Trying to understand Pro Box picture settings

[stereohaven]

I have taken the Pro Box out of the cupboard to apply the latest update and have decided to leave it connected for some longer term testing and to see what new features (if any), drop with the EE TV launch.

I have always found the picture of broadcast channels on the Pro Box to be a bit soft, it certainly wasn’t as good as the Humax 4K predecessor, but today I set it to output at 1080p instead of 2160p, and find the standard pictures much better.

Clearly the box upscaling was adding to the softness that I was seeing (appreciate picture is subjective), but what surprised me is that even when set to 1080p, both the TNT Sport Ultimate channels display in UHD and UHD HDR respectively, without having to change a setting (a bonus in my view).

HLG HDR in iPlayer also displays correctly, as does Prime Video content, albeit only 1080p HDR.

Netflix however is limited to HD despite me having Netflix Premium. Switch back to UHD output on the box and 4K content in Netflix and Prime is available again

Anyone know why it is inconsistent?

I note that if I had VIP and didn’t have a Prime Video subscription then setting the box at 1080p would be a really consistent experience. 

[Midnight_Voice]

@stereohaven 

When playing with different resolutions on my DTR-T4000, I found that if I changed resolution from 4K to HD while using the BBC iPlayer, it continued to offer me the UHD versions of programmes that had this option.

But if I exited and re entered the BBC iPlayer while keeping the HD resolution, I was no longer offered the UHD versions.

From this I deduce that UHD/HD is decided on the initial login to the iPlayer, and the value is kept for the session. 

So with the IPlayer offering UHD and the YouView box set to HD, it may be that the TV picture was the iPlayer UHD downscaled to HD by the YouView box and passed to the TV which then upscaled it back to UHD.

You’d think this would be easy to spot, but it isn’t.

So were those channels really displaying in the original UHD HDR, which would suggest that a YouView box set to 1080p was overriding that setting, or in the ‘upscaled downscaled’ UHD I was experiencing?

And does the inconsistency between apps stem from some of them checking the once, like the iPlayer, and some of them rechecking as the session went along?

[stereohaven]

@Midnight_Voice 

The key for me here is the HDR flag (which pops up on the TV when an HDR source is supplied) and cross checking the output at each stage by going into the TV picture menu.

• If I set output to 1080p then HD channels present in 1080p (I didn’t check SD but assume the box upscales to HD)
• TNT Sport Ultimate (433) presents as UHD
• TNT Sport Ultimate (465) presents as UHD HDR and triggers the HDR flag on the TV
• MoTD on iPlayer presents in HD, Planet Earth 3 presents in HLG HDR and triggers that flag on the TV
• Prime Video presents in HD HDR and triggers the HDR flag on the TV
• Netflix presents in HD with Spatial Audio

I’ve been playing around with the settings quite a bit, including power cycles and iPlayer hasn’t changed the way it behaves on the Pro Box, it presents HD or HLG HDR as appropriate whatever the main output setting of the box.

As I said, this is a good thing in my book, I just wonder why Prime Video and Netflix are tied to the output setting but iPlayer and the Ultimate channels are not if you have the right subscription?

[Midnight_Voice]

@stereohaven 

Just to say that I found out how to see what my LG TVs think they are being presented with (press the … button on the remote, select Information from the drop-down menu, and it appears in an overlay on the screen) and this confirms that for a DTR-T4000 at least, opening the BBC iPlayer in UHD and then dropping to 1080p on the YouView box has no effect on what the iPlayer offers you, but does make the TV see only 1080p. So the YouView box is not ignoring the drop to 1080p.

I can’t, of course, answer for what the Pro box does, nor for what special arrangement BT might have made for the THT Sport channels.

Sorry for the dreadful quality of the image, but the Community is holding me down to 333k.

Enough to show a UHD programme still being offered when the output resolution is 1080p, anyway.

[stereohaven]

With the pro box in IP mode, that is probably the best end user experience, set to 1080p output for broadcast channels and the box allows apps and certain channels to flex automatically to the best quality available if it is higher than 1080p.

I just want to understand why Netflix and Prime Video won’t do that and need the main output set to UHD, when iPlayer and TNT Sport Ultimate don’t? 

I also wanted to create the thread to feedback really, seeing as more direct routes like the YouView forum has gone and being part of the YouView pro box feedback group/ My View only seems to check what I watch, not necessarily how to improve the experience for all.

[Midnight_Voice]

@stereohaven 

I just remembered the T4000 can’t do HDR, so I only see HDR from other devices, and apps directly on the TV 😢

I can’t find anything on the web about how apps negotiate resolution with the device they are running on. There’s plenty about how hardware devices negotiate with monitors - the EDID tables the monitors provide to say what they can do, which the sending devices then pick from, and so on.

So it looks like when the iPlayer asks the T4000 what it would like, it replies with the resolution it’s been set to, and maybe that it can do lower resolutions, and if the iPlayer asks ‘Nothing higher?’ then it says ‘Nope’.

(Even though  you can fool the iPlayer into giving UHD to the YouView box set to 1080p, and the YouView box copes!)

But with the same dialogue with the Pro box, when the iPlayer says “Nothing higher?” the Pro box does say “Yes actually, UHD” and so is given that.

But when it’s Netflix asking, rather than the IPlayer, and the Pro box says “1080p”(and maybe lower), Netflix doesn’t ask “Nothing higher?”, it just says “OK then”, and delivers 1080p accordingly.

There’s a lot of supposition there, and not a little anthropomorphising, and it may be wildly wrong, but it does fit the observations to date.

[edbostan]

My DT4000 box expired last week and a Pro box sent. I have it up and running set to 1080p resolution and I feel the picture is not so sharp as the DT4000 which died.

[Midnight_Voice]

@edbostan 

What model is the TV it is connected to?

Are there any other relevant changes, e.g. WiFi instead of Ethernet connection, or IP instead of broadcast channels, different HDMI cable, and so on?

What source material are you using for the comparison, and is this the same source you recall from the DTR-T4000?

Why only 1080p, and is this what you had the T4000 set to?

[edbostan]

I matched the setting with the DT4000 box and used the supplied cable and the previous HDMI cable. The television is a 12-year-old Panasonic non-4k.

Other posts have mentioned the picture being softer on the Pro box.

I can live with it but just an observation.

[Midnight_Voice]

@edbostan 

Yes, I’ve seen those reports, but I don’t have a Pro box to try.

Disappointing if so, because my DTR-T4000 is pin-sharp, and gives nothing away to any other source I have, except maybe the Apple TV.