Britbox UK - UK SVoD Platform.

Netflix tracker website @whatonnetflix has noticed that a lot of BBC content is leaving Netflix at the end of the month.

Is it all heading for BritBox 👀👀👀? https://t.co/kHXi3RHbCc pic.twitter.com/mIeFNH6mQl

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) March 3, 2020

What with the Disney goingons too, it’s a very interesting time for SVOD services. Must be a hard decision to juggle the income from a popular service like Netflix vs bringing programmes ‘home’ to boost a fledgling service.

Such a shame that from what I’ve read the BritBox UI isn’t very good and no 50i. I must get around to trying it...

Doesn’t this happen every so often with Netflix though? A content deal with a major supplier is about to expire and a ton of content is flagged as leaving, only for the deal to be renewed with just days to spare?

It's still much better than Amazon Prime's though.

Tiny detail - but very few streaming services (the only one I can think of is one of the early, now deprecated, iPlayer-on-DVB implementations) use 50i (aka i25) for streaming. Sky's download service uses it, but the dominant streaming services that offer 50Hz fluid motion (iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video, ZDF and ARD in Germany etc.) use 50p (aka p50). This is because a lot of platforms have very poor support for full-motion deinterlacing (and it often requires more power). Android platforms in particular have very patchy support for replay of interlaced content with on-the-fly deinterlacing to 2x frame rate (which is required for full motion)

Deinterlacing 50i (aka i25) sources to 50p (aka p50) rather than to 25p (aka p25) at source, prior to streaming, makes sense in this scenario (as you remove the requirement for the receiving/displaying platform to have to deinterlace)

The one caveat to this is that 1080p50 h.264 is a higher level/profile than is required for 720p50 and 1080i25 DVB broadcasts, so deinterlacing 1080i25 to 720p50 makes some sense in compatibility terms.

Sky can use 50i (aka i25) for their Sky HD download platform as it only operates on a platform that they 100% control, and that has guaranteed interlaced decoding and output functionality (and will be connected to a display capable of deinterlacing).

(What does Sky Q do when streaming hard drive recordings made off-air to tablets and phones over local WiFi - does it deinterlace to p25 or p50?)

I don't know about Sky Q, but the Virgin V6 box deinterlaces to 25p when watching on phones and tablets, or at least it does on the ones we have. Maybe higher spec and resolution tablets get 50p conversions?

Fairly obvious that posters complaint though was that BritBox converts 50i footage to 25p rather than 50p, rather than specifically that they don't stream in 50i. Still one of the most ridiculous downsides of most internet streaming services, seeing as convering 50/60i to 50/60p is fairly trivial these days. Even many of the ones that do only offer it on certain live streams, but not on other content (i.e. Amazon Prime, and Hulu in the US). The iPlayer is one of the only ones that does it on both live and recorded content.

Sky Q deinterlaces to 25p when streaming to the Sky Go app, same as the online streams provided by Sky Go.

Britbox begins phased launch on YouView (all boxes and providers)

From today, @BritBox_UK will be made available to selected devices on YouView starting with Humax Retail T2000 devices.
More information about this release can be found here: https://t.co/rnm0rTAy8a pic.twitter.com/2wzi3IcA1c

— YouView (@YouViewSupport) March 31, 2020

Channel 4 content has arrived on Britbox today.

And it seems they're promoting it with a new ad (partially cutoff here...) Not everyday you see all the terrestrial broadcaster's logos in one place.



Just think what might have been if it had been allowed a decade ago. Remember when we had beta invites* for SeeSaw/Kangaroo?

* Please do not try to vote or enter any competition or interactivity in this thread, as it may not count and you may still be charged.

Classic CITV shows coming to BritBox:

https://www.rxtvlog.com/2020/04/classic-childrens-itv-shows-added-to.html

Shame they are only adding pilot episodes and not the full series for a fair few shows. Hopefully that's just the start and full series will be put on eventually.

I would imagine they're testing the waters.