SRF, RTS and RSI finally available in Full HD (1080p)

On my Swisscom box 21, I have another nomenclature:

Best quality

High quality

Quality standard

And on the right: 1x UHD

But in the options when I’m on RTS1 I only have High quality or Standard.

Does this mean that UHD is not active yet?

Note: I read @CorinaS’s announcement a little too quickly. This will be effective from mid-November.

@CorinaS thank you for this excellent news 😀

we can’t wait to see the difference of Full HD and the World Cup matches ⚽🇨🇭

I don’t understand the need to be UHD compatible to go from Full HD (1080p), or 1920×1080.

I remember the beginnings of the transition from SD to HD where the Swiss channels decided to switch from HD at a discount (720p or 1280×720) on the pretext that the images were better for sport, while the French channels were already broadcasting full HD (1080p). Both appear as HD on the TV Box, but for now the box must convert the Swiss channels to feed the HD screens which are all 1980×1080, which it will no longer have to do after this change.

DanielD

@DanielD

> French channels were already broadcasting full HD (1080p)

This is false, the French channels are in 1080i, it is the TV which compensates for the movement so that it is smooth.

DVBT DVBT2 Monitoring bitrate TF1 - R6 - TNT France Paris / National (digitalbitrate.com)

the hevc codec uses approximately 30% less data volume but more graphic resources at identical quality than the h.264 codec for an equivalent image resolution/depth here 1080p for the SRGSSR

A broadcast in 1080p format with h265 (UHD) or h264 (HD) but the volume of data transmitted is not identical.

Explanations necessary (in English but the video is explicit)

https://youtu.be/h9j89L8eQQk

@Papaye

For more than a year, SSR/SRG has been making its channels available in Full HD 1080p. 99% of customers rate this image as better than an HD image streamed at 720p due to the greater depth of field. Contradicting the claim that 99% see no difference. Since that time Swisscom has failed to transmit this better image format compared to some other providers. From now on, it will still be able to transmit this better image format, although we should not see a difference, but everyone finds the image better (which is just a complex).

The problem is that this image format will be transmitted with an even higher resolution, i.e. UHD. The image is therefore already scaled at Swisscom in its encoders (expensive devices which prepare the image received from the SSR/SRG for transport over the IP network). The missing information, the pixels, are added to the Full HD image, resulting in a UHD image. What the television or decoder itself normally does when the image has a lower resolution than that of the screen. (And so no, the image is not even better than the SSR/SRG original).

Example for the SRF:

The Full-HD signal is selected and output as a UHD signal. The other possibility would have been to increase the HD bandwidth overall, but this involves costs and is not easy to implement. This is why this workaround via the UHD profile was chosen. Rather, the SRF signal corresponds to bandwidth and UHD quality.

A little more detail:

The Full HD SRF signal is delivered in H264 and 30Mbit. It is significantly better than some satellite UHD signals and therefore should exceed the quality of some UHD channels. It will also be available in UHD quality during the 7-day replay phase, then the normal HD signal should play.

RTS 2 has been broadcast in Full HD since today (For RTS 1, you still have to wait two weeks).

We notice that it is thinner (especially in terms of the channel logo, if we compare with RTS 1).

@Kilvearn

thanks for the info 😀

And here is RTS1 available in Full HD 😉

Well, for the moment, the difference is not transcendent for me, I will have to look into the “in-house” RTS broadcasts.

On the other hand, I notice a small problem, when I turn on the TV and the box again after a few hours of sleep: when RTS1 is the starting channel, it is not broadcast in Full HD. In the “quality” menu, “Best quality” is grayed out and not selectable (only the other two are)

By switching to another channel and immediately returning to RTS1, the problem is resolved and it is then broadcast by default in “better quality”.

It’s not much, of course, but if you have to think about it every time…

Other people experiencing the problem?

@Kilvearn

thank you for the contribution and feedback 😀

>… when RTS1 is the starting channel, it is not broadcast in Full HD. In the “quality” menu, “Best quality” is grayed out and not selectable (only the other two are)…

The cited problem has not yet been identified 🤔

__Good to know:**

Coming out of long standby is often painful for the different TV-Box and can pose various problems, it takes a certain amount of warm-up time for them to be fully and correctly operational

Advice:

Turn on the TV-Box a few minutes before the TV, then switch to a few channels before going to the chosen program

If reset/reboot of the devices used have not been carried out for a certain time:

1. Perform a physical restart (reset/reboot) of the TV-Box and logic of the router (Internet-Box)

2. Test, is the problem still present?

__Optional additional information:*

- Replace Lindy CAT.7 Ethernet cables (CHF 34.40 at digitec)
- Connect TV-Box directly to the Internet-Box, always the best solution 😉
- Cable length 15 meters Lindy, 20 meters also available:

[Lindy Network cable (S/FTP, CAT7, 15 m) - buy on digitec](https://www.digitec.ch/fr/s1/product/lindy-cable-de-reseau-sftp-cat7-15 -m-cable-reseau-5748436)

@Black Mamba Thank you for this valuable information 🙂

I actually think that the box has a little difficulty seeing straight away that my TV is UHD compatible (which is a little surprising, given that the image format is in upscaled UHD anyway, even with the lower quality choices…)

I have already tried restarting the box and the router, to no avail. The TV-Box is directly connected to the router via Ethernet (Gigabit cables provided by Swisscom).

As for the startup sequence, the box remains on standby, and I have a Harmony remote control that starts the TV and the box at the same time.

Hoping that a potential solution will be found by Swisscom, otherwise I will continue the “zapping technique”.

On the other hand, I think that several users potentially risk finding themselves in the same situation, without even realizing that they are not benefiting from the “Best quality” without making channel changes…

Hello @Kilvearn,

I contacted our specialists following your remark concerning Full HD after a standby. Here is the feedback they gave me.

First, they advise checking that “best quality” is selected in the TV-Box settings, under “Video and Audio - Image quality”.

If this is indeed the case, and the error persists, you need to know if the phenomenon occurs when you let your TV-Box go into standby mode after 4 hours of non-use or if it appears when you turn off your Box and that it goes on standby.

In the first case, this is a known phenomenon which will be corrected in a future update. For the second situation, a trouble ticket can be opened so that checks can be carried out on your connection.

Let me know again if I should start the procedure for a ticket 😊.

Nice weekend

Hello @NathalieSI

Thank you for your response. Regarding your questions:

Yes, I checked that “best quality” is selected in the main parameters of TV-Box.

(Besides, when I switch, the channels are always in “better quality” (except RTS1 when the box starts directly on it))

The phenomenon occurs when I put the TV-Box to sleep with the remote control, and turn it back on several hours later (if I turn it back on immediately, it seems to me that “best quality” remains selected). I can’t say exactly how long after…

In any case, I don’t wait for the TV-Box to go to sleep on its own after 4 hours, I do it manually.

So happy to open a ticket 🙂

Thank you very much! Have a nice weekend!

Hello @Kilvearn,

Thank you very much for these details, it’s perfect. I have just forwarded them to our specialists. You will be contacted as soon as possible.

Beautiful day