Poor quality video for local TV when streamed via apps on Apple TV

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Sienna

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#3067376 23-Apr-2023 14:39

Ok thanks. I don't have home theatre or sound bars. I just want to be able to watch reasonable quality FTA TV. From the replies posted on this thread, I now realise that this will never be possible using live TV via either the TVNZ+ or ThreeNow app. This is new news to me and so helps me decide about possible next steps.

Oblivian

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#3067377 23-Apr-2023 14:45

Personal preference

Some people don't care or haven't been spoilt by VTV HD streams to spot the difference.

Many don't even realise they are missing out as they start with what's available on the TVs off the shelf these days.

farcus

1554 posts

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#3067380 23-Apr-2023 14:59

tvnz+ (tvnzondemand) used to have a selection of streams @ 1080, 720 and SD. Then a couple of years back they dropped the 1080 stream.
TV3 has never been better than 576 (SD)
I think PrimeTV (not amazon prime) may stream in 1080p. Have no idea if there is any app for that channel though.

Oblivian

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#3067388 23-Apr-2023 15:37

farcus:

tvnz+ (tvnzondemand) used to have a selection of streams @ 1080, 720 and SD. Then a couple of years back they dropped the 1080 stream.
TV3 has never been better than 576 (SD)
I think PrimeTV (not amazon prime) may stream in 1080p. Have no idea if there is any app for that channel though.

Are you talking pre three takeover by Discovery? Because their online catalog/offerings were apparently all offloaded to discoverys CDN/catalogue sources and changes made.

I'm lead to believe these are piped from the appropriate 'real' sources.

However can't bring up similar on the Samsung - can't show stream information. It does some jittery upscale on TVNZ. And there is still no three app. Despite the freeview one now being defunct.

farcus

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#3067392 23-Apr-2023 16:11

Oblivian:

Are you talking pre three takeover by Discovery? Because their online catalog/offerings were apparently all offloaded to discoverys CDN/catalogue sources and changes made.

I'm lead to believe these are piped from the appropriate 'real' sources.

However can't bring up similar on the Samsung - can't show stream information. It does some jittery upscale on TVNZ. And there is still no three app. Despite the freeview one now being defunct.

interesting
TV3 has absolutely nothing I want to watch so it is a while since I have taken a look . . .
I just had a look at the live stream on the threenow website and it does indeed have a selection of streams (including 1080).
Looking at the live stream in the 3now app on my Mi Box S - it actually looked not too bad (although there is no way to select streams - guessing it adapts based on network speed).
So, better picture. Still crappy content :-)

antoniosk

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#3067405 23-Apr-2023 17:11

Sienna:

Thanks for the replies.

Live TV via the TVNZ+ app is certainly better than TV3 via the ThreeNow app but the quality is not great. It is also variable. I am inclined to think that my Wifi set up is fine given that all devices at home are connected via Wifi and I can't say that I have noticed any glitches.

It seems that I have 2 options if I want to watch the local channels in similar video quality to what I had on VTV. One is to install a terrestrial aerial which I really do not want to do. The other is to buy a streaming device that either has Freeview installed or that it can be installed on as my 2016 LG TV is too old to get the Freeview app directly.

The SmartVU dongle comes with Freeview installed and currently costs just under $130 so should work straight out of the box.

I understand Freeview can be 'sideloaded' to an Amazon Fire TV stick which is currently $67 at Harvey Norman. I am tempted to get this to see if it does what I want. If it doesn't, then I could get a SmartVU dongle.

My TV viewing is pretty simple and I never really stray much from the FTA channels.

Does this seem like a good approach? My choice of the Amazon Fire stick is largely based on price. Would I be better off getting the SmartVU dongle, or a Google Chromecast and loading Freeview on that?

Thanks once again.

Is it possible to run an ethernet cable from your router to the apple tv and completely take wifi out of the equation? I've just looked at the apps vs freeview on my devices, and they begin low-res and move to ok pretty quickly. As many people have already said here, if the transcoding on the tv3/tvnz gateways is poor, no technology you own will improve it - if the appletv isnt displaying it well, i really doubt the other kit will be an improvement

________

Antoniosk

alasta

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#3067419 23-Apr-2023 18:49

I watch live streaming on ThreeNow on my AppleTV and it looks fine to me. Having said that, my TV is a 42" that's more than ten years old so maybe I have lower standards than some people.

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Sienna

17 posts

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#3067421 23-Apr-2023 19:15

I went and got an Amazon Firestick this afternoon and installed Freeview on it using the instructions that I found in another thread. TV3 is now watchable again. Interestingly, I would say that the quality is better on the ThreeNow app using the Firestick TV than it is using the app on the Apple TV. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me as if the root cause of the problem is the quality of the source, then I wouldn't have expected the device you used to view it to make any difference.

I didn't have a long enough ethernet cable to try connecting my Apple TV to ethernet. That was why I thought that maybe a Powerline adapter would be an option. It also wasn't possible for me to physically move the TV to where the modem/router is so I could connect the ATV to the ethernet port on the router. So I will never know if connecting the ATV via ethernet would have helped.

For now, I am happy with the quality that I now have. Thanks to those who replied to my post as your comments helped me work out a solution that works for me.

davidcole

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#3067424 23-Apr-2023 19:49

Hmm Interesting. Not with tvnz but I found the upscaling of the apple tv on a 4K tv better than the tv itself.

I should try tvnz Ondemand and seen if I notice anything. Broadcast is ok though.

Most other content is Plex. Generally 1080 though. With the Apple TV upscaling to 4k

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farcus

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#3067884 25-Apr-2023 13:24

farcus:

interesting
TV3 has absolutely nothing I want to watch so it is a while since I have taken a look . . .
I just had a look at the live stream on the threenow website and it does indeed have a selection of streams (including 1080).
Looking at the live stream in the 3now app on my Mi Box S - it actually looked not too bad (although there is no way to select streams - guessing it adapts based on network speed).
So, better picture. Still crappy content :-)

Thought I'd give three news a look last night since it is many many years since watching.
That live stream was definitely not in 1080 (or 720). Although the ads appeared to be HD.
Checked a couple of on demand episodes of the news and that also was not HD.
Does TV3 news get broadcast in HD on the terrestrial network, and if so, why would this one thing not be streamed in HD when most other content is?

fe31nz

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#3068014 25-Apr-2023 23:36

farcus:

Does TV3 news get broadcast in HD on the terrestrial network, and if so, why would this one thing not be streamed in HD when most other content is?

Below is the mediainfo output from my MythTV recording of "Newhub Live at 6pm" today. It is 1080i (1920x1080, interlaced, top field first) with an average bit rate of 6736 kbit/s (including all streams). So, yes, it is HD although not 1080p. Since it is very rare to stream in an interlaced format, I would guess that it will be being deinterlaced before being streamed, but I do not know what the streaming format they use is. Since deinterlacing is a difficult thing to do and uses lots of CPU, it is possible that they stream the Three Plus 1 channel version of it, which is an SD format that I think is not interlaced, probably 576p but maybe 720p.

root@mypvr:/mnt/rec2/recordings# mediainfo 1003_20230425055900.ts
General
ID : 31 (0x1F)
Complete name : 1003_20230425055900.ts
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 2.89 GiB
Duration : 1 h 4 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 6 376 kb/s

Video
ID : 450 (0x1C2)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=25
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1 h 4 min
Maximum bit rate : 15.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : MBAFF
Scan type, store method : Separated fields
Scan order : Top Field First
Language : 0x000000
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio #1
ID : 400 (0x190)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AAC LC SBR
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication
Commercial name : HE-AAC
Format settings : NBC
Muxing mode : LATM
Codec ID : 17-2
Duration : 1 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 108 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 23.438 FPS (2048 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -619 ms
Language : English

Audio #2
ID : 410 (0x19A)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 400 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -841 ms
Stream size : 178 MiB (6%)
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main

Audio #3
ID : 420 (0x1A4)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AAC LC SBR
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication
Commercial name : HE-AAC
Format settings : NBC
Muxing mode : LATM
Codec ID : 17-2
Duration : 1 h 4 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 108 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 23.438 FPS (2048 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -619 ms
Language : English
Language, more info : Visual impaired commentary
Editorial classification : Visual impaired commentary
Mix type : Independent

Text
ID : 1020 (0x3FC)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : DVB Subtitle
Codec ID : 6
Duration : 1 h 4 min
Maximum bit rate : 70.0 kb/s
Delay relative to video : 3 s 180 ms
Language : English

Menu
ID : 311 (0x137)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Duration : 1 h 4 min
List : 450 (0x1C2) (AVC, 0x000000) / 400 (0x190) (AAC, English) / 410 (0x19A) (AC-3, English) / 420 (0x1A4) (AAC, English) / 1020 (0x3FC) (DVB Subtitle, English) / 1003 (0x3EB) () / 1004 (0x3EC) () / 8000 (0x1F40) ()
Language : 0x000000 / English / English / English / English
Maximum bit rate : 12563600

Oblivian

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#3068016 26-Apr-2023 00:32

So they actually have an AC3 stream for audio buried there available?

What the. Need to see if the old Sony amp lights up happy. Hard to tell with clunkyo.

One fed to Kodi sure doesn't serve it up default.

Spyware

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#3068018 26-Apr-2023 01:09

TV3 news as broadcast on the terrestrial network is 1080i and has been for years but the non studio content, i.e., 95% of stories apart from the odd local story, is ingested and played out in SD, 576 and simply upscaled. Always has been like this from day one of the studio itself going HD. Saves money in regard to server storage.

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