Observations since switching from Sky

[junglemusic]

OK so in November I made the switch from Sky and signed up for a year with BT. I have BT Infinity 1 broadband with the Youview+ UHD box in the living room, and the normal HD Youview+ box in the kitchen.

So far there are a few little things that annoy me, after being used to Sky for years. I wonder if any of them are likely to be addressed in future?

1. The main search function only searches 'on demand' content, it doesn't include the normal EPG programs. Surely this can't be right? Massive error if so.

2. You can't store on-demand programs in your MyView. Sometimes you spot something on iPlayer that you want to watch later or another day. No way of storing or linking to it in MyView. Massive flaw, and something that's been available on Sky for years.

3. The Netflix App runs content at 24 or 30 FPS, but the YouView box runs a 50hz video signal. The result being that Netflix content doesn't play smoothly. It's all jumpy and annoying. My understanding of the technicalities of this are just from what I've googled, but it's ridiculous. Fix it.

4. No button on the remote to take you back to your current program. (Like the 'Sky' button on a Sky remote). When you're messing around on the guide/menus, sometimes you just want to jump back to what you were watching. The only way I see you can do this is to repeatedly press 'back up' til you get there.

5. I can't subscribe to Sky Sports or Movies. Phoned up BT and they tell me I'm not allowed Sky Sports or Movies because I have multiroom. They can't even put it on one of my boxes. Dunno if it's BTs fault or Sky's but, again, ridiculous.

6. The picture quality of some of the streaming apps is dreadful. ITV player particularly - just awful. Until this is sorted, I will always prefer live TV or recordings of live TV. If Netflix can stream in 1080p, why can't the iPlayer and ITV player do the same? It's 2017.

None of these issues are show stoppers but together they are really annoying, and to me, things that need to be addressed.

I might add to this list when I think of any more.
Certainly won't be continuing once my year is up, unless things change.

On the plus side, I'm very impressed with the Infinity 1 broadband. Consistent 50-60mbps speeds and the homeplugs work well.

[Interceptor121]

On point 6 change your settings for internet content to 'best quality'
Iplayer has HD the other players dont. This has nothing to do with youview

[robert1997]

1. On my Youview+ box 'search' includes both On Demand AND tv broadcasts. You just scroll to the right to open up those searches. It includes results for the following 7/8 days

4. On my box the 'close' remote button exits back to live tv.

5. I think (not 100% sure) this is part of the conditions set by Sky(?)

6. As @Interceptor121 said. Personally I only use the BBC iplayer but sometimes would watch something on Demand5 as it is quite good picture quality wise. Not a Youview issue really, its how itv/four/five choose to implement their players.

[junglemusic]

Thanks both, I'll look further at the search, but from what you say it sounds like it was staring me in the face all along.

Ref: Point 5 - I think you're right. It still sucks. Especially as if you're a Sky customer, BT will let you subscribe to BT Sport regardless of how many boxes you have in the house. You'd think Sky would reciprocate.

[junglemusic]

{Can you edit a post once you've submitted it on this forum? Can't see a button)

On point 6, I've already got the quality set to 'Best Quality'. Just seems that best quality isn't that good. I appreciate the fault proibably lies with BBC/ITV etc, but to deliver anything less than 1080P these days is silly. We've all got HD TVs and (most have) decent broadband.

[robert1997]

Just checked for you @junglemusic

To edit a post you have made recently (I believe you only have a short window to do so) go to your post, to the top right of your post you will see 'options', click on that and the 1st option should be 'edit reply'.

[Interceptor121]

BBC iplayer is 1080p. ITV and the others aren't so you should see the difference

All4 has decent quality on a computer but on a large Tv sets comes out grainy

The quality of a recording in HD will always beat the players except iPlayer however real program may have DD while on iplayer may go back to stereo sound

[WilfH]

IPlayer is not 1080p

No broadcast TV is 1080p all broadcast HD content is 1080i at best, and 576i for SD (in the U.K. Whilst the BTYV boxes purport to output 1080p they are actually converting the 576i and 1080i broadcast content to 1080p on the fly. All uk broadcast content is 25 frames per second (50 fields). IPlayer, All4, etc use lower resolutions and frame rates to reduce the overall bandwidth required and file sizes. These are usually of the order of 15 GPs and this is why anti-aliasing and jerky effects are apparent.

Sky is an exception in that the on-demand players actually use the same source file formats as the DSAT broadcasts which is which they can easily be integrated into the Sky planner and work as well as standard broadcast material with the same apparent resolution. This is also why the Sky system isn't truly an on-demand experience in the same way as the players on YV or NowTV for example.

[WilfH]

That should have read 15fps for the players.

[Interceptor121]

You cant stream interlaced content as computers and tablets or phones are not Tv and cannot deinterlace.
I have downloaded iplayer streams using free programs and they are 1080p with stereo sound. Any broadcast is 1080i@50hz goving you the same 25 frames per second as result
The other players are different itv is pretty poor standard definition whilst 4od streams at 1372 kpbs which is pretty high bandwidth but from what i can see is optimised for computers at 1024x768
For what concerns the fact that sky provides the original dsat of the programs on demand sky writes the software for their boxea so some of those players have a different implementation than YouView and they in most cases download files to disk