The BBC’s own streaming service still doesn’t offer every user the same full HD experience when live streaming its channels, in contrast to traditional TV platforms.
That’s despite the BBC assuring viewers that “all BBC channels are now available in HD, including English regions, BBC Alba and BBC Parliament” on the BBC iPlayer.
Currently, the BBC only offers full HD resolution (1920x1080p) streams on some devices, including Sky Q.
For everyone else, analysis of the iPlayer web streams for RXTV show that the maximum resolution is still 1280×720, and that doesn’t include the BBC English regions nor channels like BBC Alba or BBC Two NI, which max out at a lower, non-HD resolution of 960×540.
That contrasts to the 1920×1080 resolution offered by default on all BBC channels via satellite, cable and IPTV/OTT platforms from BT, Sky and Virgin, and most – but not all – BBC channels on Freeview, where limited bandwidth restricts the number of HD channels.
The BBC’s definition of HD is linked to the minimum resolution allowed to be referred to as HD: 720p.
However, some iPlayer users may still have experienced an improvement in picture quality, as the bitrate for some streams is now higher than it was until recently.
The BBC’s list of devices that support iPlayer 1080p streams does not appear to have been recently updated, so it’s unclear how the number of supported devices has changed as manufacturers launch new models.
For comparison, ITVX offers a maximum 1080p resolution for its live streams. But ITVX live streams are not available at all on some TVs.
▶ BBC iPlayer live streams: minimum and maximum resolutions
The resolution offered by the iPlayer is dependent on your device and connection speed. Our analysis used various low latency fibre broadband connections from different providers, with speeds of up to 200Mbps to ensure we were served the best quality streams available. The BBC will not offer 1080p streams to unsupported HD devices, even if sufficient bandwidth is available.
| Channel (Alphabetical order) | Minimum resolution | Maximum resolution Up to 1920×1080 on some devices only, otherwise: |
|---|---|---|
| BBC ALBA | 192×108 | 960×540 |
| BBC FOUR | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| BBC NEWS | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| BBC ONE English Regions | 192×108 | 960×540 |
| BBC ONE National Feeds | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| BBC PARLIAMENT | 192×108 | 960×540 |
| BBC RED BUTTON 1 | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| BBC THREE | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| BBC TWO | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| BBC TWO Nations | 192×108 | 960×540 |
| CBBC | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| CBeebies | 704×396 | 1280×720 |
| S4C | 192×108 | 960×540 |
| Sports Streams* | 512×288 | 1280×720 |
The iPlayer was not offering a 4K UHD live stream during the analysis period.
Marc Thornham