BBC to show FA Cup semi-final and final in UHD

Soldato
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Just for reference. The world cup looked amazing in UHD, so heads up for anyone who missed that and wants to check this out. It spanks all over Sky UHD put it that way =]

Stolen from hotukdeals:

"Football fans enjoy the clarity & detail of Ultra HD of the beautiful game.
Following a number of successful trials in 2018, we'd been wondering what 4K content the BBC iPlayer would serve up next. And now we know.

The BBC will be streaming both the 2019 FA Cup semi-final between Manchester City and Brighton (6th April) and the FA Cup Final (18th May) through iPlayer in Ultra HD resolution, complete with HLG HDR (High Dynamic Range).

If you've got a compatible 4K TV, you can either hit the red button to access the stream or go through your TV's BBC iPlayer app.

As with previous trials, space on the service will be limited to "tens of thousands", and the BBC recommends an internet connection with a minimum speed of 40Mbps for the full-fat 4K experience of 3840 pixels at 50 frames per second or 20Mbps for a horizontal resolution of 2560 pixels.

It also suggests (as would we) a wired connection will give a more stable connection than streaming over wi-fi.

"Our Ultra HD and HDR programmes have been streamed millions of times on BBC iPlayer, making them some of the most popular Ultra HD programmes in the world" said Dan Taylor-Watt, Head of BBC iPlayer.

For the first time, the BBC will use the 4K trial as its main production and will take its HD and SD coverage from that workflow. The streams will also be used by the BBC to help refine its technology for reducing latency, which is normally experienced by a viewer of the 4K stream compared to the live broadcast.

The BBC has delivered a decent chunk of 4K HDR content through its online player in the past 12 months, including games from the FIFA World Cup and the Wimbledon tennis championships so it's good to see the first 4K instalment for 2019."
 
Soldato
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Think it's the HDR, just makes it more vibrant and clearer than Sky. Hopefully Sky will add it soon too
 
Soldato
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(... remembering) - from the earlier 4k world cup thread the BBC, or the Russians, had had problems with the HLG HDR brightness, but maybe teething problems, or tv firmware;

I don't know if they published a survey of viewer satisfaction.
 

TJM

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So it only works on the TV itself? No watching via iPlayer on your PC or console?
Yup. It's restricted to devices that the BBC knows can display the content properly to avoid the bandwidth that is available for the trials being consumed by mobile phones, streaming boxes connected to 1080p TVs and the like.
 

V_R

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The World Cup last year was great in UHD HDR, the delay was a bit of a bugger but well worth it! Will be watching the final in UHD for sure!
 
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(... remembering) - from the earlier 4k world cup thread the BBC, or the Russians, had had problems with the HLG HDR brightness, but maybe teething problems, or tv firmware;

I don't know if they published a survey of viewer satisfaction.

Delay aside I really thought the iPlayer 4k HDR stream was the best I've seen on my tv outside of a uhd disc. Considering it was a live broadcast I was blown away. Better than Netflix streams with DV (although hard to know sometimes as movies/tv shows sometimes just upscale or whatever, or add grain effects etc).
 
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They said they were going to fix the delay so will be interesting to see if they have done it. This might be there next test to see if whatever solution they did actually works in the real world.
 
Soldato
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If it's anything like the world cup feeds then BBC's UHD bitrate was 36Mb/s - https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2018-05-uhd_hdr_world_cup_2018

Edit - This seems to suggest Sky Sports UHD is 24.7Mb/s tops :confused: - http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=11797&pid=553&live=61&lang=en

I hadn't realised sky sport had dropped from 30-40Mb/s back then https://www.avforums.com/threads/sky-uhd-live-bitrate.2094563/
like the BBC, with the new multi-cpu/clud real-time encoder they purchased, maybe they have been able to drop it to 25Mb/s ? or, they have dumbed it down.

BBC dynasties 4khdr had achieved 25Mb/s https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tech/bbc-reveals-4k-uhd-iplayer-trial-findings/5131003.article, so with the new encoder,
would expect live sport to now be similar to that , so close to sky;
google doesn't tell me if anyone has monitored the BBC 4k bitrate going through their router, to get some real data.

(the additional bitrate for hdr 10bit is minimal versus 8bit sdr .... have to dig up a reference)
 
Soldato
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I hadn't realised sky sport had dropped from 30-40Mb/s back then https://www.avforums.com/threads/sky-uhd-live-bitrate.2094563/
like the BBC, with the new multi-cpu/clud real-time encoder they purchased, maybe they have been able to drop it to 25Mb/s ? or, they have dumbed it down.

BBC dynasties 4khdr had achieved 25Mb/s https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tech/bbc-reveals-4k-uhd-iplayer-trial-findings/5131003.article, so with the new encoder,
would expect live sport to now be similar to that , so close to sky;
google doesn't tell me if anyone has monitored the BBC 4k bitrate going through their router, to get some real data.

(the additional bitrate for hdr 10bit is minimal versus 8bit sdr .... have to dig up a reference)

Live content will always be higher bitrate because you don’t have the time to do multiple passes / properly use variable bitrate.
 
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Soldato
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bbc have more hlg iplayer content ( using new encoder ???)
unfortunately just wimbledon https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broa...entre-court-matches-in-4k-hdr/5140566.article
but - maybe interesting to see how it deals with shadows on courts and ball speeds

now - if eurosport were doing tour de france in 4k/hdr that would interest me

in france they've been trying terrestrial broadcasts .. but maybe that's the past if people want time shifted tv (... are most 4k tv tuners up to this ?)
https://www.hdnumerique.com/actualite/articles/17479-tnt-uhd-4k-nouvelles-experimentations.html
 
Soldato
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Most Of the latest tv's support HLG now but i remember when it first came out only a select few LG Oled's and some Panasonic lcd tv's supported it.

I had an LG C6 back then and i thought it looked fantastic and don't remember any major issues apart from some weird brightness fluctuations on some of the matches.

The Tennis should look superb though.
 
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