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Over-saturation on iPlayer UHD

MontysEvilTwin said:
Install the Youtube-dl package and download the programme using the command line (Telnet) or also install the Qtube package and download through Webif. If using Telnet, it is best to open an abduco session first (install the abduco package) to keep the session live if the Telnet connection drops:
Code: 
Lounge# abduco -A x                                                            
Lounge# youtube -F https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0d5w2r5/the-english-series-1-3-vultures-on-the-line?seriesId=p0d5vx96
The '-F' switch lists all available formats, which for standard iPlayer (HD) is 1280 x 720 at 50 fps. It will download this format by default: run the youtube command again without the '-F' switch.
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Thanks for the info - useful if I want to download streamed content, which I didn't think was possible.
However, for normal broadcast programmes I feel that it's all too much like hard work for the odd programme that fails to record and also happens to be streamed in UHD! It's only happened once, and that was last November, because the Humax died a death (fixed, after advice on this forum, with a 35p capacitor!). If the situation changes (i.e the Beeb suddenly decides to stream all programmes in UHD) then I'll have to think again...
 
Rodders53 said:
Hmmm... that means IMHO the Samsung is playing silly beggars with the stream then and not auto changing to the correct colour space??
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Yes, that would appear to be the case.
Rodders53 said:
Have you checked for firmware updates on the TV? Does the 'Picture Clarity' work when in iPlayer on your TV (known issue for your model, link above)? Can you find any Auto setting for colour space (outside iPlayer) that might help when applied to your usual settings?
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I'll check that tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.
Rodders53 said:
Qutube etc.,. sounds a bit of a learning curve but might well work for you?

Or can you connect a laptop by hdmi / cast an iPlayer stream to the TV from another device and bypass the Samsung iPlayer implementation?
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To be honest, it's too much of a palaver - see my answer to MontysEvilTwin above.
 
mike_m said:
To be honest, it's too much of a palaver
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It's very easy. Find the programme on the iPlayer site, copy the link to it, paste in into the Qtube (Queue Video Download) page on the HDR's WebIf and click Download in Background. Then you just watch it later when it's done it. You can queue multiple things and it'll download them sequentially. You can of course keep an eye on the queue too.
 
I may be wrong, or may be referring to an old version of the iPlayer interface, but I thought it offered settings within iPlayer to choose what quality you want your content.
 
I mentioned this thread to a family member who has a Manhattan recorder and, watching 'Gold', he had to change the iPlayer video settings to the on below best as the box froze twice on UHD. Didn't have any problem with colour saturation.
 
Black Hole said:
I may be wrong, or may be referring to an old version of the iPlayer interface, but I thought it offered settings within iPlayer to choose what quality you want your content.
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Yes, that's the case with my version of iPlayer - but there are only two settings : 'Standard' (everything in SD) and 'Best Quality'. ('the highest quality video your internet can handle'). In my case, my internet speed can handle full HD but nothing higher. HD programmes play correctly, while UHD programmes get scaled down to regular HD, but with the colour space setting. On the Standard setting, all programmes have the correct colour space, but of course are in the old 768 x 576 format.

I suspect that the whole iPlayer interface was designed when average internet speeds were much lower, and 'Best Quality' was really intended for full HD, when many people didn't have the broadband speed to cope. At the time there was no colour issue, because SD and HD shared the same colour space.
 
RobH1 said:
I mentioned this thread to a family member who has a Manhattan recorder and, watching 'Gold', he had to change the iPlayer video settings to the on below best as the box froze twice on UHD. Didn't have any problem with colour saturation.
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It would be interesting to know what his normal broadband speed is - perhaps it occasionally drops below the threshold for UHD, causing the freezes?
 
mike_m said:
It would be interesting to know what his normal broadband speed is - perhaps it occasionally drops below the threshold for UHD, causing the freezes?
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I've messaged him but I'm confident it is over 60Mbps steady fttc.
 
prpr said:
<Cough> 720x576 (or possibly 704x576), for TV anyway.
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Yes, I'd forgotten. I seem to remember we used 768 on the computers when creating CGI content for previews, because we had square pixels on our monitors, and then flip the 'D1' switch in the rendering software to output images in 720, which would then be transferred frame-by-frame to an Abekas storage device, then finally played out to D1 video tape. In the late 90s we started rendering in 720 anamorphic for the new wide-screen TVs.

prpr said:
<Cough> Rec.601 vs Rec.709
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Oh, right. I didn't know they'd changed it for HD - I'd retired by then!
 
I too have watched the English prog in HD. Which looked great. Watching something on iplayer noticed as you that it was available in UHD and tried it for a few minutes. It did not look right and i thought I'd give it a miss. Can't remember now what did not look right.
 
OK, I finally have a simple fix to this - not perfect, but good enough for me. When iPLayer streams a UHD image, my TV recognises it as different from regular HD, and resets the picture to its default UHD settings. The Colour Space setting is set to 'Native', which in turn sets the colour gamut to DCI-P3. If I change the Colour Space setting to Custom, and the colour gamut to BT.2020, I lose the super-saturated look, and everything looks more natural. Luckily the TV remembers this setting when I watch other UHD programmes, while returning to normal for regular HD.
The colours are perhaps a little under-saturated on this setting - and might benefit from some further tweaking in the individual picture settings - but plenty good enough for us, as we're only watching iPLayer if something has failed to record on the hummys.
Many thanks to everyone on the forum for all the help with this!
 
:thumbsup_: Great!

Native (to the pictures received) or Auto should have displayed with correct colour space one would have hoped. But thankfully you've found a solution that works for you.

UHD HDR BT2020 has a wider colour gamut then Rec709 for SDR HD material so might appear 'different'? In theory more realistic, though? You are probably better placed than I to know with more recent Industry experience. ;)

My Hisense appears to do this colour space switching automatically with its default settings. Neither your TV nor mine are true 10 bit colour depth displays though, and use frame rate control on the panel's native 8 bits to simulate the 10 bit colours.
 
Rodders53 said:
You are probably better placed than I to know with more recent Industry experience. ;)
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Not really! Although I didn't retire from business until 2016, I'd stopped having any hands-on participation many years earlier - when HD had only just started to be broadcast, and UHD was just a gleam in NHK's eye. So when I was working, there was mostly only one TV colour space to contend with, and the biggest argument was whether LEDs would ever be as good as CRTs!

As far as my issue with iPlayer UHD goes, the TV does switch colour space settings automatically, but there seems to be a mismatch between what the streamed UHD signal's colour gamut actually is, and what the TV thinks it is. I have no idea whether that's an issue with the iPlayer app or the TV's software. Anyway, no longer a pressing problem.
 
mike_m said:
OK, I finally have a simple fix to this - not perfect, but good enough for me. When iPLayer streams a UHD image, my TV recognises it as different from regular HD, and resets the picture to its default UHD settings. The Colour Space setting is set to 'Native', which in turn sets the colour gamut to DCI-P3. If I change the Colour Space setting to Custom, and the colour gamut to BT.2020, I lose the super-saturated look, and everything looks more natural. Luckily the TV remembers this setting when I watch other UHD programmes, while returning to normal for regular HD.
The colours are perhaps a little under-saturated on this setting - and might benefit from some further tweaking in the individual picture settings - but plenty good enough for us, as we're only watching iPLayer if something has failed to record on the hummys.
Many thanks to everyone on the forum for all the help with this!
Click to expand...
The thing is that whilst The English looks wrong, the Frozen Planet 2 looks excellent without changing any settings on my tv.
 
sine24 said:
The thing is that whilst The English looks wrong, the Frozen Planet 2 looks excellent without changing any settings on my tv.
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Same TV make and model as the OP, or different?

Check if changing any UHD colour space options on your TV while watching iPlayer The English fixes it and if that setting is also good for Frozen Planet and other UHD progs?

No harm in contacting iPlayer with your findings (and details of your device), it may help iron out glitches / errors (if there are any) in this Beta service before it's launched properly. ;)
 
Rodders53 said:
No harm in contacting iPlayer with your findings (and details of your device), it may help iron out glitches / errors (if there are any) in this Beta service before it's launched properly. ;)
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I did submit a report to iPlayer, with all the details (including device model number, etc). They interpreted it as a request to watch UHD iPlayer content in HD, and gave me idiot-level instructions on how to select HD from the Video Quality menu ("Choose either Best Quality, High Definition or Standard Definition" - you don't say! I'd never have thought of that!). Then as an afterthought, they added "If you're only seeing Best Quality instead of High Definition, this means your TV supports HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). This means you can get the best quality video your internet speed can support. Programme quality will adapt to the speed of your internet connection." Which, I take it, means that in my case I don't have the option to explicitly set HD, because my TV is too smart! Damn.
 
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