Maybe my broadband's playing up tonight*, but Now TV is less than impressive as this clip of tonight's Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic (via Now TV) demonstrates. I actually video-ed a couple of minutes, most of which featured the spinning wheel, but I think you get the idea from this clip.
As a live channel this is more dire than a Direwolf if you ask me...
[spoiler warning: if you haven't watch episode 2 of the fourth season yet, play with the audio off]
* According to Speedtest.net, I was getting around 30mb downloading on my laptop at the time over the wireless, which is well down on what I normally see.
10 comments:
I've had more instances of buffering in GOT
it's not you. sky have woefully inadequately provisioned their service on NowTV and it's not coping with increased demand.
a cynic would suggest it's a clever ploy to force people to get a 'proper' sky Sub to get GoT.
But in the real world, sky will find that people just resort to illegal sources if the legit ones are unstable!
I've watched Sky TV on both the Sky Go app on Xbox 360 and Nowtv on the xbox 360 and when watching Live TV e.g. Sky Sports it always buffers, but when watching On demand it never buffers. I wait until GOT is available on demand and steam it through Nowtv because of this and the picture quality is better
I agree with Robert, it works great in on-demand mode.
I also subscribed to the "entertainment pass" to watch GOT and Mad Men. I use my PS3, rather than the old Roku box Sky offer.
I haven't seen any buffering fortunately, but the picture and sound quality are extremely poor. 720p apparently, but the compression is so high as to make it very, very unimpressive. Sound is only 2 channel stereo as well. I believe Now TV runs at around 2-3mbits.
Compared to Netflix or Amazon (1080p with 5.1 surround), the gulf in quality is astounding. Both run at around 8-10mbits.
Also, while there aren't any ads in Now TV shows (that will soon change though), the VERY lengthy channel idents which interrupt the show regularly are highly irritating.
As a service, it stinks, so as soon as Mad Men and GOT are done, I'll cancel.
I tried it on a free,can't believe people will pay for it awful pq compared to Netflix very embarrassing for sky
I use my Now box on a 32" 720p TV and the quality is excellent. Perhaps those who are having issues the cause is a poor match to the TV, not the source itself.
I use Now TV for the movies, occasionally activating the entertainment, and watching it through my PS3 and find the picture quality ok, if not outstanding.
As others have said I do find that it buffers frequently when watching the live channel but is much, much better when viewing on-demand.
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