Meanwhile Sky HD customers double

Sky's latest results are, as is becoming customary, hugely impressive. And again the main driver appears to be HD. Overall, Sky now has 9.442m customers, with annual net customer additions of 462,000 - the highest number in five years. Sky HD added 534,000 customers net over the year, taking it to a subscriber base of 1.313m. Details of the Sky results on The Guardian's site.
Virgin Media's latest quarter results are published next Thurday (August 6th).

Channel 4 HD arrives

Arrived this morning - again, apologies for the delivery of what for many is old news!
Here's our new HD channel line up:

• BBC HD (108)
• Channel 4 HD (146)
• FX HD (158)
• MTVN HD (310)
• National Geographic HD (232)

If this is what happens when I go away, please feel free to contribute to the new Nialli HD-while-he's-away Holiday Fund!

ESPN HD British football NOT a Sky HD exclusive

Uh oh...the ESPN website seems to suggest that we're not getting the British football in HD after all - check out this page which describes it as "Sky+ HD customers only". The original VM press release though says "The ESPN HD channel will offer live Barclays Premier League and Clydesdale Bank Premier League football" but that ESPN page appears to contradict this. Full debate on this over on Cable Forum.

UPDATE The ever-reliable BenMCr over on Cable Forum has just posted

I have it on VERY good authority that ESPN just haven't updated their website properly yet
ESPN HD on Virgin is EXACTLY the same as ESPN HD on Sky

Ben works for VM and has always been on the money in my experience. Panic over. Sleep well...

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE ESPN has now corrected the information on its website.

HD channels arriving July 30 - and C4 HD coming, too

Bloody hell...how's this for icing on the cake? Great news - congrats to the VM team for delivering big time. Here's the press release

Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED) today announced that Channel 4’s High Definition (HD) channel, 4HD, will join its HD line-up. 4HD was the first full-schedule HD channel to be launched by a UK terrestrial broadcaster and offers ground-breaking programmes including Skins, Shameless and Desperate Housewives in glorious High Definition.

4HD will be available to Virgin Media’s 3.5 million digital TV customers and joins the BBC HD channel, ESPN HD, LIVING HD, FX HD, MTV Networks International’s HD channel, MTVNHD, and National Geographic HD in Virgin Media’s linear HD line-up.

FX HD, MTVNHD and National Geographic HD are launching on Virgin Media’s TV platform tomorrow. ESPN HD will launch on 3rd August, with 4HD and LIVING HD coming soon.

Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer at Virgin Media, said: “Channel 4 is home to some of the UK’s most talked about and innovative TV programmes with a great mix of fantastic home grown shows and top imports, and we’re delighted to be bringing them in HD to our customers. We continue to evolve our TV service, across linear TV channels and on demand content, and our growing HD line-up offers a great choice from some of the best UK and US TV series, documentaries, comedy, sport and music.”

Sarah Rose, Head of Channel Development at Channel 4, said: “We want our viewers to be able to watch their favourite Channel 4 programmes in the format they want and across multiple platforms so we’re delighted to be launching 4HD on Virgin Media. Our catch-up service, 4oD, has been a great success on Virgin Media’s TV platform and, as we continue to invest in HD production, we’re bringing more Channel 4 programmes to more viewers in HD.”

4HD is a simulcast of the core Channel 4 schedule with a proportion of programmes produced and transmitted in the HD format. Programmes currently broadcast in HD include Ugly Betty, Come Dine With Me and Shameless as well as the best documentaries, current affairs, music and film. Channel 4 is committed to increasing its investment in HD production and the proportion of its schedule transmitted in high definition over time.

4HD will be available to all of Virgin Media’s TV customers at no extra cost, alongside the BBC HD channel. Virgin Media will make its full range of HD channels available at no extra cost to its XL TV customers.

Virgin Media customers will be able to watch FX HD on Channel 158, MTVNHD on Channel 310 and National Geographic HD on Channel 232.

Again, sorry I'm reporting this late and thanks to all those who wrote to the blog whilst I was sleeping in sunny ol' Santa Monica

ESPN launching on Virgin on August 3rd - in HD!

Apologies for the late arrival of this news, I'm on the West Coast of the US and eight hours behind. Here's the big headline:

Customers who subscribe to Virgin Media’s XL TV pack will be able to watch ESPN and ESPN HD at no additional cost. As part of the deal, these subscribers will also receive ESPN Classic, featuring the greatest moments of UK and European sport.

Those on Virgin Media’s M or L pack will be able to subscribe to ESPN and ESPN HD for £8 a month if they already subscribe to any combination of the Sky Sports channels, or £10 a month if not.

As a special introduction to the new ESPN and ESPN HD channels, Virgin Media will make these ESPN channels available to all of its digital TV customers, for no additional cost, during August.

:0)

Improving SD rates

Ben's written to the blog asking the following:

Surely Virgin must get direct feeds from the BBC, ITV and C4 – especially in these days of on-demand offerings. If they do, why don’t they ask these broadcasters to increase the bit-rate of these feeds, and hence increase the quality to us?
It seems that SD channel bitrates vary widely on cable, which would imply they can be changed/increased.
The blocky SD picture quality on flatpanel TVs (although Virgin’s SD is the best) isn’t really a resolution issue, because when a still image is shown –like a photo – it looks clean and sharp. It’s only when things move that it all goes blocky – and that’s down to bitrates that were set originally for CRT screens – which don’t show up pixels anything like LCDs/Plasmas.

I suspect an answer may be that the main broadcasters produce standard feeds for all platforms (cable, satellite, Freeview) and producing a better feed for one would incur additional costs, but does anyone (more informed) know? I know the bitrates are adjusted dynamically to ensure (to some degree) maximum PQ and on Freeview the bitrates for the C4 channels is notably poor, but could they be improved at the upper end of the scale for cable?

Heroes returns to BBC HD

The new season of BBC HD's leading US import Heroes won't be with us until the autumn, but for those who are missing their regular fix of Sylar and co BBC HD is repeating the first season in double-episode sized helpings on Saturday nights leading up to the new series. You remember the first season? The GOOD one before things went seriously astray?
Also coming up is a season of Friday night movies in HD at 10.30. The first two have been shown on the channel before - The History Boys on July 31st and The Wonder Boys on August 7th - so it remains to be seen if we'll actually get any movies new to the channel or not.

The new HD channels on Virgin Media

Guess who's out of the country when Virgin adds its new HD lineup?
Me, that's who. After almost two years of campaigning for more HD channels on Virgin Media they are launching the four additional channels whilst I'm on bloody holiday. Typical.
I'll still be posting on this blog from afar but won't be able to actually view FX HD et al until mid-August, so if you have any comments to make on the new Virgin lineup when it finally appears please feel free to add comments to this post so that other visitors to the blog have an idea of how things are whilst I'm away. Enjoy...

C4 HD testing on Virgin Media

According to MediaBoy over on Cable Forum, C4HD is testing on both ex-NTL and ex-Telewest platforms now.

Live football in HD on Virgin Media

Tucked away towards the end of Danielle Nagler's latest blog post is the news that the BBC's weekend coverage of Championship* football next season will be broadcast in HD, starting August 8th. Hurrah! Now can we please have ITV HD before the Champions League and FA Cup kick off?

*Division Two really