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

I think Parliament and Red Button should remain SD but as DVB-T2.

We can't be far off a full switch to HD and once we get there it should be cost-effective to make the regions available in HD, but might be a case that the HD version only becomes available as the SD version closes.

I do think though as they can justify the nation's versions there is no reason not to begin rolling out on a region by region basis with London, Birmingham and Manchester surely first in line. Those three regions would capture a significant percentage of the English population, and viewers in other regions wouldn't be worse off than they are now.

I do wonder though if moving forward the sub-opts might need replacing by additional content via the iPlayer.

I think Midlands and North West are the largest regions; comparable with Scotland and larger than Wales & Northern Ireland; so that would make sense. ITV have done similar, prioritising its largest regions. The BBC have felt less urgency to roll it out, for whatever reason. They probably see it as leverage in any review of the license fee.

Yeah, but shouldn't the BBC at least be able to do BBC2 nations in HD?

I would say the English regions is a greater priority.

Yeah, Like London.

Manchester (Salford to be pedantic) is already HD and so is London. When the digital regions on satellite scheme launched the five biggest (in terms of population) were shown at 1830 via the red button. If I recall correctly they were Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Southampton and Bristol. I suppose they could start with those if they're going to stagger it.

Wasn't London one of those cities.

Possibly ... or South East ex Elstree was shown on the sustaining feed ... or was Uk Today still on? I can't remember ...

UK Today stopped broadcasting in January 2002.

UK Today stopped when the Red Button regions started, including BBC London by then I think.

From memory BBC London opts went out on the non-Red Button BBC One, with the 5 other English regions available via Red Button.

I know that Birmingham are still rocking their Thomson studio cameras *yuck* and gallery from 2004, with a few technical changes as new kit comes online.

They also use an Aston CG with BigTed, despite being (or at least were) the English Regions VizRT training facility...

Most English Regions have Astons - Greens, a few Reds, plenty of older ones kicking around too including Motifs and Mottos. Some must be nearly 30 years old. I think Plymouth, Salford, London and Cambridge are the only ones to have Viz. There have been pilots to replace with newer, supportable kit, and as is always the case, the BBC are looking for the most cost effective solution to re-equip all the sites that have Astons.

Having BBC London on the sustaining network, plus 5 regions on Red Button sounds about right to me. I suppose it is 15 years ago... It was pretty exciting seeing 6 regional clocks appear at 17:59:50 on monitors in the presentation control room on the first night of that project...