Will HD ever be on freeview?

[hardeep]

Originally Posted by Starburst

The BBC have not committed themselves only to a HD trial in 2006, no word if this will definetly involve live WC games.

An article in the Times, last week I think, suggested that almost certainly that the BBC would transmit World Cup games in HD.

The bits which drew my attention were comments that Telewest would be aiming to carry BBC HD matches and more concretely the BBC were to use the event to "showcase" HDTV by showing games on large outdoor screens. Having said that were no quotes from anyone involved but I would hugely surprised if games were not available to the public - even if only through "test signals" on Astra.

[jont]

The beeb IIRC had an HD feed to a jumbotron at Live8 at Cardiff as the 1st HD broadcast in the UK ...

Jon

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Starburst

The BBC have not committed themselves only to a HD trial in 2006, no word if this will definetly involve live WC games.
If they did then Dsat and TW are probably the only two viable domestic realtime platforms. The standard BBC broadcast via analogue, DTT, Dsat and cable will be using the 16:9 world feed and probably some local material filmed by a BBC crew. I do not know if HBS will be filming exclusively in HD (1080i) and down converting or using two sets of cameras.

HBS will be shooting in 16:9 1080/50i as the main host-broadcast feed. The feeds provided to rights holders are 16:9 1080/50i, with 16:9 576/50i and 4:3 576/50i down-conversions also available I believe (and I believe different 4:3 ratios can be requested by different broadcasters - so letterbox and full-screen can be provided?) I don't know if all feeds will be available in all flavours in all areas - as often there are upwards of 5 or 10 different game feeds provided at large events, with different ISO cameras, replay channels, a couple of different game event mixes (with different run up and post match content etc.)

They are NOT dual-covering in both HD and SD - the HD is being downconverted for SD clients, rather than there being a separate SD operation. (I believe this was actually the case for Euro 2004 as well, though sourcing the HD, or even the 16:9 SD feed, was more difficult at the IBC?)

If the BBC DO decide to take the HD feed from HBS, then I suspect they will also do their location presentation in HD, or upconverted HD from SD, so that there is a single BBC One feed - with the HD version going out on BBC One HD, and an SD downconvert on the current BBC One outlets.

The Beeb have got to get used to doing location presentation in HD, or if not doing this they have to handle mixing HD and SD feeds, and now is as good a time as any - though the World Cup is quite a high profile event to trial new techniques I guess. (On the other hand they've been working in the background with a lot of HD sport for a while... Quite a lot of events screened in SD are being shot using their HD truck, and HD recordings made at the same time)

The Beeb are planning to trial an HD "Freeview" service in London only, as part of the BBC One HD trial, but whether this is running in time for the World Cup, and how many receivers will be available for trial participants is another matter. (Though if they are FTA DVB-T broadcasts then PC owners with DVB-T cards and fast processors capable of H264 HD decoding may be able to watch as well I guess?)

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by hardeep

An article in the Times, last week I think, suggested that almost certainly that the BBC would transmit World Cup games in HD.

Yeah but the media can say anything they want, they are not going to get sued by saying the BBC may broadcast their WC coverage in HD via one method or another.
I will only believe in when the BBC actually come out and confirm it

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by Stephen Neal

The Beeb are planning to trial an HD "Freeview" service in London only, as part of the BBC One HD trial, but whether this is running in time for the World Cup, and how many receivers will be available for trial participants is another matter. (Though if they are FTA DVB-T broadcasts then PC owners with DVB-T cards and fast processors capable of H264 HD decoding may be able to watch as well I guess?)

I would expect the DTT trial to be very much of a closed test with no official public access but of course as you say if they use a standard codec and transmission protocol without encryption then certainly domestic PC based solutions would be viable.
No doubt Londoners could get more out of their license fee next summer than the rest of us

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Starburst

I would expect the DTT trial to be very much of a closed test with no official public access but of course as you say if they use a standard codec and transmission protocol without encryption then certainly domestic PC based solutions would be viable.
No doubt Londoners could get more out of their license fee next summer than the rest of us

I think the publicity around the time of the BBC One HD announcement suggested a closed-trial, but including members of the public, a bit like the iMP beta.

The subtext was that it was only closed because it was London only, and there would be no commercially available boxes, not that they didn't want people to watch, more that they didn't want people to buy kit for a service that, unlike cable and satellite, may only be temporary. (And it would be unlikely that manufacturers would market boxes for a London only pilot service any way!)