topic Re: Genuine iplayer Question in Sky Glass

Genuine iplayer Question

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:18:54 GMT

I'm finding that iplayer with Sky Glass is fairly poor quality. I streamed Silent Witness last night and it was washed out 720p at best so switched to Apple and streamed from there to the Glass TV, it was much improved.

Also Waiting for the Out (excellent series) in UHD was poor quality in fact I've found most UHD content pretty poor for iplayer via Sky Glass. Night Manager was also washed out.

I've found that watching via Apple over Glass gives a far better picture quality than watching UHD via iplayer in the Glass system.

So after that ramble and I'm not having a dig here but trying to understand why UHD content direct from the Glass set up is poorer quality than standard via Apple over Glass 🤷‍

Re: Genuine iplayer Question

stereohaven — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:38:20 GMT

Don't laugh @Anonymous, but watching 'Kingdom' via iPlayer on Glass was the best picture I got yesterday!

As you know, iPlayer on an Apple TV maxes out at 720p, so while the upscaling is good, it shouldn't be that good!

Re: Genuine iplayer Question

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:46:03 GMT

I have to agree.

I've been faffing all morning again to try and improve the glass picture quality but it's a bit of a task and highly impossible I suspect.

Re: Genuine iplayer Question

Angel_Aka — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 14:04:02 GMT

My guess would be that it possibly has something to do with how all the apps on SkyOS are stored on Sky's servers, not on the Glass TV or Stream puck itself.

iPlayer is one of the apps which has to check on the display's capabilities upon launching in order to determine whether it can provide UHD with HLG or not. It's possible that some sort of network issue (either on Sky's network or the customer's network) possibly prevents this check being fully completed. This may then force the output of iPlayer to a lower bit-rate, and potentially in the wrong colour space. This could be the cause of the washed out look you were getting @Anonymous

HLG also takes its cue from the peak brightness of the display being used. Glass gen2 is a reasonably bright TV, even Vincent from HDTV Test confirms this, so it should be able to display UHD HLG HDR iPlayer output very well, as @stereohaven was able to see yesterday.

TBH, I just think it could be another random glitch in SkyOS. It's clear that the OS can suffer from sluggishness, again due to being server-based, so added delays in hardware spec being reported to an app in order to output correctly are to be expected.

This is why external HDMI connected devices like an Apple TV box don't suffer the same problem - they are not relying on sending a communication signal from a server to a device and back again in order to determine an output specification. A Firestick, Apple TV, Roku, Android TV (or whatever type of box or stick you have attached to the HDMI port on Glass) is making the communication directly through the HDMI port. This is much faster and therefore more reliable than an app on a server.

Re: Genuine iplayer Question

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:13:22 GMT

@Angel_Aka

Thanks, great write up!

Re: Genuine iplayer Question

2muchTV — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 15:33:25 GMT

While I cannot answer why Glass gives a better picture, your post confirms my view that no 1 device is able to deliver everything I want, so I utilise all 4 HDMI sockets on my TV.

So apart from the Samsung's inbuilt apps I use the following HDMI ports

#1 Apple TV: fast and love TV Scheduler app, but no BBC iPlayer UHD and personally don't like the remote

#2 Roku 4K: love the Roku layout, but no TV Scheduler app.

#3 Firestick 4K: hate the fussy layout, great picture and useful for sideloaded apps 🙄

#4 Freesat box: so I can record a couple of free to air programmes from ITV as ITV app is too slow & clunky for me, and I'm not paying to skip ads.