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BT Sport's iOS and Apple TV Apps to Stream Champions League Final in HDR

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BT Sport has announced its first ever live mobile HDR stream will be the Champions League final in Madrid between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool on Saturday, June 1. BT Sport subscribers will be able to watch the match in HDR via the BT Sport app for iPhone and Apple TV.

Screenshot 1
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. HDR videos provide a broader range of colors and luminance compared to sub-HDR content, and the format also supports quality video playback on a wide variety of screen sizes.

Logged-in subscribers of the BT Sport app on an iPhone X, XS, XS Max, ‌Apple TV‌ 4K, or iPad Pro (2nd and 3rd generation) will be served with a tile on the homepage so they know the Champions League soccer final is available to them. Users without a HDR-capable device or logged-out users will see the normal tile on the homepage without any reference to HDR.

To AirPlay the match, users will need a capable TV to watch in HDR. The vast majority of 4K TVs sold in the last few years also support HDR. The app will detect HDR compatibility and serve the appropriate stream.

The Champions League final will also be available to non-BT Sport subscribers for free, though not in HDR. It will be shown on the mobile and large-screen apps, on BTSport.com and on YouTube. BT Sport's live coverage begins at 7pm on BT Sport 2 and BT Sport 4K UHD.

Apple debuted HDR support with the "Super Retina" display in the 2017 iPhone X, which became the first HDR OLED display incorporated into one of Apple's smartphones.

Apple also lists the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone XR as supporting HDR, but the displays for these devices are not the same as the Super Retina display on Apple's OLED iPhones, so any HDR content played on the 8 or 8 Plus isn't true HDR.

BT Sport claims its live HDR coverage of the Champions League Final on a mobile device is a "world first," and says that going forward it plans to show up to 70 live sporting events in High Dynamic Range per season.

Top Rated Comments

Vado Avatar
91 months ago
It's embracing for NowTV/Sky that BT are dong this with their iOS/tvOS app and they have the absolute eyesore and utterly shambolic offering that is the NowTV app.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MrGimper Avatar
91 months ago
Can't smile without you! COYS!
COYS!! Can’t wait!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jhfenton Avatar
91 months ago
COYS!
Can't smile without you! COYS!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
johnyslats Avatar
91 months ago
Will have to watch minus the HDR as my EE trial literally just expired! COYS!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
91 months ago
How frustrating! The connection is usually the culprit as 4K demands four times the bandwidth than 1080p, though it's strange that the Xbox could handle it with no issue. Was it the same 4K stream on Xbox too?

I wonder if this could help you: About frame rate and dynamic range matching on Apple TV ('https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208288')

Good luck!
There was no 4K stream, that’s the thing. The highest quality stream BT had was a 1080p HDR 50fps stream.

So in theory, changing Apple TV output from 4K to 1080p shouldn’t have made a difference at all, as it’s the same stream. I guess the Apple TV is having to upscale the content though to output at 4K.

Also, the BT sport app seems to completely ignore the ATV’s match frame and range settings. If I set it to output 4K HDR, which is my default, the the BT app interface and any stream I play, even though the source is SDR most of the time, the ATV is still outputting HDR. So BT completely ignore the match settings
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Xenc Avatar
91 months ago
How frustrating! The connection is usually the culprit as 4K demands four times the bandwidth than 1080p, though it's strange that the Xbox could handle it with no issue. Was it the same 4K stream on Xbox too?

I wonder if this could help you: About frame rate and dynamic range matching on Apple TV ('https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208288')

Good luck!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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