We recently reported that BOL started its transmission and its TV channel is now live. BOL is claiming that they are making use of the latest technologies and are therefore broadcasting in Ultra HD, four times higher resolution than Full HD.
So far, there are only a couple of channels in Pakistan which are broadcasting in HD, namely 92 News and 24 News. With Ultra HD broadcast, BOL would be classed as a big feat if the newcomer is offering such superior video quality which hasn’t even gone mainstream in Europe or USA.
No other Pakistani channel, whether news or otherwise, is offering good picture quality. Even settled players are still stuck with SD quality for over a decade now.
Unfortunately, there is no TV subscriptions service in Pakistan which supports Ultra HD or even HD. The best you can get is through PTCL Smart TV in most parts of the country. Nayatel and some other service providers with limited coverage do offer HD hardware but their channel catalogue is very limited especially after the ban on Indian channels.
When comparing the picture quality of BOL with any other channel on a standard TV service provider like PTCL, there is definitely a clear difference and BOL’s quality is far superior to the rest, even those which broadcast in HD. Not only is BOL’s camera quality great, the channel’s graphics, text and other promos are of unmatched quality as well.
While original Ultra HD resolution cannot be viewed, a downscaled UHD video offers more detail than a standard Full HD video. This could be the reason why BOL’s picture quality is still looking better than other channels despite being downscaled.
Here are a couple of videos where BOL claims to offer Ultra HD picture quality.
4K Ulta HD Claim isn’t Verifiable
One point to note here is that BOL’s YouTube videos are only in 720p resolution. On BOL’s part, this is a notable omission. While we can’t confirm if BOL’s broadcast is Ultra HD, since we don’t have a quantitative proof of this available with yes, yet their claim of Ultra HD video cannot be refuted based on this.
Watching BOL even on downscaled quality is a delight and looks roughly the same as watching a YouTube video in HD. Until proven otherwise, BOL is the first Pakistani channel to broadcast in Ultra HD (4K) video quality.
