Blimey, BBC iPlayer has got good...

[Nick]

So the damn media centre didn't record part three of Torchwood...

But then the missus comes up with the idea of checking it out on iPlayer.

Of course, we've tried it before, but it's always been VERY blocky on the media centre playing back on our 42" panel.

But, seeing as it's Torchwood and I was behind by an episode, we gave it a crack.

First we tried the HD version, but on my crappy 1-1.5MB connection, it just kept pausing all the time, even though we waited 20 minutes to let it get ahead... but the picture quality was absolutely brilliant.

So, seeing streaming HD was rotten, we dropped back to the SD version, and you know, even on my 42" panel it was perfectly acceptable... certainly no worse quality than the ancient re-runs of Dempsey and Makepeace on ITV3,

So, Mr iPlayer bod, I take my hat off to you for letting me catch up without having to take the hit on quality just because I was working and missed it first time.

[stavroshamster]

Yeah, been streaming Torchwood through iplayer too, and in HD it looks good.
Have you tried downloading HD stuff though? I tried it and playing it back through iPlayer desktop on my 32" Panny looked awful - loads of aliasing. It looks much better with normal SD downloads, or streamed HD content. Don't really know why...

[MadduckUK]

bbc, making a new definition of HD just to confuse people

why could they just not call it LQ, standard and HQ :|

[lodore]

I watched something on the Iplayer a few weeks ago on my 42inch TV using my PS3 and it worked great.

[M O N S 7 A R]

Very Good on iPod touch, perfect quality and a very small buffer (proberly because of my pro connection).

They went for the online stream instead of an app. Meaning they can stream easier and dont have to wait a year for apple to approve the app.

[Terbinator]

Tbh i thought you could easily see the blocking on the HD streams. Also it was taking an age to buffer on my connection and downloading to the desktop was shockingly slow. But for SD content, i agree its great.

[Hicks12]

bbc, making a new definition of HD just to confuse people

why could they just not call it LQ, standard and HQ :|

Actually i think they are using true HD(albeit lower bitrate i bet) as the programs are related to bbc hd(only shown when they have been aired on hd channel). They do a higher quality one and a HD one, looks better than SD on my 22" and certainly is close to true hd(hd-dvd as reference)

[directhex]

Actually i think they are using true HD(albeit lower bitrate i bet) as the programs are related to bbc hd(only shown when they have been aired on hd channel). They do a higher quality one and a HD one, looks better than SD on my 22" and certainly is close to true hd(hd-dvd as reference)

iPlayer HD's bitrate is lower than BBC1 Freeview SD (!)

Event TV (i.e. shows that matter to the BBC) are broadcast at a rate of about 2 gig per hour (about 4.5 Mbit/sec). Compare to DVD, which is anything up to 10 Mbit/sec. iPlayer is 1.4 Mbit/sec

BBC HD on satellite is about 18 Mbit/sec, a Blu-Ray movie is up to about 35 Mbit/sec. iPlayer HD is 2.9 Mbit/sec

And where's the bloody HD downloads for toshwood ep4 and ep5?

[TAKTAK]

iPlayer HD's bitrate is lower than BBC1 Freeview SD (!)

Event TV (i.e. shows that matter to the BBC) are broadcast at a rate of about 2 gig per hour (about 4.5 Mbit/sec). Compare to DVD, which is anything up to 10 Mbit/sec. iPlayer is 1.4 Mbit/sec

BBC HD on satellite is about 18 Mbit/sec, a Blu-Ray movie is up to about 35 Mbit/sec. iPlayer HD is 2.9 Mbit/sec

Why do you know that :|?...

[Lanky123]

Whatever the bitrates it looks leagues apart from everything else I've seen streamed over the internet. Anyone care to speculate how much this is costing the BBC? I wouldn't want them to throw so much money at their bandwidth that all the programs have to be made on a shoestring.

[Funkstar]

Event TV (i.e. shows that matter to the BBC) are broadcast at a rate of about 2 gig per hour (about 4.5 Mbit/sec). Compare to DVD, which is anything up to 10 Mbit/sec. iPlayer is 1.4 Mbit/sec

This may have just been a quirk, but I had a couple of programs from BBC4 that peaked at 14mbit/sec. Complete pain in the arse, I couldn't put them on DVD at the time unless I re-ecompressed them.

[Timmy!!!]

iPlayer HD's bitrate is lower than BBC1 Freeview SD (!)

Event TV (i.e. shows that matter to the BBC) are broadcast at a rate of about 2 gig per hour (about 4.5 Mbit/sec). Compare to DVD, which is anything up to 10 Mbit/sec. iPlayer is 1.4 Mbit/sec

BBC HD on satellite is about 18 Mbit/sec, a Blu-Ray movie is up to about 35 Mbit/sec. iPlayer HD is 2.9 Mbit/sec

And where's the bloody HD downloads for toshwood ep4 and ep5?

True, but TV is broadcast using the MPEG2 codec wheras iPlayer uses H264 which is far more efficient.

I remember reading the reason the BBC chose 3.2 Mbit/sec is because this is the average broadband speed for UK residents. Obviously at 720 (p or i) at 3.2Mbit/sec there will be some blockyness but it is rather good considering it's coming down the old copper line! Hopefully the BBC will soon up the bandwidth and perhaps even provide 1080 HD content (Much to the ISP's complaning).

EDIT: Just realised you seperarated SD from HD, and therefore MPEG2 from H264. Still, the bit about the reason why it's 3.2 is valid.