When are BBC/ITV turning HD

inferno

inferno

inferno

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I want a new TV, but looking at the picture quality of my friends HDTVs , my non HD tv still displays a far superior image, when will the major players switch to HD?
 
I think BBC are aiming to have everything filmed in HD by 2010. No idea whether they'll broadcast in HD though.
 
BBC HD is already being broadcast over Satallite, as is Channel 4 HD. ITV will probably get around to it eventually.

At the moment BBC HD normally only broadcasts a few hours of actual TV a day, the rest of the time just being preview, but as they have a greater stock of HD footage that will no doubt increase. Have enjoyed Torchwood in HD for example. Dr Who on the other hand is SD only, as all the special effects are currently done in SD to keep the costs down.

As for HD "Freeview", dont hold your breath. The current government wants to sell of the frequency band currently allocated to "Analog" to the highest bidder (Mobile phones anyone?). There is no guarantee that it will be assigned to television. In which case freeview will remain squeezed into a rediculously small bandwidth. (Although interestingly, BBC and other broadcasters are researching a tech which uses two transmitters on the same frequency but at a different angle.. Anyway with a special reciever it may well be possible to have HD terrestrial freeview with the current frequency allocations!). But you will need two antenna to pick up the separate transmitters (Or maybe a special antenna which is two in one)

Is your friends HDTV an LCD panel? What about your SD Set CRT maybe?. Some HD panels are lousy at SD resolutions, especially LCD's. Plasma's on the other hand are generally much more forgiving of bad sources while still being great for HD. Part of the problem is down to the scalers though. Panasonic, and Pioneer's TV's both have really good scalers, so they make the SD look nice. Some of the LCD panels would look much better if the TV's internal scalers were better.
 
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Was on the news tonight Radio2 that there will be 4 or more free to air HD channels by 2009 i think they said.
 
Granada region will apparently get 4 Freeview HD channels later this year/2009.

Roll out to rest of UK 2010.

ITV HD is still "rumoured" to be later this year but I can't see it. Another year to wait for F1 HD.
 
The government have announced that there will be 4 HD freeview slots available, one will go to the BBC and the other three will be up for auction ITV, Channel 4, Five, S4C and anyone else who wants to bid and has a broadcast licence.
 
Looking forward to ITV in HD. Love ITV's coverage of the Champions League but it sucks that it's only in SD :(
 
Im quite happy with the free HD channels at the moment, i cancelled my sub, but still get the 3 movie channels in HD free :P

Channel 4 is my favorite HD channel, they show 4 or 5 movies a week now, which sky dont show, and stuff like my name is early, desperate housewifes and dirty sexy money is on in HD.

The upscaling on normal programs is also superb, and far better than the upscaling on sky one (when i had that).
 
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