BBC One HD This Autumn

oh indeed, its getting like logofreetv and their campaign against captioning people on the other side of the screen.

It's nice to note that I'm not the only person who thinks there is absolutely nothing wrong with the BBC's HD channels. It was refreshing when I asked over on Metropol and everyone agreed that it was mainly the ranting of the uninformed (marksi's post regarding audio sync I particularly telling imo)

It reminds me somewhat of when I got my old Epson Stylus 400 printer. It came with a CD-ROM called "High Quality Images" which you were encouraged to print on their bundled sheets of photo paper to show just how wonderful your purchase was. Course nothing afterwards looked quite as good because the images had had their colours perfectly calibrated to the printer to disguise its flaws and make it look as wonderful as possible. When using normal pictures it didn't always look as crisp and stunning. Just like how they complain that gritty dramas aren't utterly razor sharp

The one thing that the BBC is rightly getting bashed at is the lack of HD information in programme guides, the auto facility that they were reliant on. not being mandated on Freeview. We are promised a narrative statement in the near future within programme information, which hopefully will be reflected in the programme guide on the BBC Website too.

There's another minor issue which could confuse many. Extracts of some, mainly live, programmes are being presented in HD when the bulk is in SD. This is irritating and can rightly from the technically illiterate prevoke comment. Best to produce in SD unless over 90% of the source is in HD.

Today's Rugby was good, and pleasant to watch.

Not sure what you are talking about. For a programme to be described as HD by the BBC it has to have a minimum of 75% HD content in it. If you mandated a 90% minimum there are whole genres of programmes that would never move to HD - and that would be a real lost opportunity. Archive video will always be SD - does that mean shows that run archive shouldn't be shot in SD in case they have to run more than 10% archive in a show one day? Similarly the finances of HD production mean that often it is relatively straightforward and inexpensive to switch live shows to HD, but switching their VT to HD is a significant expense. Evolving to HD in this situation is often a better solution than waiting for it all to be affordable or feasible, particularly if the show is predominantly live and the benefits of HD production in those sequences is marked.

Strictly looks great in HD for the studio bits - the behind-the-scenes VTs aren't HD AFAIK - but I wouldn't stop the show from switching to HD just because of this. The benefit of the glitzy studio in HD is obvious.

By HD content that means :

Anything shot on a suitably authorised camcorder at 100Mbs Intra or 50Mbs Inter frame compression (i.e. DVC Pro HD, HD Cam, XD Cam HD 422, AVC Intra 100Mbs etc.) or better, or shot 35mm and telecined to a suitably high bitrate digital format

Must be edited at a suitable bitrate (native, uncompressed HD or a suitable intermediate codec like DNX185 or the higher quality Apple ProRes HD 422 format)

Must be delivered on HD Cam SR 1920x1080 4:2:2 tape at 440Mbs or live via a minimum 60Mbs MPEG2 circuit (or something like a Dirac Pro-ed 270Mbs circuit)

AVC HD, HDV, Super 16 telecined HD, <50Mbs Interframe stuff etc. is all counted as non-HD, as well as upconverted SD content. There are a couple of exceptions in some circumstances - but not many.

There have been a few situations where certain live programmes shown on BBC HD may have had less HD than 75% - mainly sporting events where there have been issues backhauling enough HD content (or where London post-production has had to run in SD when running highlights) However the massive majority of HD shows are >75% HD. (Sky and Discovery have similar rules I believe - though ITV I don't think do - if you watch Daybreak almost all of their VT is SD upconverted)

Ok ... Will accept a 75% threshold for live stuff, today's Final Score was just dotted with HD content.

Final Score wasn't advertised as being in HD, are you telling me some of it was?

Convinced that some of the OB match reports were, otherwise the upscaling gear was working at 110%.

RBL Festival of Remembrance was apart from the presence of the (Puppy)Dog excellent.

Hmm - don't think that is an HD show and I don't think it is commissioned or billed as such.

There have been various short-term HD paths devised to allow some HD content (mainly multilaterals) to pass through the BBC Sport studio via one of the two galleries - but the studio itself (and the cameras), and most (if not almost all) of the post production and server infrastructure is still resolutely SD (and upconverted when the show IS an HD commission if it is using these facilities)

I suspect that you are seeing how good HD pictures look when they are downconverted to SD and not compressed to heck. They certainly still look better than SD originated content. (In camera stuff like the aperture correction and video noise happens at the HD level, and so appears far less obvious and the pictures look far cleaner and sharper, even when downconverted to SD. Normally this isn't that obvious on an SD outlet - as these are compressed to hell. However on an HD outlet when the SD downconversion is then upconverted again - it still looks pretty good.)

Or the Sport studio is able to take some HD circuits in HD and get them to air that way - though I didn't think that was the case.

AIUI they are waiting until the Salford move before non-OB productions (i.e. stuff that goes through a BBC Sport studio and/or gallery) go to HD - though as I mention there are ways of doing SD-studio, SD-replays, HD-Live Multis etc.

I only saw a few minutes, but like many BBC HD OBs there was quite a lot of noise/grain in the picture.

Whether it's football, golf or a non-sporting event, this is a common problem with BBC HD. Something I rarely see with Sky's OBs.

Wonder if Sky have wound the noise reduction settings up on their H264 encoders a bit more than the BBC. Sky often appear to ask their resource providers to wind in a bit more 'detail' (artificial sharpening/crispening in-camera) into their cameras than some other broadcasters. This superficially makes a picture look sharper, but in fact masks high frequency detail.

Well I think Sky have got it right imho, their HD actually looks like HD, whilst BBC HD whilst it looks HD has softer edges and has more picture grain as derek500 has suggusted, and I still don't understand why 6945 is broadcasting BBC HD, it's a waste of bandwidth which actually could be used for BBC One HD and broadcast at 1920x1080

6945 is not another channel, it's just PIDs that are linked to BBC HD, it's been like it for years.