World Cup football coverage in UHD on BBC iPlayer

[MrJim]

I've been watching a bit of the World Cup football on the BBC iPlayer in UHD for the first time, & I must admit, it's a bit disappointing. It could just be my geriatric eyesight of course, but I really can't see all that much difference between UHD & the standard Freeview 1080p resolution. Certainly not four times the clarity, which in theory at least, it should be. I'm curious to hear whether anyone else has compared the two formats?

[jimbouk]

Would be interesting to see what the bit rates are, I know the algorithms are getting better but there is a limit. I did pop the football on via iPlayer on PS5 so could have been UHD? Can't say I noticed it though.

Maybe just need to sit closer to the TV

[MrJim]

Would be interesting to see what the bit rates are, I know the algorithms are getting better but there is a limit. I did pop the football on via iPlayer on PS5 so could have been UHD? Can't say I noticed it though.

Maybe just need to sit closer to the TV

When I go through the iPlayer app on my LG tv, after clicking on the 'watch live' button for the football, a menu pops up with the option to watch in UHD. On my PC I can reverse click on the video feed to see the bitrate (on 1440p monitor), but I don't know how to check it on my tv. It would be interesting to know though.

[Hoonigan]

I think the stream is so heavily compressed that any gains are completely removed. It's no better than 1080p.

[Terbinator]

I've been watching a bit of the World Cup football on the BBC iPlayer in UHD for the first time, & I must admit, it's a bit disappointing. It could just be my geriatric eyesight of course, but I really can't see all that much difference between UHD & the standard Freeview 1080p resolution. Certainly not four times the clarity, which in theory at least, it should be. I'm curious to hear whether anyone else has compared the two formats?

The major thing with the UHD stream really is the use of HDR/HLG which really opens up the minefield of just what image are people receiving as the biggest differentiator is going to be on TV being used.

I personally would say its a massive step up over terrestrial, but, I'm watching it on an OLED. Unless your using an OLED or decentish FALD LCD, you're missing half of the benefit.

As a side note I would say the benefit in clarity was a lot more noticeable on the Wimbledon coverage compared to WC, but then again I've watched a lot more football in UHD/HDR than I have tennis.

Edit 2: in my experience not every camera around the pitch is of the same standard, either. At least no in the CL.

[MrJim]

I personally would say its a massive step up over terrestrial, but, I'm watching it on an OLED. Unless your using an OLED or decentish FALD LCD, you're missing half of the benefit.

Funnily enough, I'm watching on a 48" LG OLED myself. I did notice the HDR symbol flash up when the iPlayer stream starts, but I'm aware that HDR is a bit of a minefield these days. There's HDR, and HDR. Although I can see a difference between the ordinary Freeview 1080i HD & the UHD stream, I wouldn't describe it as a massive step-up myself. It just looks...different. As I said in my original post though, my eyesight could well be a factor!

[Terbinator]

Funnily enough, I'm watching on a 48" LG OLED myself. I did notice the HDR symbol flash up when the iPlayer stream starts, but I'm aware that HDR is a bit of a minefield these days. There's HDR, and HDR. Although I can see a difference between the ordinary Freeview 1080i HD & the UHD stream, I wouldn't describe it as a massive step-up myself. It just looks...different. As I said in my original post though, my eyesight could well be a factor!

Have a mess with turning DTM on/off. With it on you're not getting the 'natural' image, but, I do know a lot of people prefer it on.

[DanceswithUnix]

I think the stream is so heavily compressed that any gains are completely removed. It's no better than 1080p.

There is a good argument, basically a video version of the oversampling / Nyquist sampling rate ideas that people are used to from audio, that you should have twice the pixels on a screen of the image you are trying to reproduce to get the best output.

But yeah, bitrate is mega important. Which is just as well when it seems local news for example is still recorded in SD, which is why Freeview news HD doesn't show it.

[Kovoet]

Got to be honest it's the first year ever where I couldn't care two hoots what happens in this world cup. With all the politics involved in this game I couldn't care what happens and the includes it's become all about the money now totally.

[dannyboy75]

I've been watching a bit of the World Cup football on the BBC iPlayer in UHD for the first time, & I must admit, it's a bit disappointing. It could just be my geriatric eyesight of course, but I really can't see all that much difference between UHD & the standard Freeview 1080p resolution. Certainly not four times the clarity, which in theory at least, it should be. I'm curious to hear whether anyone else has compared the two formats?

I thought the picture quality was noticeably better than HD, although obviously not as good as a 4K Blu-Ray disc. There also seemed to be fewer issues with buffering compared to the matches during Euro 2020.

The main issue I find is that the feed is typically 30-60 seconds behind the main broadcast on BBC1/2. This is a particular problem during England matches, as I kept hearing my neighbours down the street cheering before I'd seen the goal, which spoilt the moment slightly!

[Jonj1611]

Problem is even if it's 4K it doesn't mean anything, low quality 4K can look worse than good quality HD.

Take Netflix for an example, when everybody started streaming more a couple of years ago they dropped the bitrate of 4K, depending on what you were watching it looked noticeable worse