topic Re: Poor picture quality in Sky Stream

Poor picture quality

SteveWac — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 20:00:46 GMT

When will sky decrease the amount of compression they apply to programs?

Watching ITV 1 on stream results in lots of pixelated images (posterisation) especially in dark scenes, directly compared to ITV 1HD on Freeview, the sky picture quality is far worse, pixelation is barely noticeable on Freeview.

Re: Poor picture quality

mikealanr — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 22:38:36 GMT

Hi @SteveWac

It's not like for like comparison as one is broadcast and other is IPTV. Different technology with extra processing needed. If you feel it is unacceptable the best course of action would be to report it to sky (viewer relations email: viewerr@sky.uk) and ITV.

Given that the community is customer helps customer no one where can advise on sky's plans or technical changes.

MikeAlanR

Re: Poor picture quality

Angel_Aka — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 06:53:15 GMT

@SteveWac wrote:
When will sky decrease the amount of compression they apply to programs?

Watching ITV 1 on stream results in lots of pixelated images (posterisation) especially in dark scenes, directly compared to ITV 1HD on Freeview, the sky picture quality is far worse, pixelation is barely noticeable on Freeview.

What are the video output settings on the puck? For the best quality stream of HD channels set the output to the native 1080i and let your TV do the upscale (assuming you have a 4K TV.)

When I had Sky Stream I found that the puck wasn't the best upscaler, my TV produced a better, sharper image if the puck was set to 1080i on HD channels.

Re: Poor picture quality

SteveWac — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 19:20:24 GMT

Hi,

Picture is set to 2160p.

It's not just ITV, the posterisation is bad on all channels, I think it's down to excessive signal compression so that sky can say only a 25mbps broadband connection is needed.

Re: Poor picture quality

Angel_Aka — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 06:56:44 GMT

@SteveWac wrote:
Hi,

Picture is set to 2160p.

It's not just ITV, the posterisation is bad on all channels, I think it's down to excessive signal compression so that sky can say only a 25mbps broadband connection is needed.

Try setting the puck to 1080i and see if your TV upscales native HD better than the puck.

Re: Poor picture quality

SteveWac — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 16:30:07 GMT

Quick update, I tried that, no real difference, I think it's just the huge amount of compression applied to the digital signal.

Also when I went to watch F1 UHD I had to change the setting back from 1080i to UHD.

Re: Poor picture quality

xenon81 — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 17:25:33 GMT

@SteveWac wrote:
Hi,

Picture is set to 2160p.

It's not just ITV, the posterisation is bad on all channels, I think it's down to excessive signal compression so that sky can say only a 25mbps broadband connection is needed.

That's odd, lots of people on here have remarked that Sky Stream is better quality than Sky satellite. I don't know what bitrate ITV is on Sky Stream, but on satellite ITV1 regions average just under 6Mbps and on Freeview the average is a pitiful 3.7Mbps (not much higher than SD).

Sat: https://digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=11385&liste=1&live=69&lang=en

Freeview: https://digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=BBCB-PSB3&pid=17604&live=9&sec=0&lang=en