I have surround etc setup with ceiling speakers etc and with the SD feed the sound is at best stereo, on HD is it pretty decent in comparison with each speaker firing independently as you'd expect. To me SD shouldn't even be a thing any more if most content is recorded or broadcast via the HD kit.
You realise you’re talking about media distribution, a business that is historically based on closed markets in order to maximise profit? In simple terms if I produce content, and you want to re-sell it to your customers, you do it on my terms. You ensure it’s only available to markets and in formats that I agree to and in the manner I stipulate. If I haven’t negotiated on demand/online streaming/HD/4K provision to you, don’t offer it, or expect it to be added to an existing agreement till I have told you at renewal how much extra you have to pay, if I say you need to charge a fixed premium for on demand/HD/4K/streaming because that’s how I bill my customers and I won’t allow you to undercut that, you charge it, you don’t get to undercut my pricing. Ever. If you breach my terms, I can withdraw my content, if you don’t agree to my terms by the time our contract expires - even if I refuse to renew on the same terms or make unreasonable changes - I pull my content, and I can and will use my products to troll you with adverts calling on your customers to contact you to bully you into agreeing to my terms.
Until recently, that’s basically how Sky licensed content to 3rd parties. However between regulatory interest and streaming platforms, the approach had to change. Now content providers/platforms can sell directly to end users, distributors have been forced to re-invent themselves as portals for content providers and as the Sky/Netflix partnership showed, it’s better to embrace streaming and use it as a selling point than try and compete with it.