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Anonymous User
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Bad Audio / Visuals on Game of Thrones

So I've bought NOW tv to watch GOT season 8. And I'm not impressed with the quality of the audio / Visuals whilst streaming from my MacBook Pro. 

The audio sounds really low def to me - no crisp hight end or deep bass, it's really noticeable when you compare it to good quality audio.

The picture quality is alright (ish) until you get a planning shot and the frame rate dips significantly, and all you can see is an irritating shudder. 

I understand that these things aren't a big issue to everyone. But it's a bit ridiculous how this is the only legitimate way for non Sky Subscribers / Non Now TV box holders to watch season 8, and they're feeding through a really bang average and frankly not good enough stream. What is going on NOW TV? I watched most of the last season round at my friend's house on his Sky Box and the quality was perfect, why can't we have the same stream? 

I have tried it on different browsers, different computers, reset my router and still the same results. And if you put a show on Netflix or Amazon the quality is great...

I've seen several other similar to complaints to this on here, and can't find an official answer from you. Can we have one, please?

13 REPLIES 13
Anonymous User
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It's unwatchable on my laptop (80 megabits per second, netflix streams 4k with 5.1 audio no problem). This is utter garbage, like youtube from 2005. Resorted to the iPad app and am downloading it before watching it. Astonished at how bad this is.

Anonymous User
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For anybody that sees this, give the microsoft store app a try, it has terrible reviews due to crashing etc but it worked fine for me so far and the sound quality (which was my issue) is far better.

Anonymous User
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I waited to avoid the rush and watched GoT at 11pm on a 55inch Samsung curved screen TV. Without any exaggeration the quality was disgusting. I am old enough to remember black and white TVs and having to move an aerial around to try and get a good picture. I have subscribed to NowTV before and watched GoT so have used the sevice before, yesterday was unacceptable quality. For every scene the pixels became so blurred I literally could not see anything, it was like a snow storm! Generally for the whole programme I’d say the quality was worse than that in the 80s on a fuzzy black and white TV. And before anyone says it, my broadband is one of the fastest speeds and unlimited. I don’t know how NowTV can charge anyone for this bad quality? I would expect some kind of compensation, a free month. I have now watched my favourite programme in the worst way, GoT is a religious experience and so every second of good high quality pixels counts, you basically only get one chance to watch a new episode to know the story line and it is not something you can stop if the reception is bad because you need to know what happens. Shame on you NowTV you should know better in how to stream no matter the number of people watching, incidentally I am also a web developer and know about content streaming, you basically set it so that any spike in traffic was dealt with by reducing the quality of the stream, which when you have millions of people watching means everyone watches a blur. Oh and not only that but the picture froze four times and I had the spinning wheel of death whilst I waited for it to start again!

Anonymous User
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I absolutely can't believe how terrible this is. I really think refunds are deserved here. The quality is absolutely terrible on my Macbook both visually and audio wise.

 

I can't believe I paid money for this.

Anonymous User
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think yourselves lucky, I can't even download the episode through the app because it fails. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I'm looking for solutions. I've tried installing NOW tv on my amazon firestick to no avail, I've signed in on my you view box, but again thats "only for cinema passes" and the app on my tablet fails every single time. I've tried un- installing and re-installing but that doesn't appear to help. Just fed up having spent that money to see GOT and there a shawdy app on the go


@Anonymous User wrote:

I absolutely can't believe how terrible this is. I really think refunds are deserved here. The quality is absolutely terrible on my Macbook both visually and audio wise.

 

I can't believe I paid money for this.


 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I found it shocking too on E1, been on holiday so will be watching E2 soon.   Ive got a highly quality Onkyo AV amplifier and a set of B&W speakers and i think if i was to plug in an old VCR with NICAM audio from something recorded off the telly the late 90's i would have better sound.

 

It sounded mono at times with a very narrow audio bandwith, something like 300Hz to 3kHz perhaps - telephone like really!   People do better live steaming how to cook a chicken over facebook.

 

As i satarted hearing what was being regurgitated by NowTV, I recalled the same issue last season and i think i cancelled and went back to torrent then too.   I cant be bothered with dodgy downloads so dont have an issue paying and seeing studios rightly rewarded, but i think ill just post them some cash as opposed to paying NowTV!

Anonymous User
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At least you can watch *something* on Mac. I've tried to install the Now TV app on my Macbook Pro and it just crashes all the time. Utter junk. This is 2019 and, believe me, a lot of people in the world use Macs. Going to get my money back even if it takes a legal claim.

Anonymous User
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It has affected everyone because the compression NowTV uses is very aggressive.  I get excellent quality from BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime etc. but I was devastated when watching GOT The BIG fight scene as I too only got NowTV so I could watch GOT. 

 

I am not sure why it has to be so aggressive (the compression), what do NowTV gain?

 

My one upside is that I got a 3 month pass from a Macdonalds voucher thing so unlike you guys I haven't paid for it.  But after the 3 months is over I shall NOT be subscribing if this is the quality they think they can get away with.

 

 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Just wanted to provide an update, made a complaint to customer support and they told me the issue was being looked into by a higher end technical team.

 

They had no answer as to when it will be fixed. As this has been an issue since 2017 I think it will be a while. If it is not fixed by Sunday I will be requesting a full refund