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

Plymouth, Salford and London are HD ready (and bits of Cambridge might be too). In the rest of the regions, studio cameras are HD capable in some centres but matrices, vision mixers, caption generators etc are not, so some significant investment is required, let alone distribution and switching. There'd also need to be a change in the way the network is delivered to the transmitters. At the moment only an SD feed of Net1 is available to be opted in and out of.

Most cameras used in the field are HD though (have been for a while) and while the pictures are currently downgraded to SD on ingest to the system, that part of the process is at least ready to go HD.

Even with the technical and financial limitations, still no excuse for not having BBC One HD on 101 rather than 115 on Sky.

BBC One Scotland HD is on 101 on Sky. But, why can't they get BBC2 Scotland in HD on 102?

Because BBC2 in the nations is only presently equipped for SD

The Beeb won't move BBC 1HD to the primary EPG positions until regional opt outs are available on it ( only 'regional' versions of BBC1 HD are the nations)

ITV had the incentive of adverts to force them to regionalise their HD offering early on. If it wasn't regional then they'd either have to sell national ad space on their HD channel or have the majority of country watch the wrong ads.


Incidently this second option is what Channel 4 appear to do. I frequently see London adverts on c4 HD despite not being in London

The problem is, if they broadcast anything at all on the BBC One HD channel, be it BBC London News, the BBC News channel, or a different region every day, many viewers would just stick with that, thus damaging ratings for the regional news programmes. Broadcasting a caption is only way to, in effect, force viewers to switch over.


In the early days of digital, when BBC One was not set up for regional opt-outs in England, they used to broadcast UK Today, simulcast with News 24, in place of the regional news at 6.30. Maybe the regions weren't keen on that being done, hence these days a different view is taken.

One problem I encountered whilst in Holland was that my hotel only offered BBC One HD (with no SD option). Bit annoying, because every other channel was in Dutch.

Time to check out the hotel bar then ?

There are currently some major changes happening at the BBC - various contracts are coming to an end, being renewed or changing hands.

One of the consequences of this will mean that the BBC's various internal contribution networks will soon be HD capable. It doesn't mean that suddenly there'll be 12 different BBC1 HDs on air, but it does make it more possible once it's been agreed (that's not just it being 'greenlighted' but also agreed how its done technically)

Should we not be migrating to HD across the board, at some point in the future; with SD channels phased out? Sure, it can only happen once everyone has an HD telly but that was the same with UHF/VHF and digital/analogue.

Possibly when DVB-T2 is the standard - and when that total transition to HD is solidified - PSB1 will be occupied by HD versions of BBC ONE, TWO, FOUR/CBeebies, CBBC and News. Parliament and BBC Red Button would also need an HD channel to facilitate this. That would constitute alone as seven streams.