Thought I use this post to ask this question. Wanting to see GoT, I signed up for Amazon's Prime Video Channel for HBO. Tonight I decided I would watch last season's finale to refreshed myself with where we left off. So, anyway, I went to my 4K Firestick and clicked on the GoT tile and was STUNNED at what I saw. It was a gorgeous 4K picture with Dolby Digital+ sound. As good as anything I have ever gotten via streaming. HOWEVER, I went to the "live" HBO channel and joined a GoT episode that happened to be showing. Here it was disappointing. A mediocre, slightly washed out 1080p picture and simple Dolby Surround.
So, the question is:
What are the chances that Amazon will have a 4K/DD+ version OnDemand AFTER tomorrow's premier? I can probably wait ONE day (avoiding spoilers) if I was assured I would get that marvelous presentation instead of the crappy one I would see live. But if it's going to take a week, forget it...I'll watch it live.
What say you?
When you streamed last season's finale on-demand, that wasn't in 4K. HBO doesn't make any of their content available for 4K streaming on any platform (yet, at least). But I can see how might think it was in 4K because Amazon does a GREAT job of encoding their 1080p HD on-demand content. Right now, if you're looking for the best-possible picture quality for premium sources (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz), you should subscribe to them via Amazon Channels (which requires having a Prime Video subscription first). It's going to look better than watching live from any cable or satellite source, or any other streaming source right now. (That said, I suspect picture quality to be just as good, maybe even better, via Apple TV Channels when that option becomes available next month.)
As you saw yourself, the live streams of those premium channels from Amazon don't look as good as the on-demand streams. Encoding live channels on-the-fly is more difficult because the encoding has to happen just as fast as the video moves. But on-demand content can be more carefully encoded -- taking, for example, 2 seconds to encode every 1 second of video -- and this results in better picture and sound quality.
To answer your question: generally speaking, new episodes/films from those sources will become available to stream on-demand from Amazon within seconds of when that title debuts on their live channel.* So I would expect that the season premiere of Game of Thrones will be available to stream via Amazon Channels (as well as via the HBO Now and HBO Go apps) right after it starts on the live HBO channel tonight. (Hopefully Amazon's servers don't crash though!) HBO has already given that episode to Amazon and, at this time of day on Sunday, I'd say Amazon has already done their optimized encoding of it, so it's just sitting there on Amazon's servers waiting to be revealed in their app/website.
*The exception to this is for shows that air live, such as Real Time with Bill Mahr. HBO obviously can't give Amazon a copy of that show ahead of time to encode. That can only happen after the show completes it live broadcast. Those live shows are typically available for on-demand streaming the following day.