Sky Sports +

[ImagineAMeme]

With the announcement of the new suite of Sky Sports + channels geared towards EFL clubs, one platform was suspiciously missing from the announcement, Virgin.

I'd imagine streaming these games will be avaliable to us via the Sky Sports app which on mobile, in my experience, works seamlessly. However, on Windows, it's a very different experience. When I say different, I mean unusable. Dropped frames, Minecraft levels of bitrate every 2 minutes or so, pausing video so the audio comes out of sync. It worries me that the only way to access these games will be through a platform that fundamentally just doesn't work. 

Going this forum I have so many years in the past shows VM and Sky passing the blame as to the poor user experience. I understand they don't want VM on NOW as their Sky Sports platform on devices other than mobiles, but it's completely unusable using Windows for it, the fact that these games will not be accessible through TV and only through an online platform that is less than stellar is a concern. I can only hope these issues are fixed before the season starts, but I cant say I'm expecting much on that front sadly.

Any input from VM if these well-known issues are being looked at?

[Mobes]

Here's a direct link to the announcement

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/12110/13131189/sky-sports-launches-in-august-to-give-more-ch...

"Launching this August, Sky Sports+ will be transformational in the amount of choice sports fans will have access to via live streams on Sky TV, streaming service NOW and the improved Sky Sports App on mobile."

So yes a beefed up online streaming service but also "while the dedicated Sky Sports+ linear channel will showcase a selection of the best live sport."

Can a staff member update us on if/when we'll be getting access to the new channel and new streams via 360??

[nodrogd]

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@ImagineAMeme wrote:

With the announcement of the new suite of Sky Sports + channels geared towards EFL clubs, one platform was suspiciously missing from the announcement, Virgin.

I'd imagine streaming these games will be avaliable to us via the Sky Sports app which on mobile, in my experience, works seamlessly. However, on Windows, it's a very different experience. When I say different, I mean unusable. Dropped frames, Minecraft levels of bitrate every 2 minutes or so, pausing video so the audio comes out of sync. It worries me that the only way to access these games will be through a platform that fundamentally just doesn't work. 

Going this forum I have so many years in the past shows VM and Sky passing the blame as to the poor user experience. I understand they don't want VM on NOW as their Sky Sports platform on devices other than mobiles, but it's completely unusable using Windows for it, the fact that these games will not be accessible through TV and only through an online platform that is less than stellar is a concern. I can only hope these issues are fixed before the season starts, but I cant say I'm expecting much on that front sadly.

Any input from VM if these well-known issues are being looked at?

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The announcements mention that the additional content will be available on Sky Stream, Sky Glass & SkyQ. These use a background interactive app that is also now installed on V360 & Virgin Stream boxes, & should be installed on V6 TiVO later this year. The Sky Sports app & website access is a Sky product with third party access, so if you are having streaming problems via these this needs to be dealt with by Sky. There will not be a new suite of channels. This is a wholesale revamp/relaunch of the existing Sky Sports broadcast service, with increased additional streaming content.

[japitts]

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@nodrogd wrote:

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The Sky Sports app & website access is a Sky product with third party access, so if you are having streaming problems via these this needs to be dealt with by Sky.

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This is true to a point, but the support Sky offers to third parties is pretty basic at best, extending to "have you cleared your device cache & restarted it?"

They do play support ping-pong with anything they can't replicate - I speak from experience.