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Classic Video Games Arrive on Sky Q TV and HDR is Imminent

Friday, May 22nd, 2020 (7:58 am) - Score 36,235
sky q tv 2016

Customers of Sky TV UK (Sky Broadband) might like to know that they can now play 20 classic video games for free on their Sky Q set-top-box, such as Tetris, Doodle Jump and Crossy Road. But according to our sources Sky’s delayed High Dynamic Range (HDR) upgrade is also due to appear sooner than expected.. next week.

Firstly, the free video games come courtesy of the new PlayWorks app, which has just been added for Sky Q subscribers. The app can also be found on other devices and naturally you’ll be able to use Sky’s remote to play the various games, which could come in handy as a time-killer.

Meanwhile some of our sources have indicated that next week’s planned launch of the new 4K (UHD) Sky Nature channel on Wednesday 27th May may include a surprise, the long awaited addition of support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) content. The technology enables video content to contain even more colour and vibrancy.

At the end of last year Sky announced that they had delayed HDR support on Sky Q until “late” 2020 “at the earliest” (here), which did not go down particularly well with their customer base (most of their rivals have had HDR for awhile now and a growing number of people now own supporting TVs) and left many to wonder if it would even surface in 2020 at all.

Apparently any customer who already has a 4K (Ultra HD) compatible box and supporting subscription will automatically get it on launch day. We’ll find out for sure next week.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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Comments
24 Responses
  1. Avatar photo TaylorMason says:

    Sweet

  2. Avatar photo John Paton says:

    No Beehive Bedlam 🙁

    1. Avatar photo Granola says:

      Luckily.
      The hours I spent on that. I am now in recovery and can do without the temptation again.

  3. Avatar photo William Hook says:

    HDR? I’ll believe that when I see it. I’m not holding out much hope…

    1. Avatar photo EndlessWaves says:

      HDR is tricky to display and produce, but it doesn’t require much extra bandwidth so it’s relatively easy to deliver.

  4. Avatar photo Wally1 says:

    There was a theory that Sky’s delays on HDR were because a new
    box would be needed. However this news (if accurate)suggests
    that the existing boxes will be OK. We can only hope.

  5. Avatar photo Mario Lambrias says:

    Most other broadcasters use 4K HDR, such as Amazon and the BBC. Disney even broadcast some of their Films and programmes in Dolby vision.
    All these picture quality wise is far superior to what Sky are broadcasting now.
    Come on Sky we are paying a premium for your movies, programmes and sport. Give us a Premium picture for the money too.

    1. Avatar photo Mr Alexander says:

      I’m with you there paying a premium for not so premium.
      Especially with multi room boxes, more and more new TVs are all 4k and have a 2 4k TV around the house but stuck with HD on the mini boxes and I doubt there will be any 4k nor HDR available.
      Like the apps built in to the Sky Q are not 4k or HDR I just end up using he built in TV apps as support HDR and Dolby Vision

  6. Avatar photo Jason Wamos says:

    The really annoying and disappointing thing is that Sky have been producing their Premier League Football coverage in UHD HDR since August and broadcasting it to Italy,Germany and Scandinavia just not in the UK

    Hopefully this is not going to another case of false hope and that they can actually get this active in customers homes

  7. Avatar photo Pezza says:

    Oh good, about time! Will look forward to what difference it makes, I presume this is HLG HDR?

    1. Avatar photo Roger_Gooner says:

      HLG is for live events such as a few football and tennis matches and the marriage of Harry and Meghan.

    2. Avatar photo Roger_Gooner says:

      Having done some more reading on this it seems as if Sky will be using HLG for VOD downloads, don’t understand this when the HDR10 standard is available.

    3. Avatar photo Sam says:

      Very likely HLG. HLG is not just for live events, it’s useful in TV broadcaasting as non-HDR TVs can ignore it unlike HDR10/10+/DV meaning you dont need and HDzr channel and an SDR channel. It was created for that very purpose by BBC and NHK.

  8. Avatar photo Wally1 says:

    Sky Forum thread* is suggesting that:-

    A. Early V1 boxes won’t work with HDR as had been feared.

    B. Sky were going to make an offer to owners of these but
    scuppered for now by Covid, but should occur later in
    summer.

    I presume that will be a new box at reduced price?

    I got a new box off Sky at reduced price when the
    capactitors blew on my early Sky HD box.

    * https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Sky-HDR/m-p/3314092#M312516

    1. Avatar photo Nikhil says:

      Given that the sky q boxes are all rented and not owned now, surely sky cant charge for replacing the box for one which is essentially the same with slightly improved functionality.

  9. Avatar photo Ray Woodward says:

    Of course, a significant amount of Sky Nature output will be in UHD …

    1. Avatar photo Ray Woodward says:

      … which is expected to be available via Sky Q through download …

  10. Avatar photo Loved sky+ says:

    Typical sky this, I don’t trust the sneaky baskets at all. There will be some angle. The nature channel may well start out being free, but you wait. It’ll become a subscription channel or something, they will pull some stunt, you watch, to extract even more money out of us, even though they are taking us from behind already. Sky Q is massively disappointing compared to sky plus as an OS. The uhd is way below standard over hd and other uhd sources. Netflix and you tube apps are good for older tvs with their mini boxes(Which are very laggy btw), but on a newer smart Uhd tv the tv apps give far superior picture quality than anything on sky. Then we are supposed to be grateful HDR is being implemented years after the competition. …really? And as for the adverts. It’s hard enough finding something you want to to watch, then it’ll go to adverts for 6 mins every 15mins, then re cap for another minute. Add it up, an hour programme is actually less 40 mins long. What subscription service has adverts? You pay to not get adverts. Your paying to be heavily advertised to. It’s nuts!

  11. Avatar photo Barry says:

    We have SKY and had to reduce content to because it became quite expensive and from reading the comments we are not alone paying top money for a poorer service is silly. I can’t keep up with technology but have the feeling SKY are not transparent enough with these 18 month contracts they keep signing me up to.

  12. Avatar photo Karl Nolan says:

    I cancelled all Sky just recently. Best thing I ever did. Girlfriend has netflix, I bought Disney for £50 for the year and have Prime for the deliverys. All give me 4k without charge. Via the apps on my TV its all dolby vision HDR. I would of stayed with sky but they would not budge on the same charges for HD. I will not pay for HD when 4K is free. After 2 weeks sky free I feel relieved. And cheated that I used netflix via sky when the picture is so much better via the app

    1. Avatar photo Lincs says:

      Agree with this 100%

  13. Avatar photo Dan mac says:

    I have a Panasonic 4k TV that does Netflix. Prime etc..I didn’t upgrade to sky q as people said uhd picture is not as good. Couldn’t disagree more..sky 4k picture is far better than Panasonic apps which are HDR compatible and the ability to download sky movies in 4k is priceless. No worries about stuttering or drop in 4k to hd due to temporary bandwidth strangle. Brilliant

    1. Avatar photo Dan mac says:

      And to add £43 a month to sky.that includes movies. 4k package including top Netflix package..so basically £10ish a week. Peanuts.

  14. Avatar photo Lincs says:

    Oh thank you Sky I’m SOOOOOO grateful. Months behind everyone else and then just a handful of programmes. Off to watch Star Wars in Dolby Vision on my LG Disney Plus app thanks.

    And Sky 4K image quality is the worse of any out there, including streaming apps. Not sure what Dan is watching.

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