Now TV 1080p streaming coming this year, Full HD video trials underway

Biffa · 11 May 2019 at 13:32

About effin time I reckon!

https://www.pocket-lint.com/tv/news/now-tv/147996-now-tv-plus-1080p-streaming-service-launching

TheVoice · 11 May 2019 at 14:44

Biffa said:
About effin time I reckon!

https://www.pocket-lint.com/tv/news/now-tv/147996-now-tv-plus-1080p-streaming-service-launching

It really is, I'm sure this time last year they said it'd be available by the end of 2018, not sure what's taking so long. Obviously there's the issue of them not wanting it to cannibalise customers from the full Sky offering but there are ways to do that whilst still providing good image quality.

Hopefully it'll also encourage the other TV catch-up services e.g. UKTV to do the same, the picture quality is equivalent or sometimes worse than an SD broadcast on some of them.

Mariusz · 11 May 2019 at 14:49

Great news, about time. Was supposed to happen last year. Hopefully they'll also upgrade the service to Dolby Digital 5.1, watching films and GOT in stereo in 2019 is shocking, especially when other services are using Dolby Atmos.

TheVoice · 11 May 2019 at 14:54

Mariusz said:
Great news, about time. Was supposed to happen last year. Hopefully they'll also upgrade the service to Dolby Digital 5.1, watching films and GOT in stereo in 2019 is shocking, especially when other services are using Dolby Atmos.

I got about 3 minutes into watching the new season of GoT before abandoning it and finding a way to watch it in 1080p as intended. For some programmes the 720p resolution isn't particularly apparent and I don't mind it, but for others it becomes quite noticeable.

Raggs · 12 May 2019 at 12:33

they have been promising this for ages, 720p on a 65 inch tv can look ropy especially the football hope it happens soon.

jpaul · 12 May 2019 at 13:12

due diligence - had seen the article , but unspecified and un-corroborated source (... again?)

edit LOL the guy does review of vacuum cleaners - that's credible
https://www.pocket-lint.com/smart-home/reviews/dyson/147764-dyson-v11-absolute-vacuum-cleaner-review

233 · 12 May 2019 at 13:32

ffs it really is shocking that their just now starting to push 1080p content,

should just skip it and go straight to 4k

varkanoid · 12 May 2019 at 18:50

It should be easy to implement via software as the latest NowTV box does 4k with Netflix and iPlayer cant remember whether it does 5.1 as I dont really use it other than for Sky. They could have done it ages ago but I reckon they were just waiting for Sky Q subscribers to get to a certain number before releasing 1080p. Latest report is October at earliest. Understandable as releasing 1080p on NowTV whilst Sky Q was in its infancy would have dented their sales.

Chris1712 · 14 May 2019 at 13:32

Think they need to jump straight to 4k tbh, especially for sport. BBC & BT are already doing UHD HDR football, 1080p is not good enough.

doodah · 14 May 2019 at 13:54

Wait, what? They have been streaming 720p all this time? Wow.

Mind you do others actually stream the resolution they claim? Or is there some sort of caveat surrounding the bit rate?

jpaul · 14 May 2019 at 14:01

sky don't have hdr yet for the premium customers , so they need to fix that first.

For 4K sport sky were (still are?) luxuriously 30Mb/s off of satellite, so should be better than streamed BT 15Mb/s, but sky don't seem to legitimately advertise - we are the best

Also, for 4k movies, I don't know if sky has same delivery system as other streamed providers ... they have a big skyQ box, with lots of ram and buffering capability, so may not have capability to deliver 4k content to a less hardware capable atv/nowtv box.

Nonetheless whether the additional installation/maintenance cost of satellite in sky infrastructure has a long term future, versus fibre into the home ... so I can see sky re-branding as Earth ?

tom_nieto · 14 May 2019 at 15:20

GOT was all going fine on Now TV until the dreaded s8e3! The poor streaming quality was immediately apparent even on my 9 year old plasma! I can’t even begin to image how bad it would have been on a sharp new LCD display.

Puzzled · 14 May 2019 at 17:27

Don't like the idea that 1080p might be a paid upgrade option, 4k sure but 1080p should be the bare minimum these days.

cheesyboy · 14 May 2019 at 17:41

Didn't realise it was only 720p!

Hadn't noticed as Barry is the only thing I've watched on there so far, and that mostly on my mobile.

720p streaming limit is a bit archaic, though.

jpaul · 14 May 2019 at 21:37

Most of freeview/sat is sd is (704x) 576i eg film4 , freeview hd is 1080i ,
but at the end of the day bitrate is probably most important criteria
ie (hdr aside) 4k 15Mb/s netflix streaming has been equated to (only) having a local blue-ray 1080p disc.

D3lirious · 19 May 2019 at 11:26

I was hoping this upgrade would be here by now. I've just finished GOT 1-7 on bluray and going to start 8 tonight. The drop from high bit rate 1080p atmos to stereo 720p block o vision is going to be rubbish

ricid · 19 May 2019 at 12:14

We did a binge of GoT S1-7 before the new season started, and despite owning the blu rays ended up watching via NowTV as couldn't be bothered changing discs.
On a 42" TV across a living room the difference in quality was noticeable, but not to the point where it really stopped me enjoying the show. The gaps left for advert breaks in the later series on the other hand..

I think my point is, the average viewer probably doesn't realise / care that it's not 1080, so the incentive to implement it is probably quite small.

Luckystrike123 · 19 May 2019 at 14:09

I'm a "new" nowtv customer and when I signed up I ended up paying £3pm extra for an addon called boost. I couldn't find anything online to tell me what this service was, but after complaining I found out that it was an additional payment for hd content.

Now £3 p/m is a pittance, but I think it's bang out of order charging extra for what is last generations standard. It's no wonder the other streaming services are killing them.

Rroff · 19 May 2019 at 14:18

jpaul said:
but at the end of the day bitrate is probably most important criteria

Yeah - for a long time I didn't really lose any significant detail from most "1080p/HD" streams when viewing on my 720p projector because of the bitrate (and often "HD" content even with the 1080 moniker is only like 800-900 vertical pixels).

varkanoid · 20 May 2019 at 16:15

Luckystrike123 said:
I'm a "new" nowtv customer and when I signed up I ended up paying £3pm extra for an addon called boost. I couldn't find anything online to tell me what this service was, but after complaining I found out that it was an additional payment for hd content.

Now £3 p/m is a pittance, but I think it's bang out of order charging extra for what is last generations standard. It's no wonder the other streaming services are killing them.

I think you have been mis-informed you dont pay extra for HD content on NowTV. Are you sure this was not for one of the passes eg the Kids one or Hayu ?

Its also not a streaming service like Netflix as it allows live channels and is actually growing.