BBC HD over Christmas

What did everyone think? I thought the Doctor Who and Cranford specials looked very good - the former was an improvement over the Waters of Mars episode to my eyes, but that may just be because those aerial shots of London always look good in HD. Cranford looked good too, and so did Outnumbered. I've still to watch Day of the Triffids and Victoria Wood.
I didn't try any of the films showing on BBC HD, but two I caught on 4HD, Dick Tracy and Slither, looked spectacular. TheChristmas lineup on FX was useless, but ESPN HD was as sparkling as ever.
It's a great shame that ITV1HD wasn't on cable in time for Christmas as they've got more HD programming than C4 now. Let's hope we get that before the re-start of the Champions League in February.

No cut in Virgin Media BBC HD bit rate

As not everyone reads the Comments posted on this blog, here's some information that will be of interest to those following the BBC HD debate (thanks to Erich and BikeNutt)

Andy Quested, Principal Technologist, BBC Future Media & Technology: "We don't do the encoding for the Virgin platform. The signal from the playout and continuity area goes straight to an inject point somewhere in the bottom of Television Centre and (I assume) off to Virgin's distribution centre. The Virgin distributed HD signal MPEG2 at around 17Mbs and has been for sometime. In fact I believe there has only been one encoder change since the test channel launched. MPEG2 is a mature codec so updates (hard and soft) don't come along very often."

So the BBC HD picture we get hasn't had its bitrate cut like the channel has on either of the satellite platforms, which means the degradation we're seeing is down to other factors. Interesting.
Incidentally, anyone relying on the HD section on BBC iPlayer catch up this Christmas is going to be sorely disappointed: it's missing most of the main Christmas shows (Doctor Who, Cranford, Day of the Triffids, Outnumbered etc). They're there in standard def, but no HD.

Which? report gives thumbs up to BBC HD quality

Consumer group Which? has never been highly regarded by the purists for its technology prowess, and it has now stepped into the debate regarding BBC HD picture quality with this report: BBC HD 'in the clear', says Which? Labs.
Not the most illuminating read on the matter.

Mad Men Season 3 begins on BBC HD January 21st

According to page 10 of this edition of Shortlist, the outstanding US show Mad Men returns to UK screens on January 21st 2010. Hurrah!

UPDATE: Delayed by a week or so: now premiering Wednesday January 27th with a double episode.

BBC HD Sky vs Virgin

I've heard that the Sky and Freesat BBC HD picture quality is far worst than the so-so BBC HD PQ on Virgin - can anyone verify this? Whilst I find the picture a shadow of its former self, it doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the descriptions being reported on the BBC HD blogs.

Heroes returns to BBC HD

The fourth series of the (once) eagerly anticipated US series Heroes arrives on BBC HD on Saturday, January 9th at 10.10pm with two episodes. The next day sees the second season of the extremely good Being Human kicking off at 10.30pm.
Also returning in January to BBC HD are Wallander (Jan 3) and Hustle (Jan 4) and showing every week night from Jan 4 is US series Nurse Jackie, starring Edie Falco from The Sopranos.
(Sorry to say I haven't got a date yet for the return of Mad Men.)
The advance schedules are showing BBC HD in the new year running from 4am to 1am each day btw.

Free Picturebox but only SD

Apologies for the earlier post (now removed) - I was misinformed
The Picturebox movie selection is free to all VM customers over the Christmas weekend in standard definition, but not HD.
Starting on Christmas day there's more than 20 movies via Virgin Central (channel 118)

Jazz Shorts - nice

If you haven't seen it yet, there's an innovative new series Jazz Shorts on BBC HD this week. Why "innovative"? Read this interesting BBC R&D blog to find out more. Episodes are appearing the iPlayer HD selection if you miss it when broadcast.
Oh, and a Happy Christmas to all regular visitors to this blog

BBC HD on Radio 4 'You and Yours'

Danielle Nagler's putting in an appearance on the Radio 4 consumer show You and Yours. From the You and Yours website:

When high definition television launched in 2006 it promised to deliver clear, crisp pictures with vivid colours and up to five times more detail than standard definition. Yet the BBC has recently changed it's specifications of HD transmission and viewers say that their picture has detriorated. The BBC denies this.

If you've experienced problems with the service we'd like to hear from.

You can call us on 0800 044 044 or email us via bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours.

Cracking start to an HD Christmas

Well, waddayaknow? I've just watched the first episode of Cranford on BBC HD iPlayer and the picture quality was outstanding. Did anyone else see it? Looked fab. The scenes with the ailling Lady Ludlow were super sharp and the photography throughout was really something.
And earlier today I caught up with 4HD's showing of Dick Tracy from earlier in the week. I hadn't seen this movie since it was first released and it looked incredible in HD - really came to life with its wonderfully vivid colour pallette and some cracking cinematography.
Which bodes well for the next few days, especially as I was prepared to be disappointed with BBC HD over the next few days after the last few months of so-so PQ. I'm now looking forward to the second Cranford, the big Doctor Who double bill and the intriguing Day of the Triffids two-parter next week. The films on BBC HD may be mainly family fayre this season, but this is the channel's best line up for Christmas yet.
It's a shame 4HD's schedule is so lacklustre and FX HD seems to have lost the plot completely by lining up hours and hours of TV animation.