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BBC World Cup in 4K/HLG Announced

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Sadly I think the BBC have abandoned iPlayer on TvOS - there's no account log in, and the look hasn't been updated since it launched. The 4K demos aren't available and I don't think 4k streams will be available in the near future.
 
Not a football fan so glad my crappy fibre line won't get anywhere near 40mbps.

Not looked at the tvOS version for a while, wasn't that the one they did the HLG test on previously?
 
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570934 said:
Not a football fan so glad my crappy fibre line won't get anywhere near 40mbps.

Not looked at the tvOS version for a while, wasn't that the one they did the HLG test on previously?
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Owwwwww man, your fibre doesn't sound too good :'(
I believe it was indeed!
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kiranmk2 said:
Sadly I think the BBC have abandoned iPlayer on TvOS - there's no account log in, and the look hasn't been updated since it launched. The 4K demos aren't available and I don't think 4k streams will be available in the near future.
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I haven't tried it as i'd have to buy a damn TV licence at £150 a year if I wanted to watch their programmes. No thanks.
 
They are sticking to HLG though. This will exempt a some panels (how many?), however I would rather BBC concentrate on delivery of 4k either down the pipe or aerial before it gets fancy with any version of HDR. Football is not something I watch, but Rugby is superb in 4k on another provider. No HDR apart from a few tests at the moment, it is good.

Get the basics of content management and delivery sorted then add the bells and whistles later.
 
400 said:
Get the basics of content management and delivery sorted then add the bells and whistles later.
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I see it exactly the other way around: HDR = basics, 4K = bells&whistles.
IMHO HDR has much bigger impact on viewing experience, than 4K. Especially, if you don’t move closer to the screen for 4K content.

Technically, HLG is the easiest to implement (metadata-free) and essentially comes as granted if the set can do HDR10 (mandates support for PQ EOTF and BT.2020 color).
 
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Reading a tad more, it is testing the way they can handle this format, HLG seems the one for broadcast that includes so many functions (ones in the transmission chain). So seems they are happy with 4k delivery.

Just that I am impatient for our paid for national broadcaster to be behind the curve on getting us content. However what you say is true on HDR and small screens so perhaps the thinking is 4k, easy, anyone can do that but a small screen and a lot of people will scream at the BBC for no real improvement, chuck on HDR (whatever format) and bingo!
 
BODYBUILDERPAUL said:
Very nice for anyone who loves the game. Interesting tech specs on the site. 40mbps is the minimum recommended for full 4K HDR along with Ethernet connection for reliability.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/latest-news/live-uhd

Interesting, the Independent is reporting that this viewing per game is LIMITED to 10,000 users only due to bandwidth?
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...yer-bbc-watch-live-best-quality-a8377646.html
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40Mbps? I know the best quality content on Netflix (Dolby Vision) is only about 15Mbps or so; but is quite grainy and probably not ideally suited to fast-moving content such as sports.

On the 10K limit, if true that's just the downside of streaming(or progressive download) vs broadcast TV: it's incredibly inefficient to have thousands of people all downloading the same content at the same time.
 
whooleytoo said:
On the 10K limit, if true that's just the downside of streaming(or progressive download) vs broadcast TV: it's incredibly inefficient to have thousands of people all downloading the same content at the same time.
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There are ways around this. It might sound silly, but bittorrent was actually invented to address this exact issue. They could have a distributed system, they just choose not to.
 
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oneMadRssn said:
There are ways around this. It might sound silly, but bittorrent was actually invented to address this exact issue. They could have a distributed system, they just choose not to.
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Absolutely - a hybrid model (central server for low-volume content, and a distributed torrent-like system for high-volume) is ideal.

Can Bittorrent can work with 'live' streaming though, given how it divides up the content files? Certainly, some kind of buffering & mirroring server would resolve the problem.
 
whooleytoo said:
Absolutely - a hybrid model (central server for low-volume content, and a distributed torrent-like system for high-volume) is ideal.

Can Bittorrent can work with 'live' streaming though, given how it divides up the content files? Certainly, some kind of buffering & mirroring server would resolve the problem.
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Of course it wouldn't be truly live, but nothing is. Even terrestrial broadcasts have a delay built in for censoring, fixing graphics, and other technical processes.

There have been "live" streams done with bittorrent. I believe the delay was in order of 5-10 minutes or so, which is similar to the delay of other http-based live streams. One master server buffers the content, releases it to the peers who seed it to more peers next in line.
 
Delays can often be just transmission chain coding decoding and production processes and satellite path if involved (TX/RX) then the beam out to the home (TX/RX). Main variables are what is compressed and by how much and on what kit. Pretty much as live as you can get, many an apology is sent to the viewers for fans or players indiscretions with blue language. Not saying intentional delays do not happen.

BT has many more than 10,000 on a stream I would imagine, especially on a big derby. Wonder what the figures were for last year Champions League Final last year? (BT was host broadcaster). Some news article is having a pop at BT for poor cricket figures averaging 100,000 peaking at 380,000 on a day (last year). It is in the Times though and a Murdoch rag so biased but with some data.

That number is not an issue I think. BBC are just keeping it small I suspect, within what they have set up now so they can control it. Probably in some blurb on the site as to why a small number.
 
I was more excited that Sky were test broadcasting F1 in 3D a few years back, never happened, are any football matches broadcast in 3D anymore, in fact, not sure even if Sky's 3D channel is running anymore.

What I'm getting at is all this HDR rush for broadcasters may fall by the wayside, new broadcast tech wows people in the short term, they then just become nonplussed about it. When watching TV broadcasts in 4K, I don't sit there thinking this is unbelievable, I'll never go back to watching 1080 ever again. But, when you do watch a HD program you don't sit there think, this is so terrible, you hardly notice if you are honest.

On another note, not sure what HDR will really add to football or most sport. The lighting for clarity is fairly limited in the contrast range. As in 4K Rec709 is perfect for most sports. Unless they are wanting to start light football pitches in such a way you have greater contrast, put all the corners in pitch black for instance 😀
 
Looking forward to 4k iPlayer World Cup
Though limited to 1st come serve basis of a few thousand viewers is what I had heard
 
cube said:
This is BS. My cable subscription provides the BBC channels but I have no iPlayer.
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Do you not live in the UK or something? Every modern cable or Sky box I have seen has iPlayer (although you will need a Virgin Tivo V6 box or Sky Q to watch in 4K).
 
As ipadpro can play hdr purchased movies.
Is bbciplayer hdr World Cup viewing possible via 10.5
Only asking as my Sony4k t.v. Isn't hdr.
 
kiranmk2 said:
Sadly I think the BBC have abandoned iPlayer on TvOS - there's no account log in, and the look hasn't been updated since it launched. The 4K demos aren't available and I don't think 4k streams will be available in the near future.
Click to expand...

Your information is out of date. I have sign on.
 
400 said:
They are sticking to HLG though. This will exempt a some panels (how many?), however I would rather BBC concentrate on delivery of 4k either down the pipe or aerial before it gets fancy with any version of HDR. Football is not something I watch, but Rugby is superb in 4k on another provider. No HDR apart from a few tests at the moment, it is good.

Get the basics of content management and delivery sorted then add the bells and whistles later.
Click to expand...

You have a TV that can't do HLG as manufacturers like adding incremental features so you have to buy a new one every year, some have included it already some are saving it for later.

The reason for making HLG non optional (though backward compatible if a manufacturer should choose to do the right thing for their customers) is that if it is not included now then it will take years to get it in all TVs resulting in more people complaining they don't have it. BBC is taking the critisism now to make it better for more people later.
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oneMadRssn said:
There are ways around this. It might sound silly, but bittorrent was actually invented to address this exact issue. They could have a distributed system, they just choose not to.
Click to expand...

bittorrent was invented to avoid paying for bandwidth by using someone else's (ignoring the easier piracy)

The BBC did use a bit torrent like system in the early days of iPlayer, it wasn't much use due to the asymmetric nature of ADSL. That asymmetry remains with BT "fibre" services. At the time ISPs were talking of charging for commercial use if it became widespread.

Consider that for this stream you need 40Mb/s. The BT FTTC upload speed is usually 10Mb/s. So for every stream someone plays it requires 4 or more people to already be playing it to feed them. I hope you can see that is a system that does not scale, you can never add enough viewers to meet demand (system gain 0.25, needs to be at least 1 to work). If the stream was 5Mb/s then each viewer could feed two more, that would scale better (system gain 2). In practice using the upload like this is likely to hit further bottlenecks upstream reducing efficiency.

They say the 10k stream limit is just for testing, it'll not be a limit as it's scaled up for production use later.
 
kiranmk2 said:
Ooh it has updated! (Too much time logged in to the US App store). Keep and eye on this list https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/live-uhd - the Virgin cable box has been added so I guess there's hop for the Apple TV 4K.
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Noticed VM V6 4k box is t.b.c. -Interesting Liscence disagreement?

I haven't returned to VM yet since declining their very generous offer mid 2017 whilst accepting current providers retention offer (sky).
 
bbzzz said:
You have a TV that can't do HLG as manufacturers like adding incremental features so you have to buy a new one every year, some have included it already some are saving it for later.

The reason for making HLG non optional (though backward compatible if a manufacturer should choose to do the right thing for their customers) is that if it is not included now then it will take years to get it in all TVs resulting in more people complaining they don't have it. BBC is taking the critisism now to make it better for more people later.
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Changed my view since that post and I have had a chance to read up (I have posted such). I can see the path they are taking now and it makes more sense now I have read some documentation on the subject.

4K early adopter myself and I accept I will miss out on a few things (Dolby for one) however the DVB-DASH does say that a 4K only will get 4k. Some things are just not standardised when they make panels and download the software. Stuff is moving a lot quicker these days.
 
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