BBC One HD still can't broadcast regional news in England.

It's a shame they were never able to come up with a technical solution that would allow 101 to point to BBC One HD for the 23 hours each day that there isn't regional content, and back to the appropriate SD local feed for the opts.

It could be fairly seamless on boxes with multiple tuners (provided the other one isn't in use for recordings), but not really in Sky's interests to develop the necessary software.

Sky are already half way there with their Adsmart system, ( Targetted ads are inserted into the breaks, for specific demographically defined boxes) In that case, it's ads that have been cached in advance to the HDD, but the principle is the same)

They also use the same function for the adverts on Sky on Demand, we often see more very local adverts (usually Capital FM Liverpool, even though we live closer to Manchester) via these means than on the linear channels.

I think the German local channel 3's and maybe the commercial broadcasters do this on satellite already I think it is part of the DVB-S spec but I assume SKY boxes aren't capable of it.

I've said this before - there must be a way of doing this with something live as well as something on the HDD.

Maybe you should do a sub-forum on the HD adverts.

You can do stream switching, in the same way as the Germans do it. Some might say, it's very 'clunky', and the picture mutes, and/or crashes about for a few seconds, while switching between the two versions which is (apparently) unacceptable.

However, hang on, when I switch from BBC 1 HD to BBC 1 SD my telly does the same, so what's the difference in essence ?
It's automatically initiated bangs and crashes compared to manually initiated ones !

If a major broadcaster such as the BBC did the "automatically initiated bangs and crashes" (as you put it) deliberately, it would look messy and unprofessional and would attract complaints, or a bunch of fussy sods whinging to Points Of View!


That said, the BBC should know all about messy and unprofessional these days judging the current set of BBC One "idents" ... !

Maybe it would, but the caption actually invites the viewer to change channel, so the banging and flashing
is still broadcaster induced !

Outside of this forum, and in the real world, I've lost count of the number of people that ask me why
they have to change channel to see the regional news. I explain why in layman's terms, and they simply mutter
something to the effect that the Beeb are crap. The present arrangement really doesn't do the BBC any favours.

It's a question about telly that outstrips any other I'm asked by a country mile.

But surely to do stream switching it still needs the transponder space for 12 linear programmes at certain odd times of the day. If they're going to do that then they may as well be there 24/7

Any IP based method would be of limited availability

Well they are ? Aren't we talking about switching between the BBC 1 HD England version, and the appropriate SD version of BBC 1 (that are all there 24/7 ?)

Yes we are. Back to topic. At least BBC Two should start broadcasting their nations in HD (or at least BBC One HD broadcasting London, North West and South West in HD).