BBC iPlayer encoding quality

[Psychic.Surfer]

The video is streamed from the beeb in "high quality" 800 kbs H.264 by default when in small window size,
this is increased to 1500 kbs at 832*468 in the large windowsize.

I have noticed that when the stream capture starts iPLayer forces you to start watching in small window
then resize it for the higher quality (not HD 1280*720 3.2 Mb/s - that's a separate question for another day!).

Regardless of how the window is resized the capture size is the same, so assume that the capture is not
rescaling to account the increased stream, and as a result, when watching the captured stream at
a full window it is full of unpleasant blocky artefacts caused by watching the stream at a higher resolution
than intended...

Is there any way to capture the stream at the higher rate and hence a watchable resolution, as the basic
capture is very ugly when resized?

[Martin Hughes]

I had a similar problem using my wireless connection to my router. When I did a hard wired (ethernet cable) connection the quality was dramatically improved.