What am I watching? (BBC Red Button HDR)

[naylor2006]

Pretty sure I read an article about UEFA’s lack of UHD coverage for these Euro’s and also that BBC weren’t providing UHD on iPlayer as they have done before.

So I put on the Italy Albania game and saw ‘Press Red for HDR’, yes please and it loaded iPlayer from the EETV Box and eventually HDR HLG, looks pretty good, to me it looks like it is also 4K, I’ve seen crisper 4K but it’s definitely sharper than the standard footage and ITV’s  coverage so far. It’s also crisper than NowTV 1080p SkySports.

I can’t find the same feed/option on my ATV iPlayer app and I don’t have other devices to test, so I’m pretty happy about it but are BT indeed offering higher resolution? Just weird it would say ‘Press Red for HDR’ and not for UHD if it was.

[zulu17]

I believe this summer’s European Championship is  being produced in 1080p HD HDR as the host production format.

That is i believe the same format as used for the recent UEFA champions League final . For that event I believe WBD upscaled the 1080p HD HDR  host feed to UHD HDR on its channel.

UEFA’s multi-feed offering provides its broadcast partners with access to a variety of live feeds, including the main match feed – the live stadium feed, available in SDI 1080p50 HDR, 1080p50 SDR and 1080i50.

[naylor2006]

The images quality via the red button this evening looks not too dissimilar from some of the TNT Ultimate coverage for sure, maybe some upscaling going on. It 100% looks better than the 1080p on NOWTV Sports. I’ve got a 65” TV so resolution difference gets a little easier to spot.

Looks like only some games are selected for HDR on BBC also as England’s game isn’t it tomorrow according to one of Gary’s segues…

If the host content is 1080p HDR always it makes little sense why BBC wouldn’t present the England game in HDR. 

[NigelB72]

The native broadcast is 1080p HD with HDR, this is what BBC are carrying on iPlayer. I'm watching via an alternative TV provider on iPlayer and the quality is very good but I suspect either either our TV box or actual TV is also upscaling to UHD, quality still isn't as good as Sky Sports UHD but it's not far behind.

[naylor2006]

I’d agree, it’s not quite there but it’s very good, not far off, for what it’s worth I have upscaling switched off on my AVR and TV, I never have it on, there isn’t an option on the EETV box to switch it off incase this is doing something. You can never really tell what you’re watching because the box always outputs at 4K anyway when it’s switched on.

[NigelB72]

@naylor2006 the main difference I can see is on the wide shots, on UHD you can read the names on the players shirts but 1080p UHD you can't. It's a massive step up from from ITV's picture quality though which seems very blurry in comparison.

Amazon Prime did a similar thing with Star Trek Discovery & Picard S1, 1080p HDR because CBS All Access wouldn't let them have the UHD HDR files. They looked very good but not quite UHD HDR 

[naylor2006]

I just switched back to normal BBC before I switch off and it’s noticeably blurry and washed out, the latter probably just the missing HLG, but it’s definitely more blurry. 

BBC have often offered UHD streams via iPlayer for national football, usually for every game they covered, it was a bloody tough watch going back to ITV. Problem with that though is sometimes I could hear neighbours celebrating before I saw the goal. Shouldn’t be such a snob should I….

[NigelB72]

@naylor2006 we have a streaming based TV platform from the Comcast group of companies so I'm used to a delay. Play we're detached, our house is quite well sound proofed and the majority of our neighbours are cricket fans so no loud spoilers going on here. Oh and the patio doors where closed so we couldn't hear the gobby **** that lives in the flats behind us 🤣

[naylor2006]

It’s not an issue now but when I used to live in inner Bristol there was no escaping it especially being quite near pubs. Also during the 2018 World Cup it was about 9 million C outside so windows were open!

Nowadays I’ve been lucky enough to move to somewhere far less built up, didn’t hear a thing during the last Euros and world cup. My neighbour is Scottish so I reckon I might hear something if they make it out the group 🙂

[naylor2006]

Serbia game is in HDR sorta 3-4K also, lovely stuff.

30 seconds delay or so though, going to battening down the hatches.