ITV News Goes Fully HD

ITV News moves to HD with Sony

At long last ITV it seems are gearing up for all HD news acquisition and hopefully transmission. Seems that they're going with the news 50mbps SxS XDCam cameras (PMW400/200 etc.) Thankfully far nicer to use and in pictures that create than the Canon XF series that the BBC initially favored.

The studio has been TX in HD for a while, but a lot of their packages and almost all OB stuff is still in SD, hopefully we'll see the new HD content more and more.

That is great news to hear. I would love that to happen very quickly.

I suppose all the remaining ITV regions will go HD on foot of this announcement or not?

From watching the video, they have purchased the 200's for reporters. They did mention the kit that was purchased for Granada's Salford premises, but didn't mention anything about them being rolled out to the regions. My guess is that it'll be for reporters for now, and as seen with Granada & Wales, regional will get HD when they move to new premises, or need a serious refurb. Hopefully it won't be long until we see all HD regions, probably around the time when superHD becomes the norm .


I wonder if new HD premises are needed for both ITV & the BBC in some locations, I wonder if they've considered sharing locations. Separate studios, but same locations, and potentially office space.

Great to hear, the national ITV News bulletins have of course been in HD for a while now, but when the majority of reports and live OBs are still SD there isn't much of a reason to switch to HD.

Think this announced last year some time, but great news all the same. I can't remember where I copied this article from, but it's dated 26th October according to the file on my computer:

ITV News Goes Full-HD

ITV News is due to complete the final stage of its move to full Hi-Definition (HD) in 2014, after the broadcaster ITV agreed to a £30m spend on new digital technology across its network and regional news rooms. The move includes an order for 260 new ENG cameras, 60 of which are due to be delivered to its network news provider ITN between December 2013 and April 2014. The remaining 200 cameras are expected to be rolled out to ITV regions throughout next year.

ITN’s allocation will be used for the network’s national news bulletins as well as its regional news service in London (both of which are produced by the company) and follows the introduction of HD studio cameras and a HD gallery at its central London headquarters on Gray’s Inn Road last year.

The broadcaster is understood to have placed orders for a number of different camera models from 2 rival manufacturers because of the distinct technical requirements of its various news-gathering operations and in an attempt to help speed-up the delivery of HD equipment. The current schedule will see ITN news crews take delivery of 60 Panasonic 5000 ENG cameras, while Sony picks up the order to supply ITV’s regional news rooms in England and Wales with a combination of its PMW 200 and PMW 400 series.

The investment comes nearly 4 years after the broadcaster first moved into hi-definition with the launch of ITV1 HD on 2 April 2010, and is the clearest indication yet, that ITV has finally agreed terms for the renewal of its news contract with ITN. The current agreement expired on 31 December 2012, but has since been extended on a rolling basis, while further negotiations have taken place. ITV plc continues to hold a 40% stake in ITN.

As others have said this is great news.

Regarding sharing Studio locations, I know that BBC and ITV did reach an agreement a few years back to share Studios to cut costs. In the end I believe it was decided by ITV that the numbers didn't add up to much of a saving so things stayed the same. However things change, so you never know...

Interesting that ITN are going for two different codecs. The Panasonic cameras will be AVCi (or possibly AVC Long GOP) presumably, and the Sony cameras XDCam 35 or 50Mbs Long GOP MPEG2.

The BBC kept with MPEG2 for all of their cameras - the cheap JVC VJ cameras and the PMW350/500s are all XD Cam 35/50Mbs Long GOP MPEG2 (think the JVC does 50) - though all of the editing in W1 is on Quantel and runs DVC Pro HD 100Mbs as the edit codec I believe.

Semi related, but why do they not use HD footage of programmes - mainly sport - used in reports?

The BBC do in many (but not all) of their sports news reports. I guess ITN don't currently as they are still SD for post-production and so haven't upgraded to HD off-air receivers yet? I'd expect them to when they introduce HD location shooting, editing and playout?

Is that why ITV Newsnet on 24.5w is still SD 4:2:2 ?