topic Re: Poor streaming quality from Sky Go on desktop in Sky Go

Poor streaming quality from Sky Go on desktop

Shak7s — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 14:25:56 GMT

Hi, When using the Sky Go Windows PC app on a portrait-orientation monitor (1440 × 2560), video quality becomes extremely blocky and heavily compressed compared to other streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix. This appears to be caused by Sky Go using a low fixed desktop resolution/bitrate and then aggressively upscaling the image to fit non-standard display resolutions, rather than dynamically adapting stream quality. The result is severe macro-blocking and loss of detail, especially in darker scenes. Other platforms handle this scenario significantly better through adaptive bitrate streaming, higher resolution desktop profiles, or improved scaling. It would be great to see: Higher maximum resolution and bitrate options on PC Adaptive streaming that better handles portrait and high-DPI displays Currently, Sky Go delivers noticeably worse visual quality than competing services on modern PC displays, despite similar network conditions. I've noticed even when not in portrait mode, the quality is still considerably bad on a 1440p monitor. Its not UHD, it seems to be 1080p but with no upscaling to handle the added pixels. Considering a lot of users probably aren't using Sky go on a TV, this is pretty shocking standards. Just wanted to share this feedback somewhere. Even though this may be an edge case, the quality is so poor it borders on unwatchable and ruins the experience for me and makes me not want to use Sky go.

Re: Poor streaming quality from Sky Go on desktop

GD1 — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 14:38:55 GMT

@Shak7s Your post has been moved from the Sky Stream board as Sky Go and Sky Stream are 2 different porducts, one is an app (Sky Go) the isn't (it's a Stream Puck device)

Re: Poor streaming quality from Sky Go on desktop

TimmyBGood — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 15:57:28 GMT

@Shak7s wrote:

compared to other streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix.

Go isn't a massive global streaming platform like those though: it's an obsolete 'free' add-on to a satellite television platform deployed in a bare handful of European countries.

Considering a lot of users probably aren't using Sky go on a TV, this is pretty shocking standards.

As above: Go is a legacy of the pre-Comcast Sky and, I suspect, won't be developed any further. It's now long overdue a replacement with a Comcast app.