I get the NFL channel. I waited until this morning and watched it at breakfast, skipping commercials. Awful but interesting nonetheless. I can’t wait to see Steven A. react to the Cowboys drubbing.
react to the Cowboys drubbing
The NFL Network has the worst sound I’ve ever heard. It sounds like the audio is being transmitted over string and paper cups. I paid the six bucks to watch the KC game, and while I hate the extortion I have to say that the video and audio quality of the broadcast was stellar. Whether cable, satellite, or streaming, video and audio quality depend heavily upon the bitrate being allocated to the broadcast.
Cable and satellite are notorious for reducing bitrate to unacceptable levels to squeeze in more channels. Most cable/satellite channels reduce quality so much that they are barely even broadcasting in the lowest level of HD (720p), much less 1080p, and forget about 4K. Even streaming services often skimp on bitrate. But Peacock allocated plenty of bandwidth to the broadcast of the game, which is why it looked and sounded so good.
I watched the activity on my router during the game and could see that Peacock was streaming at a peak of about 45 megabits per second, WAY more bandwidth than anything on cable/satellite, and not that far off from the pinnacle of video and audio quality, 4K Blu Ray, which usually peaks at around 70 Mbps, depending upon the disc. For comparison, the best streams on Netflix only hit around 15 Mbps, and I have no idea what cable/satellite uses, but I doubt that it ever gets beyond single digits, judging by the poor results.