Is the Sky Q box worth it?

One feature which didn't make it across from Sky+ to Sky Q is the ability to set a manual recording.

I guess 99.9% of the public couldn't care less about this, but when you want to record, say, the final junction before a BBC Two rebrand, and the first of a new one, it's annoying not being able to do this without recording the whole of the preceding or following programme.

It also used to be possible to record the 'This is BBC Two' overnight barker (including nice, clean idents and test card) via manual recording. This is not possible on Sky Q as recording is blocked for some reason.

The manual recording was primarily there for the radio programmes, though the entire "listen to the radio on your TV" thing I just don't quite follow. Sky+ did get quite good at its padding in automatic mode when you record from the EPG so I've always presumed the manual record is a legacy thing.

Some portions of the BBC schedule are blocked from recording on Sky+ as well, in particularly the downtime loop on CBBC, the BBC One HD holding slide while regional news is on and presumably the holding screen between BBC Four and CBeebies. However while you can't pause the BBC One HD slide live you can rewind back through it after the next programme starts assuming of course you don't change channel in the meantime

You’re probably absolutely right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better that I was only able to record 30 seconds of the 7 minute farewell montage of the BBC Two 2s last night.

I see Sky are now pushing Netflix BUT you need Sky Q. Am i that bothered in upgrading from Sky+? NO!

Pedant watch: You don't need Sky Q for Netflix. You can sign up for it entirely separate and view it through other means and keep your Sky+ box. You can get the £5.99 pass as well this way as the Sky deal is the £7.99 one.

Yeah same here and you couldn't record Pages From Ceefax either during BBC2's downtime either so that had to be a manual record too.