If you’ve been following the football – or any other major sport – on Sky Glass or Sky Stream but have constantly been annoyed by the delay between satellite and streaming, then good news: Sky is closing the gap to make your viewing experience almost live.
In planned May updates for EntertainmentOS on Sky Glass and Sky Stream, the latency on events broadcast on the Sky Sports Main Event channel will be reduced by 22 seconds on both UHD and HD content.
Other Sky Sports channels will get this feature, but this won’t be until later in the year.
Tech Advisor was able to see this feature in action at Sky HQ, with one TV playing a live football game running on the current Entertainment OS 1.2, and another broadcasting the event running on Entertainment OS 1.3. The 22-second difference was obvious to see on the clock displayed on the game.
Currently, Sky Glass and Stream have a sizeable 30-second delay compared to satellite (Sky Q). Post-update there will still be an eight-second delay and while it’s still not technically live, it’s a significant amount closer to being live.
This lowers the chance of you being spoilt by any surprise scores on social media or sports apps… though maybe not the immediate cheers if you happen to live right near a pub or the ground.
Note that this lower latency is only scheduled for Sky channels at the time of writing, so BBC and ITV (the broadcasters for Euros 2024) will still have a delay, but it’s a step in the right direction at least.
Poor broadband could also impact your streaming quality so check your speed and connect via Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi if you can.
Other new features rolling out in May include Auto Low Latency (ALL) for gaming, which has been reduced by over 70%. Plus, you’ll be able to add specific actors to your playlists, which will prompt your Sky device to recommend movies with that person in it.
For example, if you liked Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, it should recommend Top Gun: Maverick and other films.
Sky
You don’t have to wait until next month for new features either. From today, forwarding and rewinding is possible using your voice with ‘Hello Sky’. So, you can say ‘rewind x6’ rather than pressing the button on your remote multiple times.
There are also personalised rails with more specific genres based on your watch history. For example, if you watch Ferrari, then you’ll get a section labelled ‘biographical movies for you’.
If you’re debating which Sky product is the one for you, then check out our buying guide for Glass, Q, Stream and Now .
Author: Hannah Cowton-Barnes, Entertainment Editor, Tech Advisor
As Tech Advisor’s Entertainment Editor, Hannah is the resident expert in all things streaming, film and TV. Before joining Tech Advisor in 2019, she studied Theatre and Performance at the University of Leeds and created a website dedicated to geek culture and lifestyle. She’s also reviewed a whole range of gadgets including flagship smartphones, wearables and styling tools. Outside of Foundry, she’s written freelance pieces for Polygon, Metro and Den of Geek, and is proud to be a Women Techmakers Ambassador for Google.
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