topic Re: Why bother with HD? in Sky Q

Why bother with HD?

DAB43 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 20:51:55 GMT

I am looking to reduce my monthly costs and currently pay for Sky Q with the Signature package, plus Netflix, I pay £9 a month for HD and £15 for a second box to be able to watch recordings in another room. Why bother with HD, is it something I can just get removed? We do prefer to have recordings so don't want to switch to Sky Stream

Re: Why bother with HD?

mr.tickle — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 21:28:12 GMT

@DAB43 wrote:
I am looking to reduce my monthly costs and currently pay for Sky Q with the Signature package, plus Netflix, I pay £9 a month for HD and £15 for a second box to be able to watch recordings in another room. Why bother with HD, is it something I can just get removed? We do prefer to have recordings so don't want to switch to Sky Stream

You can remove it and drop down to Standard Definition of course, at 1/4 of the resolution of a HD TV, and 1/16th the resolution of a 4K TV. All TVs will "upscale" but the fewer pixels feeding the upscaling algorithm the worse the results.

But I can't really address the philosophy of the question. To me, and everyone is different, it's like asking "why bother with stereo sound, when I can just listen to everything in mono". Or "why bother with colour, when I can just watch in black and white". Each of these techologies are designed to enhance the experience.

Re: Why bother with HD?

TimmyBGood — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 06:50:58 GMT

@DAB43 wrote:

Why bother with HD, is it something I can just get removed?

Very roughly speaking, if the display panel is UHD and the source data is SD then the television set is inventing the vast majority of the pixels being displayed: that leads to a picture quality which many people find uncomfortable to view.

We do prefer to have recordings so don't want to switch to Sky Stream

Note that if you drop the HD subscription supplement, all currently stored Recordings from non-free-to-air HD channels become unavailable for playback (and cannot be downscaled)

Re: Why bother with HD?

nigea99 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 06:57:47 GMT

@DAB43 wrote:

I am looking to reduce my monthly costs and currently pay for Sky Q with the Signature package, plus Netflix, I pay £9 a month for HD and £15 for a second box to be able to watch recordings in another room. Why bother with HD, is it something I can just get removed? We do prefer to have recordings so don't want to switch to Sky Stream

hi @DAB43

Without the HD addon you still get some Free to Air channels in HD - these include the BBC, ITV Channel4 & Channel 5 channels . However there is a quirk that downloads from C5 & I think Channel 4 still require the HD add on to download in HD

If you to check out watching the channels which in SD to see how they would look to you, check out the channels in the 800s where you will find the SD versions of the most other HD channels

Only you can decide if removing the HD add on is worth it to you - many of us would be frustrated with the reduced quality but you may find it acceptable.

Re: Why bother with HD?

Me134 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:51:48 GMT

@DAB43 If you're out of minimum term then it's time to speak to them anyway, you'll get that reduced.

Re: Why bother with HD?

DAB43 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 07:36:04 GMT

Thanks for all the advice, we have made a switch to Sky Stream, paying £34 a month less