can we support H.265 (HEVC, MPEG5) for sky UK please

cocoa 117

hi, i created Feature #2122 request. Can we get it asap?

ProfYaffle

I don't have Sky, so I'm merely interested in this... what happens if you try to record at the moment?

I'm just wondering whether tvheadend cares one jot what the codec is, especially if you're using .ts

And are you certain itis actually HEVC? All I can find on a quick Google is reports of trials in the UK with 10-bit/50fps UHD and one football match from Sky Deutschland earlier this month. I'm not doubting you, I'm again just interested!

I would have thought a switch like this on the channels you list would inevitably mean a hardware change for many users, unless the existing Sky boxes happen to have the CPU grunt for software decoding that can be implemented with a firmware patch.

cocoa 117

it's good point, and I guess i need to look into more for definitive answers. At the moment, my machine is down, so I will report back once its back online.

Gary Brown

I've just got back home last night and looked into this myself and have also done some online research and have found that there is no codec change at all, what has happened and I can bet since you posted this you have lost all HD Channel from sky plus others. it is not down to codecs but new encryption that they have added to the system which now pair your box and card together adding an extra key and step to the encryption process.

there new "codec" change is for EPG improvements something we tvheadend users will never really need or use.

It is also something the front end would need to add. tvheadend would just need to be told what frequency it is at and pass the stream through to the front end.

http://openpli.org/forums/topic/33425-mpeg-5/

noggin

Done a bit of digging on this and there appears to be some confusion...

Sky HD channels have disappeared on non-Sky receivers. Some have attributed this to Sky moving to H265/HEVC - a new video codec. However this appears not to be the case. Sky boxes do their video decoding in hardware(ish) and their current range of boxes pre-date the H265 standard being ratified and H265 compatible decoding hardware is only just beginning to ship. Current Sky HD boxes are H264/MPEG2 only... Sky HD are still using H264/AVC as far as I can ascertain. (I'd be very surprised if they had found a way of adding H265/HEVC decoding to their set top boxes... You can't add new video codecs retrospectively to these boxes just by doing a software download)

I suspect the confusion may stem from the fact that Sky HAVE been using H265/HEVC encoding for their 2160/50p UltraHD (aka 4K) trial broadcasts, but these will require a new set top box with HDMI 2.0 output and H265/HEVC decoding functionality.

The apparent real reason Sky HD channels have disappeared on non-Sky receivers is not codec related, but instead related to an updated encryption scheme.