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Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:28:16 GMT

I notice that this is launching as a stand alone channel on Sky Q and Sky Glass on Wednesday. I’m wondering whether this will be made available to BT TV customers too in the very near future.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:48:42 GMT

I wouldn't have thought so, unless it was going to be available through NOW and there still isn't any hard evidence that UHD HDR is coming to that platforms content.

Never say never though, BT and Sky did extend their cross supply deals earlier this year to take them into 2030 and we are not privy to the detail.

Nice to see Yesterday HD is also in testing on satellite so that may also make it's way to BT when they start delivering extra channels over multicast.

I notice that Sky continues to refer to "Ultra HDR" as well, which doesn't exist.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 22:07:54 GMT

I was assuming that it would be made available to BT TV customers through NOW as the Pro TV box would be able to handle it wouldn’t it? We’ll see anyway.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

NigelB72 — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 05:41:42 GMT

A website posted last year that 4K HDR sports will launch at some point on NowTV if you have the HD Boost add on and I read on a NowTV forum that it would be for the start of the Premier League season but there's been no official word from Sky or BT and that thread appears to have been quietly removed.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 06:13:16 GMT

I heard that Sky Sports 4K HDR would only be made available to direct NOW customers who were paying full price (currently £33.99). I assume that they’d need to be taking Boost too. Many pay a heavily discounted price by attempting to cancel and being given an offer to stay.

BT TV customers have 3 options ( Big Sport, VIP or taking Sky Sports as an add on). If Sky Sports 4K HDR is made available to BT TV customers at no extra cost to those who currently have the right package/add on that would be a great bonus. I’d have to assume that BT Sport 4K would then be made available on Sky.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 07:18:21 GMT

Well, not long now until you find out.

I’m not sure what will be on there all day mind, only select football games, F1 and some cricket has been in UHD HDR on Sky so far.

When you watch the F1, only the actual race footage is in UHD HDR, all the preamble, pit lane and post race coverage is upscaled HD and you can see it as well.

If this comes to pass and BT customers get access to Sky 4K sports content and if BT can hold their existing pricing and flexible packs it would be massive.

You could in effect just buy access to Sport in the best quality available all in one place, that is streamed as close to live via satellite as you can get, without the dish or having to buy an entertainment pack or low quality TV (yes you Sky Glass) and record it to watch when you want.

That would be a major selling point in my view for BT, which is why I will be amazed if it happens. If it does, I would move back to BT TV when my Sky contract ends.

Does the BT Pro Box support HLG HDR as that is Sky’s (and BBC iPlayers) 4K delivery method?

BT Sport Ultimate uses HDR 10.

On a side note, the more 4K recordable content that becomes available, the smaller a 1TB HDD feels.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 07:55:35 GMT

I’m certainly not qualified to comment on the technical detail here, but I’ve just read an article which states that Sky doesn’t support HDR 10 which is used for BT Sport Ultimate. If they are using HLG HDR and the BT Pro TV box is unable to support that then there is a potential stumbling block there. I don’t know if the very talented guys at BT would be able to find a way around that.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 08:16:51 GMT

The older Humax YouView boxes support HLG HDR, they are listed as compatible devices in the BBC iPlayer technical help, but not the newer box.

If you have a Pro Box a quick way to check HLG support is to load iPlayer and see if you can access and play UHD content such as Sherwood, Virgil or The Tourist.

You may need to turn on "iPlayer Beta" in the settings to enable UHD if it is there as technically it is still in a never-ending trial.

HLG HDR was designed for broadcast UHD content as it allows broadcasters to transmit a signal with a wide dynamic range supported by HDR and SDR televisions, massively reducing the cost and complexity of the broadcast signal.

HLG is royalty-free, unlike more niche standards like Dolby Vision (but the best picture bar none in my view), and unlike the other HDR standards, it doesn't use metadata to tell the TV how to display the HDR content.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

ozsat — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 08:18:11 GMT

Three years ago both VM and Sky released offiicial press released confirming they had agreed that VM will carry Sky Cinema and Sports in UHD. Cinema appear a few months later.

Still waiting for Sky Sports in UHD - and still no HDR on Cinema.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 08:24:06 GMT

@Brucemeister5wrote:
I’m certainly not qualified to comment on the technical detail here, but I’ve just read an article which states that Sky doesn’t support HDR 10 which is used for BT Sport Ultimate.

On the above specifically, Sky Q supports HDR10 through apps only, broadcast is in HLG HDR.

Sky Glass supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision through apps only, broadcast is in HLG HDR.

You could then in theory watch BT Sport Ultimate on Sky through the BT Sport app, but the last we were told on this forum was that it wasn't going to be made available on any Sky platform, even though reference to the app can be seen in the Sky Q XML file.

Sky Q XML file

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 08:34:00 GMT

@Anonymous I’ve just tested BBC iPlayer on my BT Pro TV box and I’ve been able to watch UHD HDR content by viewing the test loop of the Man City v Watford F A Cup Final and also Sherwood. So, that’s positive isn’t it?

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 08:35:44 GMT

Yep, that is what you wanted to see, so the box supports the preferred technology for Sky HLG HDR broadcasts.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

NigelB72 — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 08:40:02 GMT

I think the Pro Box for support HLG but annoyingly our TV doesn't. Hopefully Sky/NowTV will deliver in BT's format of choice which is HDR10 because bandwidth isn't such an issue on I.P. streams.

IIRC HLG is a joint technology from BBC and NHK designed to be more efficient and take up less bandwidth and HDR10 is the international format which is basically used by every other platform.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 09:09:10 GMT

I agree about the wide adoption of HDR10, but it isn't designed to be a broadcast format, which HLG HDR is.

Hybrid Log Gamma or HLG is much different than HDR10. HLG (sometimes listed as HLG10) shares some similarities with HDR10 in that it is free and it is an HDR solution. The key difference is implementation. You’ve likely seen gamma as a setting on a display in the past. Setting the correct gamma curve could make a big difference in the contrast of your display.
HLG is basically an extension of your normal gamma curve. While the “bottom” of the curve can be interpreted by normal (non-HDR) displays, the top of the curve can be interpreted by the HLG-capable displays. This is why HLG is preferred over HDR10 by broadcasters. HDR10 is not compatible with non-HDR displays while HLG is. If anything, you could think of HLG as encompassing SDR, HDR, and any metadata that the other HDR formats would have.
There are a couple of issues with HLG. First, it is limited to 10-bit colour depth while HDR10 can have 12-bit. It has also been lagging behind HDR10 in being integrated into displays.
While it usually only takes a firmware update to enable HLG, HDR10 (and the other HDR formats) have already seen wide adoption. Because of the lower bit depth, HLG has smaller files and has really only seen wide adoption in broadcasting. The backward compatibility has also made it much more attractive to broadcasters.

The BBC and Sky are not going to change their chosen broadcast format.

If BT can get access early enough in the production workflow they can of course chose to broadcast in whatever format they like, which they do on BT Sport Ultimate.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

ozsat — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 15:52:26 GMT

BBC iPlayer is HLG and the Box Pro does that fine.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

DaveSwan — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:54:25 GMT

I’ve done a scan of the multicast ports for any sign of anything that might be this.

Curiously, there are several new channels present (outside of the ‘wireless Freeview” tests). These look to be the international channels that were on TalkTalk’s service, including Sony TV and Colours. They’ve been there a few weeks. There’s no reference to BT ever selling them, so unless they’re about to go back to selling channels directly (without Now), perhaps they’ll end up packaged with something new.

The only other candidate could be a new unnamed service. Which, even through encryption, looks like some form of static caption with a white background, but it’s set to 1080x1920, (nice 8m/bit stream too!) but with no service identifier. It doesn’t look like the setup of the other UHD channels in the streams - rtp://234.81.132.202:5802

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 06:30:48 GMT

@DaveSwan I wonder whether the channels from Discovery+ will be included on the EPG or only be available via the app. I believe that many of them were previously available with BTTV.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 08:05:26 GMT

I would be surprised if they weren't available as linear channels in the BT TV (EE TV) guide, although you can tune in "live" using the Discovery+ app and the on demand section is really solid, negating the need to record for many.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

Brucemeister5 — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:53:35 GMT

@Anonymous Indeed, I’m hoping so too as my annual subscription for Discovery+ expired only last week. Following last week’s announcement about the JV it would seem that things might move along fairly swiftly now.

Re: Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

DaveSwan — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:54:15 GMT

Discovery SD/HD is still sitting with a multicast stream, despite video stopping recently.

It could be leftover labels, but it’s the only one of Discovery’s channels that hasn’t been removed (Investigation Discovery has gone, for example).

So might be something…