Sky Sport Now passes first major test

Sky TV's new sports streaming service seems to have passed its first major test: this morning's livestream of the Uefa Super Cup match between Liverpool and Chelsea.

Sky Sport Now is a rebranded, boosted version of the former Fanpass.

It now offers streaming versions of all of the Sky Sport channels (which in turn were expanded to 12 earlier this month) plus more replay and highlight content.

Watching via a browser on my PC at work, the stream looked great: fluid and TV-like, with no motion-blur issues with blur travel. And there didn't seem to be any social media explosions indicating others had any trouble.

Rival Spark Sport recently chopped down its video quality to 30 frames per second (fps) at 1080p HD after issues with older Google Chromecasts and laptops that could handle 60fps.

Sky Sport Now offers full-blooded 60fps at 1080p HD (its predecessor, Fanpass, offered 60fps at 720p HD).

Spark says it aims to get back to 60fps. For me, at home and work, both services have streamed smoothly (though some did have trouble over the weekend with Spark).

And both Spark Sport and Sky Sport Now run around 30 seconds behind broadcast TV, which is itself a few seconds behind the live action - meaning there's the risk of spoilers if you're also following a game on Twitter, liveblogs or radio.

However, the main issue for football (or "soccer") fans is more of a pocketbook one. To watch all the action involving top teams now, they have to hold subscriptions to Spark Sport ($20/month) for the English Premier League), beIN Sports ($19.78) for the Carabao Cup, Bundesliga, EFL, La Liga, MLS and League 1 and Sky Sport ($31.99 a month, on top of an obligatory $25.99/month Starter plan) for Uefa Champions League and Europa matches, plus Euro 2020 games and the 'Nix. To complicate things (stay with me), Sky Sport 7 offers a selection of beIN Sports content.

If you've got a traditional Sky plan, then you can stream with Sky Go - which, after it's rocky earlier years, is a lot more stable today.

And now of course there's the no-contract Sky Sport Now option.

The revamped service costs $20 for a week pass.

A month pass costs $50, or $40 if you commit for 12 months (did I say no-contract?)

Content can be viewed via the web, or Apple or Android apps, with device support running to Google Chromecast, Apple TV, Sony's PS4 and Samsung Smart TVs.

Yesterday, Sky TV initially warned of an issue that it though affected all 2degrees customer, but in the end it was isolated to just a couple, and resolved.