Is Sky HD worth paying for ?

[thatjagbloke]

As per the title. I'm fed up with paying a lot per month on top of the normal subscription ( £10 I think ) for HD when I really can't see much difference between it and normal channels.
I have a 55" 4k TV and the picture quality is excellent anyway so am thinking of contacting Sky to cancel the HD element.
I also have Amazon Prime and must admit I can see an improvement in picture quality with their Ultra High Def. stream.
Anyone else pay extra for HD and can't see much difference ?

[SS2.]

For me, the difference between SD & HD is massive - so much so that I rarely watch non-HD channels these days.

Whilst offering a further improvement, the uplift in quality between HD & UHD is far less apparent than between SD & HD..

[Sky Q, 4k upscaling AV amp, 55" UHD OLED & 46" LCD.]

[TTmonkey]

thatjagbloke said:

As per the title. I'm fed up with paying a lot per month on top of the normal subscription ( £10 I think ) for HD when I really can't see much difference between it and normal channels.
I have a 55" 4k TV and the picture quality is excellent anyway so am thinking of contacting Sky to cancel the HD element.
I also have Amazon Prime and must admit I can see an improvement in picture quality with their Ultra High Def. stream.
Anyone else pay extra for HD and can't see much difference ?

theres a huge difference. What kind or programs you are watching make the difference though. Watch sport on SD and it looks like something from the 1980's on a old CRT. F1, Football, golf, vastly enhanced picture. Also, full dolby surround sound too.

Watch a nature programme, or something showing the glory of the planet, its brilliant.

Watch a soap, meh, who cares.

Perhaps your set up is wrong. Sitting too far from the tele? need to go get your eye sight checked?

Oh, you using the old Sky boxes or Sky Q? If using Sky Q, there's no separate charge for HD. You pay for Sky Sports, its going to be HD. Perhaps time to upgrade? Sky Q is now functioning very well, no complaints.

[*Badger*]

SS2. said:

For me, the difference between SD & HD is massive - so much so that I rarely watch non-HD channels these days.

Whilst offering a further improvement, the uplift in quality between HD & UHD is far less apparent than between SD & HD..

[Sky Q, 4k upscaling AV amp, 55" UHD OLED & 46" LCD.]

Completely agree, HD or UHD (Sport) is my preferred way of watching now. +1 in SD makes me sad.

[Sky Q, 55" UHD OLED.]

[hairyben]

If the 4k looks alright, Could it be OPs telly does a shonky job at displaying non-native resolutions? This was one of the main things that drove me to the plasma.

[SaulGoodman]

There's a massive difference. How much are you paying? Worth speaking to them if you are out of contract - I have all the channels in HD for £48, which I think is pretty good.

[eybic]

I agree with pretty much everyone, there's a massive difference between SD & HD. BBC for example flick between 101 & 115, if you don't see a difference then there's something up with your TV/ settings.

[JulianHJ]

Stick with HD, but if you phone up and ask to cancel you may find you’re offered a significantly discounted rate for a year or so.

[Oakey]

Sky still charge extra for HD?!

[tenohfive]

If you can't see the difference between HD and SD it makes me wonder if there's a fault somewhere and you're not getting HD. Or you're sitting miles from the TV and can't appreciate it perhaps?

Just for normal stuff I can see the difference - during documentary interviews in HD I can pick out who has dandruff problems, you can see the pores on peoples skin etc (and this is all stuff I didn't notice before when watched at DVD quality.) The processor in my TV is apparently very good for making the best of a bad source when SD content is shown according to the reviews, but there is no way you'd mistake it for HD. Much less 4K.

But then I do sit close to my TV and can verify the content is HD or 4K very easily.

[thatjagbloke]

The concensus of opinion seems to be that HD is worth the extra ! I don't have SkyQ only the older type box. I did look into Q but it seemed very expensive and I don't need multi - room. Will fiddle with the TV settings later on to see if that makes a difference.
The only sport I watch is athletics, mostly on Eurosport and usually record series from Sky Atlantic for example so we can binge watch them and zap through the adverts.
We have been with Sky for about 16 years so I will phone them to see if I can get a better deal.

[TTmonkey]

thatjagbloke said:

The concensus of opinion seems to be that HD is worth the extra ! I don't have SkyQ only the older type box. I did look into Q but it seemed very expensive and I don't need multi - room. Will fiddle with the TV settings later on to see if that makes a difference.
The only sport I watch is athletics, mostly on Eurosport and usually record series from Sky Atlantic for example so we can binge watch them and zap through the adverts.
We have been with Sky for about 16 years so I will phone them to see if I can get a better deal.

older box sets may not have been filmed in HD of course....

[Steve Evil]

Are you definitely watching the HD channel and not SD? There's an option to show the HD programmes in a yellow highlight on the Sky Guide, back when we had Sky I'd make sure this was selected and you could see that even on the HD versions of the channels that there'd be the odd SD programme in there. For me it was a huge difference and I'd know if the Wife was watching the SD version of the channel as soon as I walked in.

[PapaJohns]

SS2. said:

For me, the difference between SD & HD is massive - so much so that I rarely watch non-HD channels these days.

Whilst offering a further improvement, the uplift in quality between HD & UHD is far less apparent than between SD & HD..

[Sky Q, 4k upscaling AV amp, 55" UHD OLED & 46" LCD.]

I agree with the HD comments .

Regards to the UHD at a viewing distance of 10foot you’d need a screen 90+ inches to see the extra detail of UHD/4K ,same for HD aswell 10foot is a 60+inch screen

Edited by PapaJohns on Friday 31st August 13:09

[TTmonkey]

upgraded to 65 recently and the difference is remarkable, think I was just a bit too far away for a 55.

however, getting a new glasses prescription was the biggest upgrade!!!

[soupdragon1]

PapaJohns said:

I agree with the HD comments .

Regards to the UHD at a viewing distance of 10foot you’d need a screen 90+ inches to see the extra detail of UHD/4K ,same for HD aswell 10foot is a 60+inch screen

Edited by PapaJohns on Friday 31st August 13:09

Did you get that info off one of those viewing distance charts?

Those are, at best, misguided, at worst, useless.

They assume 20/20 vision for a start, and 20/20 vision is actually quite poor eyesight. As an example, when I was last at the optician, my standard vision was at least twice as good as 20/20 vision. Some people will get correction glasses even though they have 20/20 vision - as you can still make your vision even better with some correction, even if you don't really have an 'issue' as such.

With that in mind, and depending on your own individual vision, these charts are out by somewhere between 0 and 100%

Then we have the organic matter that is the human eye. How we perceive contrast. That can be a big variable between individuals. If you have lots of lines of white and black - some peoples eyes will turn that to grey unless they are very close. Some people, will be able to see white and black from quite a distance. How our eyes work is very very complex, and can't simply be plotted on an x-axis y-axis like these graphs try to do.

[Truckosaurus]

You also get some box set and on-demand channels for your extra tenner a month.

I don't bother due to having a small tv so don't really notice the extra quality unless you stand an inch from the screen.

[nmd87]

I don't bother either. Even though we have the Sky original package, I end up watching most series from other sources rather than on Sky, so I can avoid the adverts.

I think Sky's idea of HD is 1080i, whereas Netflix, Amazon etc. do show in "full" HD so the difference is more pronounced - at least on my tiny 40'' TV anyway.

[hornmeister]

I'm sure Sjy HD isn't as good as it used to be, I think it is only 1080i not 1080p so it isn't proper HD anyway. I've got a feeling that they're using higher compression levels compared to a few years ago and hence lowering the quality, so they can fit more channels into their restricted bandwidth but I could be wrong.

Also some 4K TVs don't take a 1080i signal very well (if yours is 4K) Mine didn't. I upgrade my amplifier to one with 4K upscaling built in and fed the same SKY 1080i HD through it to the telly at 4k and it was much better.


Is HD worth paying for? Depends on your telly, eyesight and budget. Personally I'm considering a Sky Q upgrade.

[coffeebreath]

Weird question. SD looks shockingly awful on a decent 4k screen. What is the point having a 4k screen if you don't also buy HD packages for all your subscriptions?

Also, watching the world cup games in 4k was a real eye-opener. Standard definition needs to be phased out asap.