Hey

I have a free trail of now tv and i am using my chromecast to stream the on demand content has anyone else noticed that the picture quality is shockingly compared to other streaming services, are they even in HD?

Thanks

My picture quality is ok for me. But hey its not a bad service compered to the ripoff $ky.

But owned by Sky LOL.

As for picture quality it is fine on my ROKU1 and pc, however if i use chromecast it does judder.

Most people do complain about chromecast about the picture juddering but I don't notice the difference. If you don't like chromecast get yourself a fire tv stick of the amonzon stick. The quality you looking for should improve, just remember to install the now tv app again.

This is the quality you should get http://help.nowtv.com/article/Streaming-Quality

In my experience of Now TV on the Apple TV (which is the only device where you are supposed to get live Now TV at 720p), in reality even that is somewhere between SD and HD.

For the Entertainment and Movies channels, generally speaking yes. Although Now TV sports is available in 720p HD over a few platforms these days.

I'm ok with that, as most of the live stuff I watch is sports, where high quality is important due to the fast moving action, and when I watch TV or movies, it tends to be from on-demand or catch-up which is also in 720p.

It's a bit odd that only Apple TV supports full 720 on all streams maybe it's something to do with there deal with being on apple tv

This is possible, but it could be that they were testing it at 720p on the Apple TV (I believe Now TV started 720p streams first on the Apple TV), and then just decided not enough people watched live movies and TV from the Now TV service to justify it.

After-all, think about it. Sport is something we want (need) to watch live. It is also something that really benefits from an HD stream. Now TV started streaming 720p sports only on the Apple TV (at launch on that platform), but added 720p to most platforms for sports because there was a clear demand for it.

But why watch a movie live on Now TV when you can just start it when you want from their on-demand library? I can't see one single reason.

So perhaps so few people use their live movie channels that they just don't see the need to invest in the infrastructure right now.

I can see more reasons to watch the Entertainment channels live, although I never do myself, but perhaps again, there is not enough demand to up this to 720p everywhere else.

Now TV are not the only ones here doing this. The BBC iPlayer streams live and on-demand, and the on-demand streams are now reaching 1080p (5800kbps) on the AFTV box (not stick) where it seems they are testing it (but only 720p on most other platforms), but their live streams are still only SD (averaging 1500kbps).

If you tend to watch live movies on Now TV instead of catch-up, I'm honestly interested to hear why.

Sky has done well with its Now TV branding. I think a lot of people think it's an independent third party company which has access to Sky's services. It's a clever way of attracting people who have negative perceptions about your brand.

I'm quite happy with now tv. The only thing is

1) the lack of 5.1 - especially on movies is pretty bad

2) despite being reasonable I think in 2015, nearly 2016 there is no 1080p streaming. But then again sky only broadcast 2
1080i. I really do think sky should be upping their game on both platforms. And sky should have 4K by now.

For what they charge and how much they spend on sports content they should be leaders in streaming quality.

Looks good on a 32".

Not as good on a 42" but still good value for money.

On buy a NowTV box. Pretty much works out free for the box cos they are bundled with 3 month entrainment passes.

Pic quality is fine on my 40inch samsung tv via roku1, ps3 or pc.
Chromecast however is hit and miss.

Surprised they aren't offering 1080p as a baseline (downgradable if connection not fast enough) now other services are pushing UHD content, including BT Sport who are their main sport competitor now.

Not sure I'd want to attempt watching live sport or 'must see' live TV episodes (only Walking Dead and Game of Thrones on NowTV qualifies for me, the rest I watch on catch-up) on 4k even with fibre as it's a bandwidth hog unless they reduce the quality by reducing bitrates.

I think they stick at 720p or SD to ensure live demand doesn't saturate their infrastructure. It's a lot harder to provide live services at top quality levels when the demand can be unpredictable, just wish their approach started at 4k and downgraded all the way back to SD if the connection speed or saturation required it, as top priority is avoiding the buffering rather than incremental improvements in picture quality that personally I stop noticing as much if it's not too poor and the content is engrossing enough.

I didn't think NowTV was available on the Amazon FireTV platform...?

The fire stick (not sure about the fire tv box) is android based so maybe there's a nowtv app for android.

It gets confusing when there's so many different streaming services and bits of kit to access them.

FireTV Stick and FireTV Box both use the same walled in version of Android from Amazon. There's no NowTV app on either, at the moment. Similarly, there's no Amazon Prime Video app on the NowTV box.

Roku is the only device over here, without getting a cheap Android box of tricks or gaming console, that has the holy trinity of Netflix, NowTV and Amazon Video, AFAIK, since it was announced last week that it's finally getting Amazon.

Yeap, the only one, which gives it a distinctive advantage. Only notable apps missing from Roku are UKTVPlay and TV Player.

As long as someone doesn't need those above apps, and doesn't use Smart DNS, then the Roku is an excellent choice in the UK.