Sky Sports Main Event UHD/HDR

[Brucemeister5]

@stereohaven 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?

[stereohaven]

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

[NigelB72]

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.

[stereohaven]

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.

[ozsat]

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

[DaveSwan]

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

[Brucemeister5]

@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.

[stereohaven]

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.

[Brucemeister5]

@stereohaven 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.

[DaveSwan]

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…