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Anonymous User
Not applicable

Sky Sports stranger pattern in the background.

Hi. I’ve recently subscribed to Sky Sports on NowTV and today I’ve noticed some strange moro pattern in the background. Some times the pattern is overlying the ads on the edges. What is it? 



21 REPLIES 21
schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @Anonymous User 

 

Noticed the weird camouflage artefacts when watching an EFL Championship Football highlight game this weekend, where you could just make it out on the grass pitch in the background.

 

Also noticed it on a Sky Sports live advert break where there was a lot of black background on the television screen when using my Roku Stick + with my Boost Membership.

 

I also noticed it on the NOW App on my Amazon 4K Fire Stick when changing the live Sky Sports channels where my screen goes temporary black when jumping between channels, where the camouflage artefacts looks most noticeable and obviously to see.

 

i doubt very much NOW suggestions will make no difference when it comes to seeing this picture artefacts.

 

 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Reinstalling the app, updating the firmware of your device are a very “turn it off and on again approach” lots of support engineers use this delay technique for these type of issues to clear their call sheets (as that’s how they are measured) it’s counter intuitive as it doesn’t actually resolve the issue in a majority of occasions.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

This seems to only appear on some live sporting events. I believe it’s a “feature” that allows Sky to take the fingerprint of anyone syndicating or re-streaming the content and shutting down their account. It’s kind of clever, but poorly executed and spoils the playback of premium content for the majority of viewers who are not doing anything dodgy. NowTV has always been underfunded by Sky and this is another example (like the less than helpful epg and search functionality) that don’t get the attention needed to be great. I guess this is because ultimately Sky want you to upgrade to Q or glass that gets more funding. Anyway, I doubt they will change this feature anytime soon, but it really does need improving. 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I'm seeing this camouflage pattern (compression artefact?) when watching F1 and football on Apple TV 4K (with the new app + boost) . It really is annoying. It's at its worst when the picture is dark so you notice it most in the adverts and motion graphics used on the broadcast.

 

Has anyone had a response from Now/Sky?

schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Also the camouflage picture artefacts was pretty bad watching the T20 cricket over the last week or so on both Sky Sports Main Event & Sky Sports Cricket channel 😠.

gavs82008
Legend 5
Legend 5

@schnapps 

Whilst I don’t have an active sports membership I have always wondered why is it just the sports channels it does this with? 
Take it doesn’t do it with the live entertainment and cinema channels? 

FYI that I do not work for NOW, just a NOW customer trying to help
schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @gavs82008 

 

Nope just NOW Sports for me (NOW Cinema and NOW Entertainment picture is perfectly acceptable on my Boost Membership on both Ethernet or WiFi).

gavs82008
Legend 5
Legend 5

@schnapps 

Very odd! 
Shame that the trio aren’t bundled in as one single membership otherwise I’d be happy to test it on my Sony Bravia Android TV. 

FYI that I do not work for NOW, just a NOW customer trying to help
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I've the same issue on my apple TV box when watching sky sports membership. Going actually cancel the service and go back to a TV box direct service as it really takes from viewing 

 

carlos321
Mentor

I’ve suffered from this too on the Apple TV 4K. 

As a now TV subscriber in Ireland (where they offer BT and Premier sports in a sports extra pack) I’ve noticed its only on the Sky sports channels and not the sports extra (BT/Premier) one’s that suffer from it which leads me to believe that Sky think they are being clever with some sort of digital watermark on their own content. Note its not really clever if they can’t implement it properly 🙂

 

Where I think the problem happens is the way Sky scale this watermark. If you set the Apple TV output to SD 1080P then the issue pretty much goes away. Change Apple TV settings to 4K SD without relaunching the nowtv app and when you switch back you will see that the picture is now 1/4 of the screen. So killing the app and relaunching fixes the issue but causes the sky ‘watermark’ in the background the be scaled up by 4 making it much more noticeable when the Apple TV is on the 4k setting. Poor software implementation as usual by Sky. 

 

For now I’ve set it to SD 1080P but its a pain to keep switching settings on the Apple TV box for Apple/Netflix/Amazon content where they know how to do 4k 🙂