BBC Begins Livestreaming World Cup in 4K HDR, Says Latency a Big Issue

The BBC is encouraging viewers to share comments about the broadcaster’s livestreaming trials of 29 World Cup matches in 4K with hybrid log-gamma HDR over its iPlayer internet catchup service (see 1805300003), said Andy Quested, head of BBC production standards, at the SES Ultra HD Conference Tuesday in London. The BBC is posting continuous information updates on its blog. It’s stressing that the broadcasts are only a trial, to find out what can and can’t be done with livestreaming in 4K HDR. For the World Cup, “we are using a mix of HD and UHD cameras, with the feed from wireless HD cameras and HD studio cameras upscaled to UHD,” said Quested. Many of the viewer comments concerned latency, with the sound and picture drifting significantly out of sync, he said. In some instances, iPlayer viewers hear cheers from their neighbors’ live-broadcast HD feeds, well ahead of seeing the action livestreamed on their TVs in UHD, he said. Quested recalled how early streaming experiments left the sound and picture several minutes out of sync, because the signals needed to travel around the world by different routes. Things are much better now, he said, but there is still room for improvement in IP latency. Internet speed is all-important, Quested said. “People forget about what the kids are doing with games consoles upstairs, and what other people are doing in flats down the street,” he said. “And an Ethernet cable connection will generally be more reliable than Wi-Fi. In many respects, where we are now with UHD and HDR gets us back to where we were with the old Arriflex Super 16 cameras.”