This topic

Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 11:50:42 GMT

Just wondering if anyone lately has Sky Sports UHD on NOWTV (or Sky for that matter) and is able to provide some opinions on this. Whilst there have been a few different provoking discussions on the quality of TNT Sports Ultimate since it was migrated there from BT, I never had SS UHD and BT Sport UHD at the same time to contribute. I neither am able to reliably say that the change to TNT has had any positive of negative effect on the image quality.

Ive never had Sky since UHD was a thing, I had Virgin Cable TV for years where it was possible to watch BT Sport Ultimate which looked good, better than the NOW TV App Sky Sports HD I had at the same time. So there was a clear upgrade noticeable between the two.

With the advent of Sky Sports UHD coming to NOWTV I am now beginning to see what alot of folks are complaining about and where I have been defensive of TNT Sports Ultimate in the past I may have to climb down a little.

I watch a ton of Premier League Football, probably all of it that is broadcast so I can now safely say that Sky Sports UHD HDR (via NOW App on Apple TV 4k Gen 3) is notably crisper then TNT Sports Ultimate HDR (via EETV EPG or Discovery Plus).

I have a 65" LG C3 with zero image processing switched on, I watch everything in GAME mode which turns everything off, everything goes into my AVR so only one hookup to the TV to one HDMI. Point is no two devices are having different image settings.

TNT Sports Ultimate HDR looks more blurry which becomes obvious when you get a little closer to the TV, around the players is noticeably less crisp then Sky Sports UHD. One evening, as I have said before, Porto vs Arsenal was broadcast on TNT Sports Ultimate HDR and the image was outstanding, it was better than normal and noticeably so, even getting close to the TV, this is more like what Sky Sports UHD looks like all the time.

TNT Sports Ultimate is still a nice viewing experience and far better than normal HD, especially on big TV's like my own, but I am of the opinion it could be better.

Anyone else noticed the comparison?

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Brucemeister5 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 11:48:48 GMT

@naylor2006 Is that a typo in your 4th paragraph? I think you probably meant to say can but it’s come out as cant.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 11:51:11 GMT

Thank you 😛

Corrected now.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Brucemeister5 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 11:56:37 GMT

I’m not in a position to offer an opinion, but what a pity that United’s game at Porto on Thursday isn’t going to get the TNT Sports Ultimate treatment. If that Arsenal game is close to what we’re going to get when we finally get Sky Sports UHD on EETV, then it will be worth the wait.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 11:56:53 GMT

I have a 65" Samsung S90C & watch both on the TV's own apps. I sit around 10' away so a little beyond the ideal for 4k, but don't notice any significant difference between the two, or indeed Prime's coverage last night.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 12:04:24 GMT

@Anonymous says:
I have a 65" Samsung S90C & watch both on the TV's own apps. I sit around 10' away so a little beyond the ideal for 4k, but don't notice any significant difference between the two, or indeed Prime's coverage last night.

I found the coverage of Arsenals game last night on Prime matched what I see on TNT Sports Ultimate. I dont sit much further then 10 feet away, that being not as 'nice' as Sky.

@Brucemeister5 says:
I’m not in a position to offer an opinion, but what a pity that United’s game at Porto on Thursday isn’t going to get the TNT Sports Ultimate treatment. If that Arsenal game is close to what we’re going to get when we finally get Sky Sports UHD on EETV, then it will be worth the wait.

Sometimes the only thing that is good about United games is the picture quality....

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Its quite hard to do like for like, some camera angles are further away, the Old Trafford one is miles away but Selhurst Park is closer for example, this will also have its effect, with that said Im seeing Sky Sports UHD is crisper generally. I might try and take some stills this weekend and probably end up proving myself wrong.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Colesy7 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 12:47:05 GMT

@naylor2006 Perhaps I’m not so much of an idiot anymore and my earlier posts not laughable?😅

anyone with eyes can see TNT sports ultimate is blurry and for £30 month it simply isn’t good enough. It’s quite clearly upscaled 1080p/1440p and simply the worst ‘4K’ broadcast I’ve ever seen. Whoever is responsible for this channel needs to sort this out because they have changed something for the worse. When Ultra boost comes in the TNT UHD channel is going to be shown up big time by Sky Sports UHD. Perhaps this is what they’re stalling over as they know they have a much inferior product.

can’t wait for so called experts to still defend it lol…

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 13:59:31 GMT

@Colesy7 I think the sometimes the issue was how you communicated, too many bold claims borderline accusational, similar to how you have replied here:

Perhaps this is what they’re stalling over as they know they have a much inferior product.

They arent stalling and if it shows up TNT Sport then so be it

You also came in with its 1080p at best if I remember correctly, sometimes if you want to get people on side we have to approach the conversation the right way. IIRC your post was also drawing comparisons between how it used to look in BT Sport, which was also another comparison I wasnt able to make. It is only now that I am seeing Sky Sports UHD that I can see that Sky Sports is better, which doesnt prove that BT/TNT Sports got worse which is what alot of historic posts are about.

Where we agree, the TNT Sports Ultimate picture could and should be better but I dont think theres a conspiracy and alot of it is up to parent broadcaster isnt it...

We'll see, I am waiting for SS UHD to come to EETV and ill have a good look.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Colesy7 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 14:54:27 GMT

@naylor2006 sorry but this is where I’ll disagree. I was just stating my opinions on the matter and it was never my intention to upset anybody so apologies. I’m hoping your post gets somewhere and isn’t just brushed under the carpet as there has been a downgrade in quality (I know this as I was a BT Sport Ultimate customer.)

the 1080p comment was just my way of trying to describe the issue, I would still say the difference between the two channels is like going from 1080p to 4K. TNT is significantly less detailed.

It is only now that I am seeing Sky Sports UHD that I can see that Sky Sports is better, which doesnt prove that BT/TNT Sports got worse

Correct, but TNT is significantly inferior to BT Sport Ultimate so something has definitely been changed in terms of production- this has been recognised by multiple users.

Where we agree, the TNT Sports Ultimate picture could and should be better but I dont think theres a conspiracy and alot of it is up to parent broadcaster isnt it...

if sky sports are able to broadcast in such clarity why aren’t TNT?

im looking forward to SS UHD as I have missed watching football in that clarity (even if I am a United fan)

—————————————————————

IN SUMMARY: BT Sport ultimate used to be as good as Sky Sports UHD is now but theres now a noticeable gap between the two which can only point to changes for the worse on TNT’s part.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 15:36:04 GMT

Oh I didnt mean you had to apologise because anyone was upset, I wasnt upset, but I maintain your approach was a bit off in at least the threads and also in the reply to me:

Perhaps this is what they’re stalling over as they know they have a much inferior product.

This type of thing gets peoples back up, its suggesting that the people working on EETV are deliberately part of a conspiracy, its not going to make someone from EETV (if they ever would anyway) want to post. You can disagree with me, if anything you sound like a younger me....

Moving on...im not upset.

I dont know if you caught any of the BBC HDR Coverage of the EUROs...where you could add HLG to the normal BBC feed via iPlayer, that was 1080p with HDR, that looked a ton better than ITV and BBC's normal feed, even looked crisper but it was still someway from what TNT Sports Ultimate HDR is now. TNT SU HDR isnt blurry due to refresh rate, its the still image that is blurry around the edges which is easily spotted on players given how small they are against the giant background, the ball also. Sitting back on my sofa its still a good experience, but now that I have SS UHD which is crisp around the edges I have started to look a bit more closely. Problem is TNT Sports HD looks so bad that Ultimate looks so much better, I do think its mostly worse on the bigger TV's for obvious reasons. United being on TNT Sports 2 will be a sad watch although hopefully ETH will get sacked, this is one of my gripes about TNT, there should be 2 Ultimate channels at least and we should be seeing Ultimate even when the Prem team is away. It seems sometimes there is no Ultimate broadcast when the Prem team is away.

I wanted the extra UHD content that I signed up for Now with another email address, whilst I still have Big Sport with EE TV I now have a separate account with Now for SS UHD, and its not disappointed. I am looking forward to it coming to EE TV to save me the money I am spending extra now, but its taking its time, hasnt even been an announcement yet.

Nothings going to come of my post, I just wanted to see if others had noticed it given there is more uptake on SS UHD now via Sky, I dont know what TNT are doing generally, even the CL final was not shown in UHD, some 1080p with HDR I think, for me that isnt right, also the point about how the Ultimate channel would just be there cycling the preview video even when there are other fixtures broadcast on the other channels, there should always be one, neither semi final of the CL was shown.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Colesy7 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 16:35:49 GMT

I’m glad we can agree on the TNT UHD picture. As you mention the players are blurry and that just isn’t something you should have with a 4K broadcast as the whole point of 4K is that it’s crystal clear! In comparison Sky sports is noticeably sharper which is what I can’t wrap my head around. BT Ultimate looked exactly the same as Sky UHD and obvs now we have TNT and it isn’t as good so something has to have changed- I’m adamant on this as I’ve mentioned I had BT Sport Ultimate.

TBH United could be on in 8k and I wouldn’t watch them😂

and completely agree there should be more content on Ultimate. It should deffo be a 24/7 channel if it is to rival Sky.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:15:13 GMT

Just done a brief comparison & from a foot away, the only discernible difference to me is the score graphic is marginally sharper on Now.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Colesy7 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:22:46 GMT

It’s worth noting that Sky Sports Main Event UHD is a 24/7 channel so everything on main event is also on the uhd version of the channel even if the source isn’t 4K. ie. not all games are shown in 4K despite being on the UHD channel.
you need to compare a premier league game between the two to the see the big difference. if you do this and can’t see a difference I’d suggest an eye test lol.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:30:33 GMT

Yeah it’s worth comparing a 1230 TNT Sports Ultimate kick off with a 1730 Sky,

Admittedly I’ve not looked at the City game on Main Event as I’m glued to this Villa game.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Colesy7 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:59:19 GMT

Same, Villa doing well. Not sure how Upamecano wasn’t sent off…

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

naylor2006 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 20:02:06 GMT

On the first one it looked like Watkins clipped his own heel prior to the tangle of legs between the two players.

Regardless the ref bottled that I think and VAR is taking a back seat at the moment.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Berrern — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 14:01:36 GMT

Hi,

I realise I'm late to the party, but when I googled Sky vs TNT 4K Quality this thread popped up.

Let's get the specs out of the way first:

I've got a 77" LG C3 OLED 4K telly and I'm watching football via HDMI from my Sky Q box, hooked up to a dish outside my house in Ireland. As such I have zero experience with NOW or EE. I've subscribed to Sky Sports with the TNT add-on as well as the Ultra HD package for a few years now - since it was still called BT.

Back then I can't recall seeing any considerable difference (if any!) between Sky and BT in 4K. Mind you, I had just bought my first 4K TV back then, and was blown away no matter what I watched! 😅

But lately it's very clear that there's a MASSIVE difference watching Premier League on TNT Ultimate and Sky Sports UHD! It's night and day! I'm not sure when this discrepancy started...

I thought maybe it's cause I'm a Sky subscriber, and only have TNT as an additional package (still paying through my nose for it, mind you!), that perhaps TNT is throttling their broadcasts for non-TNT customers... But maybe there's more to it?

Anyway, just wanted to confirm that I agree with you, it's ridiculous and they need to sort it out.

For reference I sit 7' 6" away from my TV set, which is fairly close for a 77" screen, I can't sit further away (there's a wall behind me!) so can't comment on how obvious it is on greater viewing distances.

Cheers,

Andy

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Berrern — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 14:06:59 GMT

One more thing to add, it's not just the resolution/sharpness that's different, it's also the HDR! When the camera zooms in on players, the contrast and colour on Sky is almost burning my retina (in a good way!!) compared to the fairly dull experience on TNT Ultimate.

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Colesy7 — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 14:46:38 GMT

@Berrern its ever since TNT took over the coverage, they’ve totally ruined it. They need to start advertising the ultimate channel as 1440p or TNT Sports QHD because there’s no way it’s 4K.
Sky Sports UHD is what BT Sport Ultimate used to look like. I remember one of the devs, who’s left BT/EE now said that they’ve done nothing to the coverage and it’s the same, which was a total pack of lies.

even the score graphics look 1080p at best, they used to be 4K!

Re: Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

Berrern — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 14:26:29 GMT

1080p, you're being too kind, I'd say 720p at best! It's unreal... Spend a fortune on a TV and a subscription, and end up watching broadcasts from the 2000's! 🤬