Once all the cables are securely connected, put your viewing card into the slot on the right-hand side of your box, chip first with the chip facing up. Volume seems to be well standardised across the channels, so you don’t have to keep reaching for the remote whenever you switch over. 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). After a long wait, HDR finally debuted on Sky Q in May 2020 and the amount of HDR content has grown fairly rapidly since: there are now hundreds of movies and plenty of TV shows provided by Sky in HDR, plus the huge HDR libraries of the aforementioned embedded streaming services. Live Premier League football and F1 are now available in HDR, and more and more sports are getting the high dynamic range treatment. Just note that not all Sky Q box models are compatible. Step 2:There will be an initial setup message on your TV, and you will need to press “Home” on your Sky Q remote.

When it first launched in 2016, Sky Q was a huge overhaul over the Sky+ service it replaced. Its bold aim was to do to television what Sonos did to music – make it truly multi-room. Instead, type 001, then press Select. This brings up the hidden engineer’s system menu. Go to Network, and then you can change the 5GHz Wi-Fi channel width, selecting from: 80MHz / ch36 (default); 40MHz / ch. 36; and 40Mhz / ch.44. It’s worth trying all three to see if it makes a difference. 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. 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.

What Hi-Fi? Awards 2023 winner. A bit old-fashioned in some ways, but Sky Q still trumps the newer Sky Stream overall

Yes. Many customers choose to self-install their mini boxes. The process is very straightforward and involves plugging in the box to the power supply and then connecting it to your main Sky Q box over Wi-Fi or ethernet cable. The process is explained below. Setting up and Connecting Sky Q Mini Box On the downside, however, one of the biggest downsides is that you cannot record directly onto the Mini Box. However, you can use the box to record content on your main Sky Q box and stream or watch the content later on in the Mini Box.

You can also search by more niche parameters, such as actors, directors or film recommendations. Saying “thrillers with Nicole Kidman”, for example, will bring up relevant suggestions. It's one of the best voice assistants we've used.

Sadly, while you can force a Mini box to join your home wireless network it can only do so on the 2.4GHz band, which isn’t fast enough for streaming live TV, so don’t do this. Sky seems particularly proud of its Fluid Viewing concept. This allows you to stop and start programmes as you move from one room or device to another, including from TV to tablet, inside to outside your home.