iPlayer UHD not working

[lucasjohnston]

Background: I've got a Philips 55OLED803 which, despite fully supporting HLG, does not support UHD with the native BBC iPlayer tv app. I also have a NVDIA Shield and Apple TV 4K, but of course neither of those support UHD iPlayer either 🙄 I used to use a 4K Fire Stick until they suspended that last year (see here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/questions/features/uhd-amazon-fire), and have since been begrudgingly without iPlayer UHD content.

I got a V6 box earlier this year and recently found out I should have access to UHD iPlayer content through it (woo!) but it's not working.

I can get HDR content through Netflix and the Virgin UHD channel, so I know the problem is specific to the V6 iPlayer app. I've played around with picture settings (currently I have all enabled, right up to 2160p passthrough), tried enabling iPlayer beta, even reset the entire box but am still getting no joy. It's quite frustrating. No UHD playback or even tag on the title.

Really want to get this working before the Doctor Who UHD simulcast via iPlayer on New Year's Eve! 
I'm also on Ultimate Oomph and might get upgraded to V360 this week (which would solve things 🤞) but don't want to rely on that.

Specs below:
iPlayer Application Version: 17.11.2.0
iPlayer Bigscreen Version: 4.5.2
iPlayer Framework Version: 11.2.0
iPlayer Device: TIVO STB 2016 LF UHD
iPlayer Colour Depth: 24 bits-per-pixel
iPlayer Screen & Layout Resolutions: 1280x720
V6 Video Output Format: All (up to 2160p pass-through)
V6 Platform: DCX960
V6 Hardware Version: 2048.0
V6 Software Version: 20.10.1.RC21
V6 HDMI Status: HDCP 2.2 enabled

[happyrobot]

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@lucasjohnston wrote:

Hi all - thanks for jumping in with your experiences too 🙂

I ended up going out to buy a Roku Premiere for £35 so I could debug this to see if it's a Virgin or Philips problem (hoping I can return it or be reimbursed once this is fixed), as it is the only 4K HLG stick currently supported by iPlayer.
It works *perfectly*, just like my Fire 4K Stick did before that was shut down last year, which I mentioned in my first post.
Outputting a 2160p HDR HLG stream when connected to HDMI2 (same setup as the V6 box).

@BenMcr Wide Colour Gamut is enabled and I'm connected to HDMI2.
Really struggle to see that as anything other than a V6 fault at this point

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Appreciate you replying and letting us know!

It's annoying because I bought a new Chromecast Ultra with Google TV, PS5, Virgin Box and the TV itself, none of which support iPlayer 4k. Only the V6 which doesn't work. 

What I've noticed with the auto detect is weird. I swapped the HDMI in some other ports and when going back to video output, a message appears saying 2160p has been detected. Then if I go through the auto detect process again on the same port, it selects 1080p, which I confirm.

I then switch HDMI ports and go back into to video output to check and 2160p is auto selected again (correctly). I then go through the auto detect option again and ... 1080p. 

Forcing 2160p should resolve that issue (and it does with every other app and Ultimate channel). 

Hopefully someone lurking can maybe suggest something too as this isn't an isolated issue. 

[lucasjohnston]

Yup, I have the same gripe here! I've got a recent 4K OLED Android TV with HLG support which cost £2k+, Apple TV 4K, Nvidia Shield, and Fire Stick 4K - absolutely none of them support iPlayer's UHD content. And the V6 box isn't working either 🙄
I love the BBC but will always be a bit annoyed they refuse to maintain their Apple TV app. I know budget is tight but they literally don't even have subtitle support and there's likely ~1 million units in use in the UK, I feel like it either shouldn't exist or should be maintained better.

Anyway, back on topic, I also have the same auto-detect weirdness with it seemingly randomly changing from 2160p to 1080p output, but forcing 2160p and 2160p passthrough doesn't do anything for iPlayer.

I'd make an educated guess that the team which built and maintains the iPlayer app is using an incorrect function (probably from some Arris SDK) which returns the box's *detected format* rather than the *format in use* during a HLG support check, so reverts to HD.
That means it'd be on Virgin/Arris to fix their auto-detect format, but more importantly an issue for Virgin/iPlayer to ensure the app accounts for forced 2160p output.

If my suspicions are right and any Virgin/iPlayer engineers are lurking on this thread that are worried about people incorrectly turning this on, I'd suggest either adding a "Force HLG" toggle in iPlayer settings which shows a pop-up dialog that says something like:

"HLG is not currently detected, but 2160p content is being output. Do you want to force HLG content?"

It gives us a work around, shouldn't be too hard to implement, and requires an understanding of HLG so probably won't be found by anyone unless they're digging for the option which means it shouldn't cause any CS inbound. Anyone forcing HLG is probably in the same boat as us 🙂

[happyrobot]

I've also raised a support ticket with iPlayer. Have no idea if their tech support is as redundant as Virgin's when you reach out to them, but hopefully not. 

Also strange that the resolution is forced to 720p on the iPlayer app on V6 (which supports 4k), but on my Chromecast Ultra with Google TV, it doesn't support 4K via iPlayer, yet still outputs 1080p according to the app information of the iPlayer. 

[happyrobot]

Bumping for mods

[DJ_Shadow1966]

Hello

Bumping has the opposite effect as it will place you at the bottom of the queue as Forum Staff answer oldest posts first without a reply first, and can take upto a week to get to your post as they are quite busy, the forum is not a direct contact with Virginmedia, if you require a quick answer then it is best to call.

Regards Mike

[IceCoffee]

 

I thought I would share my experience for others looking for help, as I have iPlayer UHD/4Kworking fine on my Virgin V6 Box.

First up I would like to point out that my TV is nothing special it's a 65" Samsung 4k TV from 2014 (UE65HU8500) it does not support HDR or HLG.

The biggest issue seems to be HDCP 2.2 If your HDMI port does not support it then UHD content does not even show up, just the HD equivalents. I had to trawl through my TV manual to find out that the ONLY HDMI port that supports HDCP 2.2 is very randomly HDMI port 3 of 4. After connecting the V6 Box to that port still nothing 🙁 and then I rebooted the V6 Box and hey presto UHD iPlayer 😊. I also noted a probably glitch in the V6 Box in that once it has booted connected to a HDCP 2.2 compliant port, you can move it to any old HDMI port and iPlayer seems to retain UHD status until the V6 Box is rebooted again.

So in summary special TV not required, and make sure the actual HDMI port you are connected to is HDCP 2.2 compliant, it's possible you only have 1 port that is, and it's not necessarily the first port.

[happyrobot]

Bumping has the opposite effect and yet it has been 7 months since this post. 

[Kath_F]

Hi happyrobot, 

Thanks for popping back here. 

If you are still having issues with this, please try following the steps given above by IceCoffee and let us know how you get on. 

This is mainly a Community Forum so where we see the Community getting involved, unless there is an account specific issue, we wouldn't reply. If you need staff to check your account and no one has replied within 7 days, you can post again and flag to a moderator for a staff member to take a look. 

Thanks,

[happyrobot]

^^ Another rubbish reply. The advice the other user gave was already answered in many of the previous posts. Another example of Virgin being a terrible company. 

[IceCoffee]

Ok dude, I can see you're not happy. I don't actually work for Virgin, but I do work as an electronics technician.

So first up, what model TV do you have? (Full model number please)