topic Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded in Sky Q

Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

Disant2k — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 21:29:59 GMT

Tonight, I decided to see what was on Sky Movies. Transformers popped up and I thought I'd turn it on while I worked on my laptop. An ok film that generally looks ok.

However, when I turned it on I was beyond shocked at the quality. This is was on Sky Action HD, starting at 8pm.

This is meant to be HD 1080i, and should be a minimum of 6-8 Mbp/s. However what I was seeing was basically 720i at 2 Mbp/s.

I pay a small fortune a month for my total sky package, over £130 (TV, Broadband, Mobile etc.), with Sky Movies being a good part of that. However the quality of this content is beyond shocking and Sky you should be ashamed of yourselves. Promoting a premium service but cutting coners on your bandwidth allocation so you can squeeze as much through the Astra Satalites as you possibly can.

Ok, we get it, you want everyone to move to Sky Glass. It would save you a huge overhead in costs to contiune your licence agreement to maintain access to Astra, but until you can offer the same Live/Record features as Q, most of us never will.

What happened to you Sky? You use to be a pillar of quality and service. Now, you are just a second rate Channel 5/

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

PandJ2020 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 21:43:43 GMT

You seem to addressing Sky. You're not - just other customers.

Satellite broadcasting will end.

Personally, I download movies (in UHD usually) and have no issues with quality. Did you try downloading Transformers instead?

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

Disant2k — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:08:08 GMT

I have the option to download, and yes I could. But like a lot of people,, I just want to flick onto something that's on an watch it.

What's the point in providing a good number of "HD" movie channel if the only option to actually watch said content in a quality that one would expect, is to download it.

And yes, conventional broadcasting will end, as will freeview and freesat, but not for another 10 years or more. As someone who has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years, we are far from that point.

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

Daniel0210 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:18:04 GMT

@Disant2k wrote:

conventional broadcasting will end, as will freeview and freesat, but not for another 10 years or more. As someone who has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years, we are far from that point.

@Disant2k

Satellite TV will end in about 4-5 years when the propulsion system for the actual satellites runs out of juice and at present there are no plans announced to replace them.

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

TimmyBGood — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:24:08 GMT

@Disant2k wrote:

And yes, conventional broadcasting will end, as will freeview and freesat, but not for another 10 years or more. As someone who has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years, we are far from that point.

Satellite broadcasting faces a much shorter timescale than digital terrestrial: as @Daniel0210 indicates, gravity usually wins.

Television transmission from masts could continue indefinitely, but it's inherently limited in capacity and the chunk of RF spectrum it occupies is rather valuable.

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

Angel_Aka — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:06:23 GMT

@Disant2k wrote:
I have the option to download, and yes I could. But like a lot of people,, I just want to flick onto something that's on an watch it.

What's the point in providing a good number of "HD" movie channel if the only option to actually watch said content in a quality that one would expect, is to download it.

And yes, conventional broadcasting will end, as will freeview and freesat, but not for another 10 years or more. As someone who has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years, we are far from that point.

The bitrate of live broadcasts has always been smaller than the same content on demand.
You should treat the linear channels as being there for convenience, not quality. They are there for the convenience of being able to stumble across something to watch without requiring much thought.
If you want to watch something in the best quality possible then it requires preparation in the form of searching for and downloading it, or streaming it from a third party service.
I too work in broadcasting (for 25+ years) and never watch movies on linear broadcast channels. For starters, they are always sped up from 24>25fps which affects the audio pitch. I find this extremely irritating and always seek out streaming services which offer native frame rates for movies.

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

xenon81 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:21:54 GMT

The Sky Cinema channels have low bitrates, as Sky have compressed all 12 channels (including the new Disney+Cinema) on to one transponder. Downloading the films from on demand offers much better quality if you can do that.

https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=12285&liste=1&live=69&lang=en

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

simon194 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:48:11 GMT

@TimmyBGood wrote:
@Disant2k wrote:

And yes, conventional broadcasting will end, as will freeview and freesat, but not for another 10 years or more. As someone who has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years, we are far from that point.

Satellite broadcasting faces a much shorter timescale than digital terrestrial: as @Daniel0210 indicates, gravity usually wins.

Television transmission from masts could continue indefinitely, but it's inherently limited in capacity and the chunk of RF spectrum it occupies is rather valuable.

The fate of digital terrestrial should be decided at next year's World Radiocommunications Conference. The proposed plan is the start reallocating the spectrum currently occupied by terrestrial TV to mobile operators for 5G use from 2034.

Re: Sky Moies Live Bitrate vs Downloaded

Chodley — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 06:30:14 GMT

@Angel_Aka wrote:
@Disant2k wrote:
I have the option to download, and yes I could. But like a lot of people,, I just want to flick onto something that's on an watch it.

What's the point in providing a good number of "HD" movie channel if the only option to actually watch said content in a quality that one would expect, is to download it.

And yes, conventional broadcasting will end, as will freeview and freesat, but not for another 10 years or more. As someone who has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years, we are far from that point.

The bitrate of live broadcasts has always been smaller than the same content on demand.
You should treat the linear channels as being there for convenience, not quality. They are there for the convenience of being able to stumble across something to watch without requiring much thought.
If you want to watch something in the best quality possible then it requires preparation in the form of searching for and downloading it, or streaming it from a third party service.
I too work in broadcasting (for 25+ years) and never watch movies on linear broadcast channels. For starters, they are always sped up from 24>25fps which affects the audio pitch. I find this extremely irritating and always seek out streaming services which offer native frame rates for movies.

I thought they adjusted the pitch to compensate ?

I don't watch the linear channels any more, the quality really has got terrible.

And I especially don't watch dross churned out by Michael Bay 🤣 Although we'll always have Armageddon, can't help myself.