It’s exciting stuff as HDR brings a picture packed with far greater contrast in the darkest and lightest areas of the screen. So, you won’t lose detail when scenes take place in places with a stark contrast between light.
If you’re lucky enough to have a Sky Q HDR-ready box in your home (you can check that here), then you’ll soon be able to sit back and enjoy this ultimate format. But what if you have an older device plugged into your satellite dish?
Sky already offers a pretty easy way of upgrading with users able to simply head to ‘My account’ on their Sky Q box and browse the ‘Shop’ section for any current offers to swap their Sky Q box. There’s no need for an engineer visit with users able to install everything themselves.
READ MORE: Virgin Media’s latest TV 360 box has two advantages that Sky Q can’t yet match
However, there is currently one issue as once you swap your old Sky Q box for a new HDR-compatible device you lose all of your old recordings. If you’ve been saving a number of movies or shows that aren’t available on-demand or from streaming services included with Sky Q, that’s a high price to pay for HDR content in select movies, shows, and – starting next year – live sports coverage.
It’s a big reason not to bother upgrading but things could be about to change. During a recent briefing, Sky told Express.co.uk that they are looking at ways to make the transition from the old non-HDR Sky box to the latest HDR-ready device even easier for customers.
Although full details aren’t yet available, Sky has confirmed to Express.co.uk that it wants to make things more seamless as they understand the annoyance of losing those precious recordings.
A solution is being looked into for the future which could possibly mean users are able to transfer everything they have stored on their old box straight onto the shiny new HDR device using a cable. Whether this is something a Sky engineer will need to help with – or whether a quick wireless transfer could be done yourself remains to be seen.
When it launched its upgraded TV V6 box, Virgin Media allowed customers to keep the previous box as part of their system – in a bedroom, for example – with all of the content stored on that set-top box available to access and view from the shiny new TV V6 box plugged into the main TV.
Although the changes to make upgrading to watch HDR from Sky look unlikely to launch anytime soon, there’s plenty of treats that are definitely arriving in the coming weeks no matter which Sky Q box you have. So, if you recently subscribed, or have managed to catch-up with everything stored on your Sky Q box during lockdown, then it’s well worth getting an HDR-compatible telly and testing out the new HDR content.
Sky’s latest upgrade is rolling out now with users getting improved parental controls, better voice search and an added menu bar which shows what’s on your favourite TV channels. Sky says all Sky Q users will see the changes in the coming weeks with the rollout expected to be completed by December 16.
Speaking about the update, Fraser Stirling, Group Chief Product Officer, Sky, said: “We’re continuing to add new features to Sky Q and Sky Go, with updates almost every week, so your Sky TV experiences keep getting even better. You can watch more TV and movies in stunning HDR picture quality, get personal with voice search, enjoy more sporting action anywhere with Sky Go, and find more of what you love with our simple homepage, easy.”
