Sky UK launching HDR Wednesday 27th May.

MissChief

MissChief

MissChief

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From Wednesday 27th May, Sky is taking another big step in it’s ongoing commitment to bring the best viewing experience to our customers. We are excited to be launching new High Dynamic Range (HDR) content, giving Sky Q customers even better Ultra HD picture quality.


HDR offers a larger range of displayable colours and brightness. For modern TVs this allows for more realistic images, full of impact, creating the ultimate in-home viewing experience.


This marks the beginning of Sky Q’s HDR journey and we will look to increase the HDR on demand range in 2020, with the following coming before the end of the year:


• More Nature shows

• A selection of Sky Originals

• A selection of blockbuster movies in time for Sky Cinema Christmas.


We are also aiming to bring HDR to the Disney+ and Netflix apps over the coming months as well, so watch out for that.


Get closer to Nature than ever before with HDR


As part of the new Sky Nature channel launch we are excited we are excited to reveal the new on demand HDR shows, Gangs of Lemur Island, Pridelands: Wilderness Reborn and Malawi Wildlife Rescue.

Customers will be able to view these shows


• In “The Natural World in UHD” rail within the Sky Nature collection (27/05-14/06)

• In the Ultra HD rails and sections within Q Home and On Demand


To be clear, the Sky Nature channel itself will not be in HDR.


Who can get HDR?


For a customer to enjoy our new content in HDR they will need:


• A Q experience or Ultra HD subscription (for Ultra HD, the customer will need HD)

• A compatible Sky Q box. Our newer Sky Q 1TB UHD and 2TB boxes support HDR

• Their TV will need to support HDR (HLG format) and have this setting switched on. Sky Q doesn’t currently support HDR10 content.


Some of our older Sky Q boxes do not support HDR. For more information on which boxes don’t support HDR, visit https://www.sky.com/help/expert/articles/check-which-sky-q-box


What if the customer wants to upgrade to a compatible Sky box?


If a customer’s box doesn’t support UHD, follow the normal process to upgrade the customer to a UHD subscription. As part of this upgrade the customer will then receive an HDR compatible box.

If a customer has an old UHD box that doesn’t support HDR, we’re not currently able to upgrade it to a newer HDR-compatible model. We’ll look to support this as we introduce more great HDR content on Q.


How does a customer view in HDR?


The customer doesn’t need to setup anything on their Sky box to view HDR, the settings will automatically be enabled if the customer has a compatible Sky box and pack.

The customer does however need to turn on the settings on their TV. They can check their TV’s manual or manufacturer’s website for help. If they’ve correctly setup their TV for HDR, they might see an alert flash up on the screen for a few seconds when they start watching HDR shows, but this depends on what TV the customer has.
 
jpaul said:
but ... they have had it in Italy for a >1 year, and those boxes supported it, maybe they revised the streaming strategy for the UK ?

curious - given cv19 bandwidth limiting other streaming services applied they're unlikely to be streaming hdr at a higher bitrate, so how do they accomodate the 8->10 bit HLG/HDR10 adjustment, too.
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On demand downloads aren't streamed, they download to your hard drive and you watch them from there.
 
jpaul said:
OK if its like bbc they send a dash stream in > real time and you can start viewing as soon as you have buffered enough, or, just keep it, on the local hard disk.

.... if the amount of data for the hdr is greater than previous formats ... that would seem to break the sprit of covid limitations ..
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It's saved to the hard drive permanently until you delete it. You're not watching a stream, your watching playback from the hard drive.
 
varkanoid said:
I dont think the general public understand what HDR is especially when there are still people who dont know watch SD are and content to watch SD channel when there is a HD channel the same. Be interesting how they market it.
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Possibly one of the reasons they've waited this long to launch it?
 
jpaul said:
some elaboration https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnar...hdr-next-weekbut-theres-a-catch/#1fa9553c79cc

Is a new non-satellite(purely-internet) box on it's way too ? although, does 4k sport, from satellite still offer an exclusive 30Mb/s, you wouldn't get on internet
so maybe worth waiting.
[edit: new box would presumably have hdr10/dv for netflix too]

[also
"My engineer contact suggests, though, that one easy way to tell is that the incompatible V1 boxes don’t come with an external power supply, while the compatible newer boxes do"
]
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I believe the internet only box is still in development but that development is rather sporadic. I suspect bandwidth issues for recordings is an issue, especially in UHD and now HDR.

I have a HDR capable box and tv AFAIK as I was testing the 1TB UHD capable box. Will have a look at it on Wednesday.
 
picnic said:
So I get it even though I don't have 4K or multiroom? I see no reason why they can't do 1080p HDR but I bet they don't.

Is there a try before you buy option? I was disappointed with Sky's 4K offering but HDR has always, IMHO, may for a bigger picture improvement
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No Extra charge purely for HDR. It comes as part of any UHD or Q Experience subs you already have.
 
cuke2u said:
We all know how to install a skyq box, no it isn't rocket science and I know what is involved in physically changing the boxes. All well and good if you have the knowledge however many haven't and these are the customers Sky have to consider plus the various setups. Different hubs, number of miniboxes etc. Sorry but maybe you can do all of this but it is rather arrogant to think everyone can. .
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This is indeed the issue. The mesh required for the Mini boxes needs to be checked and confirmed good enough to stream from main box to Mini otherwise it may just end up with more calls to Sky and potentially another engineer visit. This is especially important with multiple Mini boxes and boosters.
 
Converge said:
Thanks for the info as always MissChief, and I’m not shooting the messenger, but we have to pay £50 because SKY released boxes that weren’t capable of HDR? That’s a little naff isn’t it?
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I haven’t checked the page, is it asking for payment or advising there’ll be a charge?

I see it is. I’d imagine sky will have millions of non-capable boxes to dispose of and there are production costs involved too. Not sure if a new contract would waive that though.
 
kitfit1 said:
Yep, it leaves a very bad taste indeed.
If companies want to turn to a "rental" financial model, then they have to take the rough with the very profitable. Can anyone imagine the complete uproar across the UK 50 years ago if Rediffusion or Granada said they were going to charge their rental customers for a new tv to receive Channel 4.
It simply wouldn't and didn't happen then and shouldn't happen now either. If it wasn't so close to F1 restarting i would seriously consider just cancelling Sky, wait a month or so and then join as a new customer. Also, at the moment there is next to no HDR content on Sky anyway. In much the same way way there is still very little 4K content (F1 is the only 4K i watch on Sky).
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Sky go to great pains to tell you the equipment is 'loaned to you at no cost' rather than 'rented'. Legal connotations apparently.
 
kitfit1 said:
You do know that the words "Loaned to you at no cost" and "Rented to you at no cost" are exactly the same thing ? Even more so when Sky Q was first launched (and that's when i took it up), it was made well clear in the T&C's that the box belonged to Sky and had to be returned on cancellation of the contract.
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True, but the distinction is important, we got corrected and marked down on Conformance if we said 'rented'. And the price for Sky+HD and Sky Q subscriptions are the same so the 'at no cost' is correct. I assume 'Rented' means you're paying a charge for the boxes when you're not.
 
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