Isky Quality question

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rounder

18 posts

Geek

#115368 23-Mar-2013 15:24

Hi, does anyone know what has happened to the sports channels on Isky this year. I used to watch a bit of rugby league last season and while the pic quality wasn't perfect it was pretty good all the time.

Come this season I watched a game on sky sports 2 and its just about unwatchable especially on fullscreen its worse than watching a youtube video on 240p, and it pixelates and smears terribly when there is a lot of movement.

It does seem better on Sky sports 1 but they usually only play Super 15 games on 1.

Any ideas or is it something I can do nothing about.

I have tried it on multiple browsers and it makes no difference.

Cheers.

jackfry

227 posts

Master Geek

#786479 25-Mar-2013 01:11

I also have this problem with shocking quality, unwatchable.

l43a2

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#786481 25-Mar-2013 01:19

isky is poor. they should either improve it or get rid of it.

myopinion

938 posts

Ultimate Geek

#786509 25-Mar-2013 09:22

Running Macbook Pro and Airplaying iSky to an Apple TV on a 42" TV. Looks OK to me no blur etc.

Handsomedan

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#786540 25-Mar-2013 10:10

Watched (or at least tried to watch) the second half of the All Whites game on my 21.5" iMac on Friday night.

I agree - virtually unwatchable. Half the time I couldn't tell where the ball was and it was so blocky and pixelated, it was like playing a game of Tetris.

Do something about it, SkyTV...I pay enough for my subscription - offer a decent service or can it altogether.

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jackfry

227 posts

Master Geek

#787215 26-Mar-2013 13:35

myopinion: Running Macbook Pro and Airplaying iSky to an Apple TV on a 42" TV. Looks OK to me no blur etc.

It depends on what your watching.

Jaxson

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#787219 26-Mar-2013 13:43

To add to this, I believe the content (either that which is natively provided to SKY, or that they chose to rebroadcast via iSKY) appears to be interlaced. The F1 grandprix race was in fine quality, but I noticed the qualifying was horribly blurry/combed during action. If needs be I'll grab a screenshot at some time, but I believe that is to blame for the unwatchable nature of it.

garvani

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#787243 26-Mar-2013 14:15

Im glad this has been bought up! I had this same question in mind on the weekend, the quality has definitely taken a dive and for what reason! It was perfectly fine last year, what reason have they got to reduce the quality of the streams? They have added another couple of channels to isky recently (or i just didn't notice the others before), but its not like they have satellite bandwidth to account for so i can't understand why they have reduced the bitrate of the streams.
I primarily watch the NRL on isky as the other half refuses to allow it on primary tv, i am forced to watch it in the small window now as full screen looks atrocious.

Do we have any sky contacts here that can respond?

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garvani

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#789360 29-Mar-2013 19:34

Anyone else have any input on this? Ive been watching the bunnies bulldogs game and its dreadful

Heres a couple of quick screenshots to illustrate my point: (image linking fail, can't seem to get the full pictures showing but you get the point)

l43a2

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#789456 29-Mar-2013 23:21

a 20 yr old VHS tape looks better than that

Greaver

117 posts

Master Geek

#789459 29-Mar-2013 23:28

Really really low bitrate streaming - completely unacceptable

Automatic transcoding please - want that 4mb/s option

old3eyes

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#789525 30-Mar-2013 09:26

I find that iSky fine for documentaries and talking heads but for sport especially close up it's hopeless. Reminds me of old VCD downloads of a bout 13 years ago..

Regards,

Old3eyes

old3eyes

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#789593 30-Mar-2013 12:46

With nothing much to do I went trolling thru the menu system of iSky and found buried deep in the Help and About menu a channel called ESPN3 which had about 7 live US ESPN channels running. The quality on these was excellent. No blocking as NZ iSky does . The ice hockey looked way better than any SD coverage. Guess they are fed directly from the US.

Regards,

Old3eyes

Greaver

117 posts

Master Geek

#789726 30-Mar-2013 20:04

Recorded 10 minutes ago - unacceptable bitrate and framerate for nearly anything, let alone sports

30/10 snap VDSL and a 4.5ghz i7-3770k for anyone wondering about framerate etc for recording

Mods if this content is an issue please remove it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_O1ejgcqjE&feature=youtu.be

Jaxson

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#789760 30-Mar-2013 21:23

That 2nd capture above illustrates the interlacing/combing issue I was talking about earlier. Basically useless for sports.

ALTRON

577 posts

Ultimate Geek

#792561 3-Apr-2013 17:45

Agree with the above. its useless for sports. CRAP!

More bandwidth please.