"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
The digital terrestrial TV being provided here in the UK now, currently
carries no HD content, despite ongoing promises.
Not so. BBC HD is transmitted on FreeView as is ITV HD. CH4 and 5 will be
added shortly. This is from the London transmitter. Not sure about
everywhere.
--
*Who are these kids and why are they calling me Mom?
Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
None available on FV here in my east midlands location. Just looked at my
"TV Times" (national) listings mag, and it claims that BBC HD is available
on Freesat CH 108, Sky CH 143 and Virgin Cable CH 108. Likewise, it says
that ITV HD is only available on Freesat via the 'red button' service. In
any case, BBC HD is hardly a useful service, as they just stick a mixture of
their total network output on there at random times. I was recording
"Survivors" on BBC HD via sat on series link. Suddenly, the series finale
has disappeared from the recording list. I check the schedules, and it's
just not on there. Some random olympics programme or something. So I hastily
set it to record on SD BBC. Then, a couple of days later, it randomly
appears again on BBC HD at some obscure time when they had a slot to fill.
ITV HD, from what I've seen of it on the Freesat service, seems to be just
for football matches, once in a while. Either service is hardly inspiring
for people with HD TV sets and a built-in DTTV tuner, as most have.
So I would have to conclude that at the moment, the London area is possibly
unique in carrying these services. Just as a matter of interest, what
equipment is required to receive these FreeView HD transmissions, and has
the compression scheme now been finalised then, to allow manufacturers to
produce necessary equipment in bulk ?
Interesting that you say that CH5 is shortly going to be placing HD content
onto FreeView. At the moment, they have no HD output at all, and I would
have thought that if they were about to start, then the first places would
have been on the Sky satellite service, and Virgin cable, where there is an
existing customer base, with fully operational equipment to allow them to
access and view the service.
Channel Four I can understand wanting to provide a FreeView service as they
already produce an HD mirror of their SD service on Sky and Virgin.
Just as a matter of interest, do you know what cameras they use for
producing their HD content (or their programme makers / suppliers) ? Just
that their HD output is stunningly good compared to some other efforts by
other stations. And I'm talking original 'native' HD here, not just content
that was shot in standard res, and then placed on the station's HD channel.
Taking, for instance, Phil and Kirsty's "Relocation, Relocation" (Wednesday
8pm) programme on CH4. The image quality is absolutely cracking, and
everything you would expect HD to be. Likewise, "Extreme Engineering" on
NatGeo I think it is, and "American Chopper" on Discovery. OTOH, "Lost" and
"24" from Sky 1 both claim to be 'originals' in HD format, but although they
look better in HD than they do in SD, they still seem to lack that
'pin-sharp' quality that the other programmes I've cited, have. As you are
'in the business' so to speak, just wondered if you had any insights into
this ?
Arfa