Sky Sports UHD (NOW) vs TNT Sports Ultimate

[Popeye13_Official]

Many moons ago, i used to work at Globecast. We handled the BBC commercial European channels as they were back then (BBC Entertainment, BBC Lifestyle ect) among many other networks and services. Seeing the uncompressed versions before they were fed through was as stunning as you say. The clarity and quality was sublime and once it was fed through the encoder for distribution - the difference was stunning in a very bad way. 

The drop in quality from BT Sport 4K UHD to TNT Sports Ultimate is pretty big. I also highly suggest what we are seeing is very much now a 1080p HDR upscaled feed. Quite where its being downscaled is what i want to know as the production on-site is 2160p for Premier League and UCL / UEL / UCfL. Not sure about PREM Rugby.

I fail to see the point of TNT Sports Ultimate if you're going to DS the feed to 1080p and then upscale it for playout, while claiming its 4K HDR when it so clearly is not. Trying to impress this obvious issue to WBD has been like pulling teeth as you're entirely at the mercy of customer service and that is mostly painful at how bad they are! The only thing that is pixel-perfect is the 'TNT SPORTS ULTIMATE LIVE' logo, the rest is an appalling mess that WBD don't seem to give a monkey's about and its not going to change i fear. Clearly BT Group aren't that bothered either because to my knowledge they haven't said a dickey bird to them. Happy to be corrected on that matter however.

[lukef99]

I work in the industry now and deal with Globecast all the time funnily enough. To answer your question directly, contribution of main feeds from the venue (whether that's on site produced programmes or cameras for remote production) is only 1080pHDR as far as TNT is concerned (where it is actually planned to be a 1080pHDR production, not just 1080i). Whether cameras are capturing 2160p or not I don't know but it certainly leaves as 1080p. That's the same across all competitions, it has been like this I think since it changed from BT. Sky still have native 2160p contribution from venues for Premier League for some main feeds. BT Sport were very much the pioneers for 4K live sport, but since WBD have taken it over it is totally their choice what they do. Technically it was a merger but really WBD have total control of it, at least the productions/channel output.  

[Popeye13_Official]

Don't ask me why - but tonight ive been doing a bit of throttling of my BB while watching MNF on Sky Sports Main Event UHD. Usually the SS Main Event UHD quality is excellent and looks every bit the part, unlike TNT Ultimate, but after watching the horrible mess that was the FA Cup on TNT Ultimate this weekend - i wanted to see if i could make SS Main Event UHD look as bad.

I have! Ive throttled it down to the point im limiting the feed to 1440p (2K) instead of 2160p (4K) and it looks identical to TNT Ultimate in terms of slightly higher quality than 1080p but nothing close to the output resolution of 2160p.

Even down the slightly fuzzy appearance on the HDR and the stretched pixels as its upscaled to 2160p by the TV, giving a softness - not a sharpness that the 4K delivers. The moment i release the throttling, the quality jump is stark! 

So this brings me to ask: If TNT only want to offer 1080pHDR, then why not just deliver that, instead of sending out what is an upscaled mess and still presenting it as 'UHD'?! 

A higher bitrate 1080pHDR (Higher than a 1080pSDR for instance) would look far better than an upscaled version! 

[Richr1]

A delayed response to this thread from a non-expert 😃

Assuming they were willing to transmit TNT Sport 1080p HDR with the increased bandwidth, doesn't it still need to be upscaled for a 4K TV?

Assuming so, if the choice is upscaling by:

1. TNT pre-transmission [as per today];
2. the set top box; or
3. the TV

isn't the first preferable as they are likely to use better equipment than 2 and 3?