BBC iPlayer in HD

eimer3107 · 20-04-2009, 22:11

BBC iPlayer is to provide HD output...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8008886.stm

...but no indication of date

eddyjo · 20-04-2009, 22:16

Already here !

BBC HD is on iPlayer now.

Brin1 · 21-04-2009, 00:04

Have just tried the iplayer, (the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and indeed it's HD, but the bandwith needed must be enormous. What you get is a series of great quality still pictures with disconnected sound - and I'm using a powerbook G4 Mac with a good broadband connection. difficult to see the point, unless it's just for people who've never seen HD. It's unwatchable as it stands.

john_locke · 21-04-2009, 01:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brin1

Have just tried the iplayer, (the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and indeed it's HD, but the bandwith needed must be enormous. What you get is a series of great quality still pictures with disconnected sound - and I'm using a powerbook G4 Mac with a good broadband connection. difficult to see the point, unless it's just for people who've never seen HD. It's unwatchable as it stands.

Works fine here full screen on an intel Macbook Pro. Your G4 might be struggling a bit with the stream, perhaps?

Snoods · 21-04-2009, 02:06

Works perfectly here too on my PC.

rehab · 21-04-2009, 06:03

it works..when my bandwidth will allow it. I live in a largeish village and I'm close to my exchange. We have no LLU and no cable so the best we get is 8mb ADSL. Unfortunatly that's not really good enough for streamed HD media.

POPMAN · 21-04-2009, 06:28

Beware of your download limits peoples...wouldn't want any nasty surprises from your ISP.

tammytastic · 21-04-2009, 07:44

I noticed a pop-up when I tried caning the downloads warning my ISP might not approve !

Brin1 · 21-04-2009, 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by john_locke

Works fine here full screen on an intel Macbook Pro. Your G4 might be struggling a bit with the stream, perhaps?

maybe ,,, will try again later

Restorer · 21-04-2009, 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brin1

Have just tried the iplayer, (the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and indeed it's HD, but the bandwith needed must be enormous. What you get is a series of great quality still pictures with disconnected sound - and I'm using a powerbook G4 Mac with a good broadband connection. difficult to see the point, unless it's just for people who've never seen HD. It's unwatchable as it stands.

They talk about a min speed of 3500kbps for the 720p streams and 1500kbps for their new higher quality SD. However, I suspect CPU power has a lot to do with it. I get a little choppiness on a dual core 2.2GHz. Downloads though are fast - now coming off their own servers - look pretty good.

Anyway read all about it here and there is a diagnosis page here.

Tony Hoyle · 21-04-2009, 09:38

A 2.6Ghz dual core also glitched occasionally, and their test page reckons my connection is easily fast enough for HD. I suspect there are bugs to be sorted out yet.

mr klaw · 21-04-2009, 10:01

TBH for HD I'd rather avoid any hiccups in my connection affecting my enjoyment, and just download them to the desktop app

Restorer · 21-04-2009, 10:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr klaw

TBH for HD I'd rather avoid any hiccups in my connection affecting my enjoyment, and just download them to the desktop app

Same here except some, like Heroes, not available for download

.

Another great feature is HD downloads also available as wmv so you can download them straight into Media Center folders.

I am very impressed with the speed at which the BBC has got on with the development of this service. From poxy pixelly little downloads to near broadcast quality of virtually the whole of their output in the space of 15 months is quite an achievement.

Now if only they had applied this kind of zeal to the expansion of their broadcast HD service we would probably looking at 4 channel simulcasts by now

.

2Bdecided · 21-04-2009, 17:40

The embedded player (iPlayer web page), and the player in the Adobe Air download manager (iPlayer desktop), are both really inefficient.

I can easily play files like this in VLC without any problem, whereas in the BBC players it stutters like mad.

It's the right number of pixels to count as HD, but like most web HD, those pixels aren't particularly sharp and there are artefacts - so the subjective quality is close to good upscaled SD. Still, it's better than we've had before!

Some screen grabs comparing the various iPlayer streams are here:
http://s633.photobucket.com/albums/u...cided/iPlayer/

Cheers,
David.

suffolktoon · 21-04-2009, 17:52

Stutters on my supposedly 20mb connection.

klaeresource · 21-04-2009, 21:29

What does this have to do with Sky+HD?

Is Iplayer available on there now?

CBers · 22-04-2009, 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by POPMAN

Beware of your download limits peoples...wouldn't want any nasty surprises from your ISP.

It would be nice if the BEEB put in a scheduler in the iPlayer, so that we could download programmes outside of STM periods !!

mossy2103 · 22-04-2009, 11:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by CBers

It would be nice if the BEEB put in a scheduler in the iPlayer, so that we could download programmes outside of STM periods !!

Well there are plans to allow for the pre-booking of programme downloads up to 7 days in advance.

andybno1 · 22-04-2009, 11:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Restorer

Same here except some, like Heroes, not available for download

.

that is down to licencing rights from the people who make and distrobute the episodes to BBC.

in america you can watch the episodes via the broadcast channels website for free (ABC or FOX is it?)...... I'm assuming since it is their creation they can do that just like the beeb does.

alcockell · 22-04-2009, 23:18

Annoying here as welll - I get a good 4.5Mbps download rate, but only 350kbps stream.. they're now needing a minimum of 500kbps for TV streaming.

I'm with Eclipse on Evolution 2, running Ubuntu 8.04.2 on a Thinkpad R61i...

Andrue · 24-04-2009, 15:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by rehab

it works..when my bandwidth will allow it. I live in a largeish village and I'm close to my exchange. We have no LLU and no cable so the best we get is 8mb ADSL. Unfortunatly that's not really good enough for streamed HD media.

Not really true. Depending on content 6Mb can be enough. Luxe HD transmit what is widely regarded as one of the best quality channels at 6Mb. OTOH they have complete control over what they film and broadcast and it's mostly low action. Of more relevance I suspect is congestion. Very few ISPs will give you full speed (6Mb on an 8Mb connection) in the evening.

For a typical channel you would currently want more. Somewhere in excess of 12Mb.

Anyway that's kind of irrelevant to the discussion because iPlayer never uses higher than 3.2Mb. What they call HD isn't really any such thing. It's better than SD but the compression artifacting is noticeable. On balance it's no worse than DTT though and quite impressive.

I found no problems playing it at home with a 13Mb connection curtesy of Be..but then they are one of the few ISPs that give an almost constant speed 24/7.

Surprisingly it looked good enough to watch at work and only have two load balanced 2Mb lines (so effectively max bandwidth is 1.8Mb).

thorvertonian · 24-04-2009, 16:00

I have 4.5mb, and can watch the iPlayerHD fine

shades8438 · 27-04-2009, 15:02

from last night on BBC HD only one program can be viewed on BBC HD iplayer it but this is silly in such can't they renegotiate or at least in the future get online catch up HD rights.

The Phazer · 30-04-2009, 10:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by shades8438

from last night on BBC HD only one program can be viewed on BBC HD iplayer it but this is silly in such can't they renegotiate or at least in the future get online catch up HD rights.

How much extra licence fee are you willing to pay for them to do so?

Phazer

shades8438 · 30-04-2009, 21:26

yeah but some of the stuff is documentaries that they co produce or even fully pay for. I not expecting for Mad men or any of the US stuff to ready over night. Though I would think the cost is not that great given its only for 30 days after the transmission and its DRM'ed. They have already spent the money on the HD TV rights anyway why should they not make it easy for people with out freesat or cable or sky to see HD that all licence fee payers paid for.

20-04-2009, 22:11	#1
eimer3107 Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 208	BBC iPlayer in HD BBC iPlayer is to provide HD output... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8008886.stm ...but no indication of date

20-04-2009, 22:16	#2
eddyjo Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 21	Already here ! BBC HD is on iPlayer now.

21-04-2009, 00:04	#3
Brin1 Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 313	Have just tried the iplayer, (the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and indeed it's HD, but the bandwith needed must be enormous. What you get is a series of great quality still pictures with disconnected sound - and I'm using a powerbook G4 Mac with a good broadband connection. difficult to see the point, unless it's just for people who've never seen HD. It's unwatchable as it stands.

21-04-2009, 01:23	#4
john_locke Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 1,367	Quote: Originally Posted by Brin1 Have just tried the iplayer, (the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and indeed it's HD, but the bandwith needed must be enormous. What you get is a series of great quality still pictures with disconnected sound - and I'm using a powerbook G4 Mac with a good broadband connection. difficult to see the point, unless it's just for people who've never seen HD. It's unwatchable as it stands. Works fine here full screen on an intel Macbook Pro. Your G4 might be struggling a bit with the stream, perhaps?

21-04-2009, 02:06	#5
Snoods Forum Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Kilwinning, North Ayrshire. Posts: 6,107	Works perfectly here too on my PC.

21-04-2009, 06:03	#6
rehab Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 85	it works..when my bandwidth will allow it. I live in a largeish village and I'm close to my exchange. We have no LLU and no cable so the best we get is 8mb ADSL. Unfortunatly that's not really good enough for streamed HD media.

21-04-2009, 06:28	#7
POPMAN Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Leigh, Lancashire Posts: 135	Beware of your download limits peoples...wouldn't want any nasty surprises from your ISP.

21-04-2009, 07:44	#8
tammytastic Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Leicester Posts: 537	I noticed a pop-up when I tried caning the downloads warning my ISP might not approve !

21-04-2009, 08:39	#9
Brin1 Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 313	Quote: Originally Posted by john_locke Works fine here full screen on an intel Macbook Pro. Your G4 might be struggling a bit with the stream, perhaps? maybe ,,, will try again later

21-04-2009, 09:20	#10
Restorer Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,077	Quote: Originally Posted by Brin1 Have just tried the iplayer, (the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) and indeed it's HD, but the bandwith needed must be enormous. What you get is a series of great quality still pictures with disconnected sound - and I'm using a powerbook G4 Mac with a good broadband connection. difficult to see the point, unless it's just for people who've never seen HD. It's unwatchable as it stands. They talk about a min speed of 3500kbps for the 720p streams and 1500kbps for their new higher quality SD. However, I suspect CPU power has a lot to do with it. I get a little choppiness on a dual core 2.2GHz. Downloads though are fast - now coming off their own servers - look pretty good. Anyway read all about it here and there is a diagnosis page here.

21-04-2009, 09:38	#11
Tony Hoyle Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 1,703	A 2.6Ghz dual core also glitched occasionally, and their test page reckons my connection is easily fast enough for HD. I suspect there are bugs to be sorted out yet.

21-04-2009, 10:01	#12
mr klaw Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 127	TBH for HD I'd rather avoid any hiccups in my connection affecting my enjoyment, and just download them to the desktop app

21-04-2009, 10:22	#13
Restorer Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,077	Quote: Originally Posted by mr klaw TBH for HD I'd rather avoid any hiccups in my connection affecting my enjoyment, and just download them to the desktop app Same here except some, like Heroes, not available for download . Another great feature is HD downloads also available as wmv so you can download them straight into Media Center folders. I am very impressed with the speed at which the BBC has got on with the development of this service. From poxy pixelly little downloads to near broadcast quality of virtually the whole of their output in the space of 15 months is quite an achievement. Now if only they had applied this kind of zeal to the expansion of their broadcast HD service we would probably looking at 4 channel simulcasts by now .

21-04-2009, 17:40	#14
2Bdecided Forum Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 4,391	The embedded player (iPlayer web page), and the player in the Adobe Air download manager (iPlayer desktop), are both really inefficient. I can easily play files like this in VLC without any problem, whereas in the BBC players it stutters like mad. It's the right number of pixels to count as HD, but like most web HD, those pixels aren't particularly sharp and there are artefacts - so the subjective quality is close to good upscaled SD. Still, it's better than we've had before! Some screen grabs comparing the various iPlayer streams are here: http://s633.photobucket.com/albums/u...cided/iPlayer/ Cheers, David.

21-04-2009, 17:52	#15
suffolktoon Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Sunny Suffolk by the Sea Posts: 1,440	Stutters on my supposedly 20mb connection.

21-04-2009, 21:29	#16
klaeresource Inactive Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 751	What does this have to do with Sky+HD? Is Iplayer available on there now?

22-04-2009, 09:20	#17
CBers Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Kent Posts: 320	Quote: Originally Posted by POPMAN Beware of your download limits peoples...wouldn't want any nasty surprises from your ISP. It would be nice if the BEEB put in a scheduler in the iPlayer, so that we could download programmes outside of STM periods !!

22-04-2009, 11:20	#18
mossy2103 Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 68,711	Quote: Originally Posted by CBers It would be nice if the BEEB put in a scheduler in the iPlayer, so that we could download programmes outside of STM periods !! Well there are plans to allow for the pre-booking of programme downloads up to 7 days in advance.

22-04-2009, 11:57	#19
andybno1 Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Liverpool, UK Posts: 6,065	Quote: Originally Posted by Restorer Same here except some, like Heroes, not available for download . that is down to licencing rights from the people who make and distrobute the episodes to BBC. in america you can watch the episodes via the broadcast channels website for free (ABC or FOX is it?)...... I'm assuming since it is their creation they can do that just like the beeb does.

22-04-2009, 23:18	#20
alcockell Forum Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Reading, UK Posts: 23,357	Annoying here as welll - I get a good 4.5Mbps download rate, but only 350kbps stream.. they're now needing a minimum of 500kbps for TV streaming. I'm with Eclipse on Evolution 2, running Ubuntu 8.04.2 on a Thinkpad R61i...

24-04-2009, 15:41	#21
Andrue Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Brackley, UK Posts: 16,661	Quote: Originally Posted by rehab it works..when my bandwidth will allow it. I live in a largeish village and I'm close to my exchange. We have no LLU and no cable so the best we get is 8mb ADSL. Unfortunatly that's not really good enough for streamed HD media. Not really true. Depending on content 6Mb can be enough. Luxe HD transmit what is widely regarded as one of the best quality channels at 6Mb. OTOH they have complete control over what they film and broadcast and it's mostly low action. Of more relevance I suspect is congestion. Very few ISPs will give you full speed (6Mb on an 8Mb connection) in the evening. For a typical channel you would currently want more. Somewhere in excess of 12Mb. Anyway that's kind of irrelevant to the discussion because iPlayer never uses higher than 3.2Mb. What they call HD isn't really any such thing. It's better than SD but the compression artifacting is noticeable. On balance it's no worse than DTT though and quite impressive. I found no problems playing it at home with a 13Mb connection curtesy of Be..but then they are one of the few ISPs that give an almost constant speed 24/7. Surprisingly it looked good enough to watch at work and only have two load balanced 2Mb lines (so effectively max bandwidth is 1.8Mb).

DS Forums

BBC iPlayer in HD

24-04-2009, 16:00	#22
thorvertonian Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Devon Posts: 1,289	I have 4.5mb, and can watch the iPlayerHD fine

27-04-2009, 15:02	#23
shades8438 Forum Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Stockport Posts: 554	from last night on BBC HD only one program can be viewed on BBC HD iplayer it but this is silly in such can't they renegotiate or at least in the future get online catch up HD rights.

30-04-2009, 10:07	#24
The Phazer Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 8,213	Quote: Originally Posted by shades8438 from last night on BBC HD only one program can be viewed on BBC HD iplayer it but this is silly in such can't they renegotiate or at least in the future get online catch up HD rights. How much extra licence fee are you willing to pay for them to do so? Phazer

30-04-2009, 21:26	#25
shades8438 Forum Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Stockport Posts: 554	yeah but some of the stuff is documentaries that they co produce or even fully pay for. I not expecting for Mad men or any of the US stuff to ready over night. Though I would think the cost is not that great given its only for 30 days after the transmission and its DRM'ed. They have already spent the money on the HD TV rights anyway why should they not make it easy for people with out freesat or cable or sky to see HD that all licence fee payers paid for.