Sky Sports back to 25fps

[Anonymous User]

Hi. According to now tv site, there is some technical problem and for now all sports channel are streaming at 25 fps, even if you have the boost pass. The picture quality is bad and the football games are barely watchable at 25 fps.

How long will it take them to fix? Paying for the boost and having that low picture quality is a joke..

"We’re aware that some NOW TV Boost customers with a Sky Sports Pass are experiencing issues with streaming quality on YouView boxes. To make sure all customers can continue to enjoy the latest sporting action, we’ve reduced the streaming rate from 50 to 25 frames per second on all Sky Sports channels for now. We’re sorry about this issue, and we’re working hard to get it fixed as soon as we can. You can continue to enjoy other NOW TV Boost features on your YouView box, including full HD, surround sound and streaming on 3 devices at the same time."

[schnapps]

Hi @Anonymous User 

Firstly i am a customer like yourself self and am bitterly disappointed about the Youview NowTV App being reduced to 25fps when watching Sports on a Boost Pass (lets hope temporary and NowTV sorts it out).

The Youview Boxes with a Boost Pass was originally running at 50fps for Sports when using the NowTV App on the Youview boxes.

I have a Youview Box with a Boost Pass and 50 fps was playing up to about two weeks ago, where NowTV had to temporary reduce it because of on going sound drop outs and buffering when watching Sports on the Youview NowTV App in conjunction with a Boost Pass.

I am not a BT TV customer, but if you are a BT TV customer and subscribe to the NowTV bolt on packages via BT then have you tried watching live Sports through the main BT EPG television guide instead of the NowTV App where the picture quality and frame rate might not be effected (if you are not a BT TV customer then you are stuck with the NowTV App like me).

All i can suggest is submit a complaint into NowTV.

[Anonymous User]

Is it worth paying for the HD boost whilst they have the reduced frame rate issue.

If I cancel it and save the £3pcm boost will I notice the difference?

[schnapps]

Hi @Anonymous User 

Only you can decide that, let your eyes be the judge.

If you only watch sports and not interested in movies or entertainment at 1080p with 5.1 surround sound or the extra additional stream is not important to you.

Then i would say definitely yes cancel the Boost pass until NowTV have resolved the reduced 25fps frame rate (where i am guessing your only supported 50fps device is a Youview Box ?).

My opinion 25fps looks horrendous for Sports and is a night and day difference when you can watch at 50fps.

Where with the bump up from 720p to 1080p in PQ to my eyes it is only marginal and not a Night & Day Difference unless you are watching on a larger 55inch plus TV or Projector screen.

Been watching the International Rugby on Amazon Prime during the weekend and Amazon are streaming it in 25fps and it looked shocking 😠.

When Amazon Prime had Premiership Football for the First Time, quite a few of the games being streamed was available in 4K UHD at 50fps and the picture looked sublime.

Anyway hopefully once NowTV finally resolves the 25fps playback on the Youview box for sports you can also reactivate your NowTV Boost Pass if you do decide to cancel it.

I have a Youview box, but luckily i have other supported devices that plays 50fps sports on a Boost Pass.

I still keep hassling NowTV from time to time about the other 5 Sky Sports channels that are still fixed at 25fps and had a moan or two about Bonus Streams and VOD sports also stuck at 25fps.

[schnapps]

I think i have found out why i was only getting 25fps on Amazon Prime whilst watching the Rugby over the weekend.

Was using the Amazon Prime App on my new 4K Android Philips TV and for some unknown reason it was only streaming 25fps over Ethernet (even though i have watched 4K HDR movies which look great on Prime on the television inbuilt App).

Just tried my Youview box this morning and compared the live tennis with the Amazon Prime App on the Philips TV and the Youview Prime App was playing 50fps with a fantastic picture.

Where the Prime App on the Android Philips TV was playing back at the horrendous 25fps frame rate and the picture looked horrible.

When the next round of Rugby is available on Prime this weekend i will be definitely watching on the Prime App on my Youview box and hopefully it will be 50fps like my short test with the Amazon Prime tennis which i don't normally watch (not being a tennis fan). 

[Anonymous User]

Still got the issue i'm afraid. That's at least 3 months now maybe longer this issue has being going on? It's ridiculous! They haven't resolved it yet! 

[schnapps]

@Anonymous User  @Anonymous User  @Anonymous User 

Just switched on my Youview box and had a quick look at Sky Sports Football & Sky Sports Cricket and it looks like 50fps is back with a Boost Pass.

Anybody else noticed this on their Youview box NowTV App ?

Hopefully it will remain that way from now on.

[Anonymous User]

Looks like it, have a look at the non 1080/50 channels too, they seem to be very good too.

[schnapps]

NowTV removed the red service banner about an hour or so ago.

Also over on the Youview Community Forum, there is an official reply stating that 50fps has been added back to the NowTV service via the NowTV App with Boost when watching sports.

[Anonymous User]

@schnapps 

Glad this has finally been sorted for you it has certainly took them long enough to get it resolved. Hopefully now they can focus on getting 50FPS to all the Sports Channels and On Demand content.

[Anonymous User]

That message is showing right now - 4:45pm on Sunday 20th September - apparently updated 2 hours ago:

NOW TV Boost – reduced frame rate for Sky Sports channels on YouView

Updated 2 hours ago. We’re aware that some NOW TV Boost customers with a Sky Sports Pass are experiencing issues... blahblahblah.

However this is misleading: I have never had Boost, just NowTV as it comes, and the streaming problems have been ongoing for months. And are still ongoing. Perhaps there one or two less total freezes - maybe two or three over a two-hour period - but audio frequently still drops out completely for anything from a few seconds to a few minutes. Even golf can be unwatchable, never mind a sport such as football. This is totally unacceptable given the cost of Now TV passes, and once again I must mention that NONE of these issues occur with any other app on my YouView box. I can watch back-to-back movies on Netflix or binge-watch entire seasons on iPlayer; without so much as a a stutter in the stream, but the NowTV app is atrocious, as is the lack of a resolution from Sky. Just. Not. Good. Enough.