topic Re: Poor uhd picture in Sky Q

Poor uhd picture

Svntay — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 12:22:45 GMT

Just recently purchased an LG oled tv and I'm really disappointed with the uhd picture quality for sports mainly golf and football. I've set sky Q box to uhd 10 bit and the picture doesn't even come up to 1080p standard. It's not the the tv as quality when watching a 4k test picture from YouTube is outstanding, it's only via the the q box tv tuner as in sky sports uhd.

is my sky Q box faulty?

Re: Poor uhd picture

Chodley — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 12:28:24 GMT

No it's just that live broadcast UHD is not as good as highly optimised, sometimes higher bitrate pre-encoded youtube, streaming or 4k bluray content.

It's also using HLG which is a bit of a compromise to maintain compatibility with SDR boxes/TVs, and not HDR10 or dolby vision which is arguably another step up in image quality.

it should be better than 1080p though. Does it look dull? Rather than lower res?

Re: Poor uhd picture

BenJoBanjo — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 13:31:22 GMT

@Svntay

UHD with HLG HDR should look excellent on an LG OLED - it does on every make and model of LG OLED I've witnessed in the past 5 years or so. It's one of the most popular OLED brands and I know several people who use them.

You need to tweak the picture settings whilst playing something in UHD with HLG HDR until you find one which gives you a bright and punchy picture. It should then use these settings next time it detects a similar UHD HLG HDR signal.

Have a look at some BBC iPlayer UHD content on the TV's app - it uses the same HLG format that Sky use. Look for some programmes with the UHD tag on the thumbnail and play them to see how they look.

Live UHD Sky Sports events are never going to look as good as those many test videos on YouTube. They are lit and graded specifically to show off the greater dynamic range that HDR can give. A big green football pitch or golf course is in reality not a good showcase for HDR. It should look pretty good but won't ever really blow you away.

Re: Poor uhd picture

Svntay — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 14:43:07 GMT

Slightly dull picture but looks like I'm watching on a Bush tv not a high quality Oled screen. Just watching golf now and ball is just a blur on putting green, unwatchable really! Difficult to see logo on ball as example. It's just underwhelming.
I'll contact Sky as it's nowhere near as good as just an average tv you'd see in showroom.

Re: Poor uhd picture

cuke — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 09:47:02 GMT

@Svntay wrote:
Slightly dull picture but looks like I'm watching on a Bush tv not a high quality Oled screen. Just watching golf now and ball is just a blur on putting green, unwatchable really! Difficult to see logo on ball as example. It's just underwhelming.
I'll contact Sky as it's nowhere near as good as just an average tv you'd see in showroom.

Which LG model is it? I think you might be best trying to setup your tv than contacting Sky.

Try this forum https://www.avforums.com/forums/lg-tvs.91/ for solutions.

Re: Poor uhd picture

Svntay — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 12:01:37 GMT

Thanks, still going to speak to Sky. Watched golf highlights on BBC last night which is only broadcast in 1080 HD and picture was so superior to the UHD live picture on sky sports. Think the box isn't switching to uhd on live broadcast!

Re: Poor uhd picture

hrai — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 12:13:20 GMT

If you press the green button 7 times on your lg remote you will get a box to appear labelled VRR Information.

I'm currently watching The Open on Sky UHD (fab picture) on a lg G5and it says 50.0Hz, Fixed , 3840 x 2160@50 and (the key bit) YCBCR420 10b TM HLG FVA:1 This will at least show if the TV is receiving a UHD signal (If I set my Q box to 1080P it changes to YCBCR444 8b TM SDR FVA:1 )

Hope this helps

Re: Poor uhd picture

Chodley — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 08:39:19 GMT

And presumably the res in that info changes too?

Re: Poor uhd picture

hrai — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 09:02:06 GMT

Yep

The info changes in real time. During my check I changed the Q boxes' output from 1080P back to UHD whilst the info box was still on screen. For a couple of seconds all the data was replaced by a dash but then changed to the expected UHD settings (with one small quirk.)*

*As I was on 401 when I swapped from UHD to 1080P my box replaced 401 SkySpME UHD with the HD version (as it should) When it turned it back to UHD the channel I was on automatically became SkySp Mix HD 416 - again as it should. Retuning back to 401 had the displaying the expected data UHD and HDR data.

Re: Poor uhd picture

NewtonBoy — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 16:58:54 GMT

The golf on Sky is not produced in UHD. They're currently showing The Open upscaled from HD on Sky Sports 1 UHD.

You'll get a similar picture if you watch HD on 405 and change your LG's picture mode to HDR effect.

Not sure if there's been any native UHD football since the UK season ended.

Re: Poor uhd picture

hrai — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 09:01:45 GMT

That solves a riddle!

I was a bit puzzled when coverage switched to Sky Sports Golf during the Lions game as to why there wasn't a red button option for UHD (as there has for other sports events in the past.) If there's no native UHD broadcast there'd be little point in a red button option.