I’m obsessed with broadcast delays (no, I’m not much fun at parties).
It all stems from Euro 2020, when my insistence on watching every match in 4K via BBC iPlayer resulted in several goals being spoiled by cheers from my neighbours and the revellers at a pub down the road.
Since then, I've prioritised low latency over outright picture quality when choosing how to watch major sporting events.
But I'd never actually tested the accepted wisdom around broadcast delays. So, with Sky launching its new Real Time feature for Sky Glass and Sky Stream, I decided it was time to find out which viewing method is actually fastest.
So, there I was, on a sweaty Thursday evening, setting up a second TV in my living room so that I could compare different broadcast options during the Czechia v South Africa match.
I needed to remove as many variables as possible, of course, so my two TVs needed to be identical. I therefore borrowed a 65-inch Sony Bravia 8 II OLED to match the one currently in situ in my lounge.
After ensuring that both TVs were running the same software and had the same picture settings, I plugged my now rarely used aerial into the ‘new’ TV (the one on the right in all of the photos sprinkled throughout this piece) and set about comparing that with the alternatives at my disposal.
This is what I discovered.
Freeview (aerial) vs BBC iPlayer
Before I get started, it’s worth noting that everything is delayed.
It simply takes time for anything that's filmed live to make it through all of the broadcast equipment, be encoded and transmitted, travel to and from satellites in space or through underground fibre-optic cables, and finally be decoded and displayed by your TV.
It’s commonly accepted, though, that watching the signals received by your aerial via a Freeview tuner is the least delayed option available. The BBC itself says that it takes 7-8 seconds for something happening live to reach your TV via this method.
So, how much slower was iPlayer than the TV playing Freeview? A hefty 23 seconds. That’s plenty of time for a goal to be spoiled by cheers from the neighbours.
Interestingly, I found no meaningful difference between BBC iPlayer's HD and UHD streams. If you're watching via iPlayer anyway, choosing the 4K feed doesn't appear to add any extra delay.
I also tested the iPlayer app on several devices – the Bravia 8 II itself, a Sky Stream box, and an Apple TV 4K – and the result was always 23 seconds, there or thereabouts.
It’s worth remembering that BBC iPlayer is the only way to watch the World Cup in 4K, and the feeds look terrific, but when immediacy matters, such as when England are playing, foregoing pixels for promptness is the sensible way to go.
Sky Stream/Glass
Time for Sky Stream, and the good news is that this was indeed quicker than BBC iPlayer. The bad news? It was still around 18 seconds behind Freeview.
That’s better, of course, but still more than enough time for a goal to be spoiled.
But, as I mentioned earlier, Sky has a special feature up its sleeve for dealing with this…
Sky Real Time
That feature is Real Time, which is designed to massively reduce the amount of lag experienced during big sporting events.
Sky has rolled Real Time out just in time for the World Cup, and it’s available on the BBC HD, ITV1 HD and ITV4 HD.
It’s worth noting that it’s not turned on by default. Once you tune in to one of the channels mentioned above during a World Cup match, you then need to click the ‘Real Time’ button that appears on the screen. Do that, and you’ll be switched to a special ‘RT’ version of the channel.
So, how much faster is Real Time? A whopping 13 seconds faster than standard Sky Stream, which makes it just five seconds slower than the Freeview tuner.
That’s close enough, I think, to rarely be an issue.
Conclusions, caveats and Sky Q
You’ve probably spotted that there’s a significant absentee from my testing, Sky Q, and there’s an easy explanation for that – I no longer have a satellite dish.
However, Sky has previously told me that Real Time brings Sky Stream/Glass to within three seconds of Sky Q, and the results of my testing certainly suggest that's plausible.
It’s also worth noting that there are plenty of variables that mean your results might vary slightly from mine. Aerial connections and Freeview tuners are remarkably consistent, but network conditions are not. Broadband speeds, router performance, wi-fi quality and even the streaming device itself can all affect how quickly a live stream reaches your screen.
Still, if you want to see how all of these various viewing methods compared, delay-wise, for me, here’s a little graph I whipped up:
Broadcast / reception delay
Here's how long, in seconds, it takes each broadcast type to show you a goal that's just been scored
Delay
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| Live | 0 |
| Freeview (aerial) | 8 |
| Sky Q (satellite) | 10 |
| Sky Glass/Stream with Real Time | 13 |
| Sky Glass/Stream without Real Time | 26 |
| BBC iPlayer | 31 |
So, is Sky Real Time the saviour of sports fans tired of hearing celebrations before they see the goal?
Not quite. My tests suggest that a good old-fashioned aerial is still the quickest way to watch live TV, and Sky Q via satellite probably remains a touch faster too.
But Sky's new mode narrows the gap dramatically. Instead of lagging tens of seconds behind the live action, Sky Stream and Sky Glass are now close enough to traditional broadcast TV that, in most homes, they're unlikely to be the reason a goal gets spoiled.
For years, choosing streaming TV meant accepting that everyone else would see the goal first. Thanks to Real Time, that trade-off is finally starting to disappear.
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