Bbc iPlayer Now In High Definition

[Tomm]

Before you edited it you said it was near 500 by something

Anyway, it is HD. 720p HD to be precise as you can see in this screenshot:



Although for some reason it does not seem to play in firefox:

HD is the definition given to something that is the size of 1280 x 720 or greater. These videos aren't, they're more like 1000 x 800 and when blown up to fullscreen the quality is shocking.

[Stephen!]

Meh, quality is still shocking. Look at the pixellation.

[N!ck]

The resolution is 720p, but the bit rate is far lower than what you'd expect for HD, meaning it doesn't look particularly HD like. Faster moving scenes really show this. The downloaded version seems slightly better than the streamed, but not much. It's a big improvement over the standard service, but if they're going to do HD they should at least do it properly :S. The bit rates are around half to two thirds what they should be.

Edit: Thinking about it properly if they did it at proper bit rates then most people's internet connections would not be physically fast enough to download it at the rate required stream it (7000-8000Kbps - 0.9-1MB/s), but they could offer this bitrate in the downloaded version.

[Stephen!]

They should call it Super High Quality.

[Tomm]

Some of the HD (1080p) movies I have on my PC are around 35,000 - 40,000 kbps like below:

Show Hide

The resolution is 720p, but the bit rate is far lower than what you'd expect for HD, meaning it doesn't look particularly HD like. Faster moving scenes really show this. The downloaded version seems slightly better than the streamed, but not much. It's a big improvement over the standard service, but if they're going to do HD they should at least do it properly :S. The bit rates are around half to two thirds what they should be.

Edit: Thinking about it properly if they did it at proper bit rates then most people's internet connections would not be physically fast enough to download it at the rate required stream it (7000-8000Kbps - 0.9-1MB/s), but they could offer this bitrate in the downloaded version.

[bigdavecox90]

I have an HDMI socket on my laptop and also an HDTV, if I plug laptop into TV it should appear in HD?

[N!ck]

Some of the HD (1080p) movies I have on my PC are around 35,000 - 40,000 kbps like below:

Show Hide

Yeah. My 720p movies are around 6000Kbps on overage and around 8500Kbps at peak.

I just calculated that an episode I downloaded on iPlayer is around 2800Kbops on average.

[Kyle!]

I have an HDMI socket on my laptop and also an HDTV, if I plug laptop into TV it should appear in HD?

LOL! Your laptop will already be on a HD resolution, (Not certainly, if you're on a netbook or something.) HD is just a big resolution. 1080p is 1920x1080 and 720p I think is 720x1024. So it'll probably already be on HD.

[Thai-Man-Land]

I had an email about his earlier in the week - be careful if you aren't on unlimited internet plan - read below

The Beeb's iPlayer now offers image quality to rival freeview, but watching an hour programme now means using 600MB of your download allowance, not the prior 300MB. It's automatic: Open 'the large video window' and it'll use this quality if possible, though you can switch to 'use lower bandwidth version' for the old quality. HD Content: High def is now also available if selected, but then an hour uses over twice as much again; 1.5GB and requires a fast PC & connection. Check if your broadband's limited. Many impose monthly download limits eg 2GB, and after that charge per GB, so regular web viewers should consider an unlimited download deal - see the Cheap Broadband guide. Plus, install a bandwidth monitor like Rokario to check your actual usage.

[PoizZoNxX]

I had an email about his earlier in the week - be careful if you aren't on unlimited internet plan - read below

What ISP has a 2gb per month limit?