[Brekkie]

I suspect most viewers outside forums such as these really don't notice or care about the difference between SD and HD, never mind anything more technical.

[James2001]

I'm not sure just because deciding many non-geeky viewers won't notice is an excuse for streaming services to keep putting out inferior quality video to what you can get on broadcast TV and physical media.

[Neil Jones]

I'm not sure just because deciding many non-geeky viewers won't notice is an excuse for streaming services to keep putting out inferior quality video to what you can get on broadcast TV and physical media.

Considering the decision to cram more and more stuff on Freeview and reduce the bit rate and/or the resolution results in mushy looking pictures, I would welcome the iPlayer at least to attempt to make the picture look semi-decent.

Sometimes streaming services are limited as to what they can do, if they're supplied with x generation prints that are old, faded, tatty, originally made for "this film has been formatted to fit your TV" marketing junk and it looks like its seen better days, well nothing you do is going to make it any better whatever you pump it out as.

Must also be remembered physical media so far as DVD are concerned are reduced quality from the off anyway - especially if they were movies, which have been bounced down from film stock/masters and then squashed through MPEG2 compression to meet the DVD standard. I presume Blu-Ray is compressed as well, possibly MPEG4.

[harshy]

I think BluRay is high bitrate mp4 or is h265?

[James2001]

Sometimes streaming services are limited as to what they can do, if they're supplied with x generation prints that are old, faded, tatty, originally made for "this film has been formatted to fit your TV" marketing junk and it looks like its seen better days, well nothing you do is going to make it any better whatever you pump it out as.

They could still put out 50/60i content as 50/60p rather than 25/30p (which is what I'm referring to as inferior to TV and physical media) as virtually everyone other than the iPlayer does, that alone would put out a significant visual improvement on that content (not just in terms of movement, but in getting back the lost resolution from throwing away half the fields, which also affects 24/25/30p shot content mastered in 50/60i).

[IanJRedman]

I think BluRay is high bitrate mp4 or is h265?

Blu-ray is MPEG-4. Theoretically it also supports MPEG-2 at HD resolution, but you'd have to be insane to use that.

Ultra HD Blu-ray is H265/HEVC.

[James2001]

Strictly speaking, Blu-Ray's H.264, Or VC-1. There's several codecs that come under MPEG4. (though H.264 is the most common).

[Pete]

watching the new look breakfast on iPlayer live I noticed that the live stream of BBC One still has the classic HD red screen of doom during the opts.

[harshy]

It’s like that on 27.5w as well must be for freeview

[Brekkie]

watching the new look breakfast on iPlayer live I noticed that the live stream of BBC One still has the classic HD red screen of doom during the opts.

Presumably with the SD channels being switched off on satellite the legacy single stream (I think they're keeping one girl now at least) will now have the screen of doom instead.