BBC TWO HD

Do you get it with a FTV card and Sky+ sub? It's using download rather than streaming, so using Sky+ tech - which has never been free-of-charge. Wonder if its downloaded from Sky servers or the BBC?

If the former, it's presumably saving the BBC a significant amount of money, as most other platforms (not sure about Virgin non-Tivo) stream from a BBC funded-CDN, which is paid for 'per bit' I expect. Pragmatically that may make some sense.

As iPlayer has been on Virgin cable for years, and that is also only available via a Virgin subscription, I guess the precedent had already long-been set.

'fraid not. Suspect it is done in whatever box does the H264 encoding.

I wonder will we start seeing trailers or some form of on-screen promotion for the launch of BBC Two HD soon? As I recall at least something of the sort was done in the run-up to BBC One HD at the time.

Any tests for BBC TWO HD? The only thing I've noticed on my non sky box is 6945 is now showing BBC One HD rather then BBC HD.

I guess as they may be using the same bandwith - they will just do a straight switch-over? Presumably they are testing the output chain at the moment.

I wonder if it will be the same as BBC One HD, where the SD network is a straight downconvert of the HD network, with no real option for splitting. (I.e. you can't put content with 16:9 safe gfx on BBC One HD and a different version with 4:3 safe gfx on BBC One SD)

From the viewer's point of view, it'll just take over from BBC HD at 6am on the 26th on the same channel, so you won't find any test feeds AFAIK.

Yeah, it'll work in the same way as BBC One HD, playout will be in in HD and then downconverted to SD. Some nice new big screens have been put in NC2 ready for launch.

Is it possible to split the feeds operationally?

Was wondering how the ad hoc BBC 3D stuff will be done in the future. It's always been somewhat experimental, so I guess maybe it will end. In fact isn't the Doctor Who 50th anniversary having some 3D ?

If I'm honest, I'm not sure (I'm not on the techy side of things) and the whole question of how the 3D will be done is yet to be answered.

The BBC have mentioned that they might reintroduce an HD red button stream, which would be ideal for ad-hoc 3D broadcasts. It was in the proposals published last year regarding extra HD channels on Freeview.

iirc non-tivo used to be hosted by Virgin themselves at the headends whereas tivo connects to the server. and is rubbish and always buffers despite the "dedicated connection". pile of tripe.

Thanks for the answers yeah that makes sense they'll just swapover the channels, maybe on Sky BBC will introduce a red button HD channel maybe a bit like the Olympics but for one channel?

I think the policy is that it has to be on the lowest tier, rather than free. This is what led to Microsoft not having it on the Xbox for years because they don't like giving Live Silver members anything and wanted it to be for Gold.


Yup: "In line with other TV platforms where BBC programmes are made available on demand, the BBC requires that all public service content should be accessible via the lowest cost subscription tier. In this case, it is BT Replay."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7439652.stm