April 13, 2015

Game of Thrones season five - updated

Is it season five already? Bloody hell. And still no sign of Sky Atlantic being made available to us poor Virgin Media customers.
At least there are a few more options now for us. Aside from the illegal downloading route, episodes should appear to buy on iTunes and Amazon soon after broadcast (although neither has added the season opener for sale yet in the US - I'm not sure how long it will take to appear).
Me? I'm giving Sky's Now TV another go, signing up for GoT and the last season of Mad Men. Will I fare better than last year's futile efforts to watch it live, or even the following night via catch up? Hopefully Sky has sorted out the ridiculous back end issues it had last year for GoT and other popular programmes. Game of Thrones on Now TV proved unwatchable with season four - will five be any better? I will let you know how I get on.

UPDATE:
Pleased to say I had no issues with the Now TV box this evening during Game of Thrones. Picture quality was SD but no buffering at all to report. Even better, it was available through Now TV Catch Up after ten minutes' broadcast, too, which meant I could switch over to the 720p version at the first ad break - and also miss all the other ad breaks! Result.

Sadly, not all were so lucky; Now TV community forums ablaze with complaints  http://community.nowtv.com/t5/Entertainment/Will-there-be-capacity-Problems-for-Game-of-Thrones-this-evening/td-p/293679

I advise everyone to use just the Catch Up service on Now TV. Not only do you get no full ads (just a smattering of promo reels) and 720p picture, but you also can watch GoT from episode 2 of season 5 at any time next Monday after it's first broadcast as a US simulcast at 2am - you don't have to wait for the 9am showing. That should reduce the demand at 9pm considerably.

2 comments:

DaBozUK said...

I may try (3rd time lucky?!) Now TV again to catchup on season 4 and then watch 5, however I discovered the catchup seasons are due to be dropped from Now TV in a couple of weeks, and the season 5 episodes don't hang around for long either. I just don't understand why all involved can't just give us a premium Netflix type experience. I'd happily pay £15 plus per month to get all the Entertainment Now TV package if they made full seasons available for long periods like Netflix.

sibod said...

DaBozUK
But that wouldn't encourage you to take out a much more expensive, and unnecessary Sky HD+ subscription for a year!