Okay, so it may not be suitably high enough definition for many, but Freeview HD is rolling out with quite an aggressive schedule according to TechRadar:London has already joined Granada in getting Freeview HD this year, and Glasgow and Edinburgh (Black Hill), Durham and Teeside (Pontop Pike), Birmingham (Lichfield), and south Yorkshire (Emley Moor) were all scheduled for the first half of 2010. West and Central Wales (Blaenplwyf transmitter), Swansea (Kilvey Hall), Cardiff and Newport (Wenvoe) and around the Winter Hill relays will all be up and running by March. In April, Carmarthenshire (Carmel), Exeter and parts of Devon (Stockland Hill), Bristol, Somerset, Dorset Wiltshire and Gloucestershire (Mendip).
May sees Shetland (Bressay) and Orkney (Keelylang Hill) join the Freeview HD party and June brings North Wales (Long Mountain, Moel-y-parc, Presely), Caithness and North Sutherland (Rumster Forest).
5 comments:
Freeview 'HD' is very low bitrate 720p, isn't it? That being the case, I don't know why they're bothering. We've all seen just how awful 1080i BBC 'HD' now looks with a rock bottom bit-rate, so in 720p it will even worse.
I suspect I'll end up watching nothing but blu-ray at this rate. 45mbit 1080p for me please.
sorry mate, bitrate and resolution are not the same thing
Also 720p and 1080i are essentially the same thing. 1080i is 720p interlaced.
I've been very dissapointed also with BBC HD of late. I remember being blown away by it a while back.
I caught some late nice baseball in HD on ESPN and it looked amazing. At the moment there isnt a great deal of difference between upscaled SD and BBC HD..
720p & 1080i are _not_ essentially the same thing ...
They may use about the same bandwidth, but
720p is 1280x720x50 frames per second
1080i is 1920x1080x50 fields per second (two fields interlaced per frame)
So 1080i offers better horizontal resolution, whereas 720p offers better temporal motion.
Football? Better in 720p (following the ball, etc.)
Documentaries/Landscapes? Better in 1080i (in general)
Everything? Better in 1080p :-) but this is not part of the "over the air" broadcast formats :-(
Don't know what VM broadcasts its HD channels in, but statically setting it in the V+ box is stupid: it should automatically follow the broadcast format that VM uses per channel (if they vary it, really don't know).
I know the menus look bad on my TV if V+ set to 1080i :-(
Virgin Digital TV has left no stone unturned in ensuring that they bring this outburst right to our homes.
Virgin Digital Tv Offers
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