UEFA European Football Championship: Image Resolutions Available in Switzerland

The UEFA European Football Championship will play out in Germany between June 14 and July 14. Many football fans will only be able to watch the matches remotely on television.

Residents of Switzerland are lucky because all UEFA matches can be watched on free TV channels at no additional cost. Many matches will even be broadcast on more than one TV channel. In some other countries, only some of the UEFA matches will be broadcast live.

These TV channels will show the UEFA Championship live

These TV stations available in Switzerland will broadcast the UEFA European Football Championship 2024 (in German):

Table 1: UEFA matches on free TV channels

Servus TV is no longer widely available in Switzerland. Of the TV providers questioned by moneyland.ch, only Sunrise and Swisscom still broadcast Servus TV. Sunrise simply broadcasts the Austrian version of Servus TV, which will play 31 UEFA matches live.

Big differences in image quality

In the table below, you can see the substantial differences in image quality between different TV plans. Swiss public television station SRF/RTS broadcasts in 576p and 720p resolutions. {Update: On June 21, 2024, Swisscom informed moneyland.ch that it uses resolutions of 720p and 1080p for Swiss public television programs. Previously, Swisscom had said that it was not allowed to communicate the resolutions used. The information has been added to Table 2.}  Most ARD, ZDF, and RTL channels are broadcast in 1080p or 1080i resolutions.

Table 2: Image quality by TV plan

Source: Data published by telecom service providers.

Sunrise and Swisscom broadcast the Servus TV channel. Swisscom broadcasts the Servus TV channel in 1080i resolution over its TV set-top box, 1080p resolution over its mobile app, and 720p resolution over its web portal (desktops and laptops). Sunrise broadcasts Servus TV in 1080p over optical fiber and copper phone lines connections, and over the Internet. It broadcasts Servus TV in 1080i image quality over coaxial cable TV connections.  

The terms 576p, 720p, and 1080p are technical jargon that can be difficult for non-experts to understand. The number shows how many rows of pixels make up the image, while the letters p and i show whether the image is broadcast as a full image or a half-image.

It is less complicated to understand how many pixels make up the image shown on your TV. The more pixels, the sharper the image. As the following table shows, a 1080p video is five times sharper than a 576p video.

Table 3: Overview of video image resolutions

Images in 4K or UHD resolution are even sharper, with a resolution of at least 8,294,000 pixels. Almost all of the TV sets sold in Switzerland in the last 10 years support 4K image quality, but video in that quality is primarily found in streaming services like Netflix (with a high-end plan) or on gaming consoles. The UEFA championship will not be broadcast in 4K on any Swiss TV or streaming plans.

SRF/RTS channels have a lower resolution

Viewers can only watch channels from Switzerland’s public broadcaster in the lower 720p and 720i resolutions. Swisscom is not allowed to make official statements about the resolution of SRF/RTS channels.

“That means most Swiss will only be able to watch the football matches in the lower resolution of 1 million pixels, if they want to follow the championship on public Swiss television,” explains Ralf Beyeler from moneyland.ch. Those who do not want to accept low-quality broadcasts have the option of watching the matches on German TV channels. “Many TV plan providers broadcast the UEFA channels ARD, ZDF, and RTL in higher quality with 2 million pixels,” says Ralf Beyeler.

“Personally, I would not want to watch TV with such a poor image resolution. To me, video in 720p seems blurry, and I end up switching it off,” adds the expert.

Are SRF/RTS apps a good alternative?

According to the Swiss public broadcaster, the live UEFA matches can also be streamed in 720p image quality. So the apps offered by SRF/RTS are not an option for watching games in higher quality.

Why are SRF/RTS channels not normally broadcast in 1080p?

It is surprising that the public broadcaster normally only broadcasts UEFA matches in 720p – especially because it generates broadcasts in 1080p. But SRF/RTS does not pass on broadcasts in this high resolution to most Swiss TV plan providers. Instead, it only transfers its channels in the lower image quality.

The Swiss public broadcaster’s clarification is that, while it uses the HD format as its reference standard for broadcasts, it is required to provide its services to people with handicaps. Supplemental services like subtitles, audio descriptions, and sign language must be integrated into its channels. It uses HbbTV to provide those services. For that reason, it only makes the Full HD (1080p50) versions of its channels available to TV providers that are capable of meeting the legal requirements by making the required services available to people with handicaps.

Explanation by Ralf Beyeler: “The HbbTV standard is an extension of the DVB standard – which is based on conventional radio-based TV technology. But today, TV images are often broadcast over the Internet. Most viewers watch TV shows in apps, on Smart TVs, via Apple TV or Android TV set-top boxes, or on their phones.”

Swiss TV plan providers are already offering subtitles, audio descriptions, and sign language without using HbbTV.

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