Four live sports feeds at once only pays off if the screen is big enough

Sky switched on a feature called Your Multiview over Premier League opening weekend, and it does what the name says: up to four live sports feeds on screen at the same time, across Sky Q, Sky Glass and Sky Stream. You can change the layout, pick which of the four you actually hear, and throw any window to full screen the moment something happens in it.

Before anyone gets excited, do the geometry. Quarter a 55-inch panel and each window is roughly the size of a 27-inch TV. From a normal sofa distance that is fine for following where the ball is and hopeless for reading a score bug or a lap chart. On a 75-inch set each tile lands around 37 inches and the whole thing suddenly makes sense. This is the first feature in years that gives a genuine, non-bragging reason to have gone big, and it is a properly good argument for anyone running a projector.

What I want answered is what each of those windows is actually running at. Sky has not said, and it matters differently depending on the box. A satellite receiver pulling several transponders is a different problem from a streaming box negotiating four sessions down one broadband line, and the honest version of this feature would tell you which windows got downgraded to make room. Every previous attempt at multi-feed viewing I have used quietly dropped everything a rung and never mentioned it.

For anyone who tried it this weekend: does the audio switching keep up, or is there a gap when you swap feeds? That lag is what killed it for me on other platforms.
 
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