Poor picture quality

[blade+the]

Hsome very good points made.  So basically we need sky UHD delivered through broadband and not the dish as satellite has bandwidth limitations whereas a stream not so much only then will we get some proper UHD. As Bbc have proven that this for the best customer experience, not to mention costs will be lower than using satellite. 

[bob1234]

@blade+theUnless you have slow broadband in which case you would have to put up with endless buffering or wait hours until it had downloaded.

[GD1]

@blade+the  Not sure what bandwidth limitations satellite has? there are plenty of empty transponders all capable of UHD transmissions.  All can accomodate at least 2 UHD channels.

Not everyone has good broadband so UHD may not be possible without buffering.

[woppy1]

I know exactly how it works, sky purchase a certain amount of traffic for each stream from the satellite owner, sky then select how much traffic(bitrate) each channel gets on any particular stream, im not just saying that the non sky channels are poor (HD/SD), I'm saying all the channels are POOR(all you have to do to see how poor it is, is have a look at the near black scenes in game of thrones to see the compression artefacts due to lack of bitrate), even the so-called UHD channels (which are sky's alone) are no better than a good HD stream, BT sport UHD quality wise is leagues ahead of sky and with regard to BBC HLG, sky isn't even in the same ballpark.

[Chodley]

@GD1 Try running netflix over satellite and see if it has bandwidth limitations 😉

Anyway there might be transponder space available but does anyone want to pay the price of using it?

[nigea99]

@woppy1 SKY only control their own channels . 

[woppy1]

Yes your right sky only control their own channels but I will say again,  Skys own HD channels are very poor and their SD channels are a disgrace, and it's Sly that choose to load as many channels on to a transponder as possible which reduces the bitrate and picture quality.

I have had sky for over 22 years now and never thought about leaving, that is until this year and unless they do something drastic with their PQ, this year will be my last, sky charge a premium for what they think is a premium product, but it's now far from premium.

[GD1]

@woppy1  I highly doubt Sky will increase their bitrates for you, there is cost involved to doing this.

[bob1234]

It works like this:-

Profits up = Sky and shareholders happy

Profits down = Sky and shareholders unhappy.

Customers = what are they.

[woppy1]

Hopefully there are more people that think like me and leave, eventually Comcast will take notice 

[Ratinthekitchen]

This thread is a few months old but I came across it as I've been searching for info on the topic.  

I'm not impressed with HD either I'm sure it used to be better.  On the one hand it doesn't matter too much as sky sports UHD is good enough but what really annoys is we pay extra for UHD and even HD (unbelievably in 2021) and UHD only looks so good as HD is poor.  Given that Sky Q can only do UHD on the main box that just makes it worse if you need to watch on a mini box.  It's all a big con.

Does anyone know of any hard evidence to back up these theories.  I don't have BT ultimate so can't compare but what is their in game bitrate and how does that compare to sky uhd?   Comparing bit rates over time to prove HD is degraded is misleading as compression standards change but again I'd like to see some evidence controlling for this.

I think the world Cup next year will be very interesting when bbc iplayer carries uhd transmissions.  That will give a lot of people something to compare to directly.

[Themix]

I actually noticed the picture quality difference when I moved from a sky hd box to sky q a couple of years ago and it does seem to have got worse. I wasn't sure at first if it was due to the limitations of the boxes hardware as running netflix straight from an app on my tv and running netflix from the skyQ box there is a comparable picture quality difference. I have put up with the quality issues on sky as I like sky content, however it has only recently started to frustrate me after subscribing to Apple TV and seeing the amazing picture quality. We all pay a massive premium for sky and this really is not good enough.

[nonnie1]

Sky don't care about picture quality fact! I have a freesat box in my caravan and the HD quality is way better than my Sky Q box. 

Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that picture quality seems worse at the beginning of the week then better at weekends...?

[Ratinthekitchen]

Apple is a premium brand and you won't get them being cheap.  Sky make out they're a premium service but they aren't they are a mass market supplier and will deliver the minimum they can get away with at the lowest cost.

[LGUser]

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