing and pleasing manner. The 'Enhanced' titles show surprising levels of clarity and detail – you'd be forgiven for thinking older movies would struggle against newer, fresher content. Happy Gilmore is 25 years old yet Sky's 4K version is by no means disgraced. The same goes for It's a Wonderful Life. The main Sky Q boxes feature 12 tuners (though three are 'dormant'), allowing you to record or watch those seven simultaneous shows. They support Dolby Atmos and have HDMI, 2 x USB 2.0, digital optical, ethernet and wireless connections. As mentioned, they support simultaneous viewing on two tablets and two Sky Q Mini boxes. The Review states that " the wi-fi network itself determines how well the system streams content around your home " and my experience, along with many others, is that the reception by the mini-box is particularly sensitive to interference, resulting in pixilation, or complete drop-out of the stream, including the sound. This interference (source unknown) became so bad we would loose the Sky stream every day for several minutes at a time throughout the day, but at random times. Sky's solution was to hardwire the system, which defeats the idea behind Sky Q, but my own solution was to swap the location of the main box and the mini-box, in relation to the router, and this has helped. However, be wary as the Sky Engineer wouldn't reinstall the terrestrial TV connections they had undone and we had to pay an external engineer to do this (Sky have recently settled a complaint about this by paying the engineer's cost). If you need help with understanding your Sky remote control or would like to learn some of the shortcuts it offers you, our guide to using your Sky remote has all the information you'll need.

In some ways even more frustrating, we've had several occasions when we've 'playlisted' a sporting event when watching live wasn't possible, only for the final few minutes to have been cut off. This isn't an issue we recall encountering with the traditional recording functionality of Sky Q. You can use the buttons on your Sky remote to access your TV guide, pause, play, rewind or fast-forward live TV or recordings, change your volume, record a programme, and more.The most important thing about the Playlist is that it essentially replaces the Record feature on Sky Q. The big difference being that stuff you choose to store is held on Sky’s own remote servers, rather than on local memory built into the Sky Stream box. Sky Glass isn’t the only dishless Sky TV product. Since it was first launched, Sky Stream has appeared, offering the same content and user experience but without the TV attached. If you already have a decent mid-range TV and care about picture quality, this is the Sky streaming TV product you should go for. If your settings are already 16:9 and you're not seeing the whole picture, try switching the picture format to 4:3 instead. This may produce a slight stretching effect, but it will allow the picture to fill the screen.

The quality of the sound you’ll get from Sky Q depends largely on what you plug it into, but it supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos, and can output to a 5.1 surround sound system or soundbar over HDMI or optical cable. We have come across issues where a live event we select on the EPG doesn’t actually get added to the Playlist due to rights issues. Sky claims, however, that around 93 per cent of the content available on its streamed platform can now be ‘Playlisted’ for future viewing without issue. Colour performance while viewing standard dynamic range content (SDR) using Movie mode colour proved decent, with Sky Glass covering 95.1% of the Rec.709 colour gamut when measured using our colorimeter and the Calman colour calibration software. There’s also the option to save your own picture settings in the Custom mode, which allows you to adjust various parameters, including contrast, video brightness, colour saturation, hue/tint, white balance, local dimming and colour temperature.

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The Sky Q boxes essentially work not only as TV set-top boxes but also as hubs, delivering content to up to two separate Sky Q Mini boxes and two tablets simultaneously around your home. In total, Sky Q allows you to record six channels and watch a seventh simultaneously – if you can find enough screens. You'll need your four digit Sky remote amplifier code. Use the numbers on your Sky remote to enter the code. The LED will flash twice. If you’re looking for a new TV now, however, and the idea of dishless Sky TV appeals, then Sky Glass is an attractive option. If your Sky remote won't allow you to change the volume of your TV, you'll need to program your Sky remote to control your TV. Use your Sky remote to control a sound system