BBC2 HD ?

It does cost quite a lot more money to schedule, play out and generally run a third independent channel, and there is also a cost in some of the non-simulcast content that BBC HD shows.

It may not appear huge - but at the moment any saving has to be considered - with the BBC reducing budgets overall by around 20% in an era of broadcast inflation.

Increasingly HD is the norm for ALL UK production (in some cases HD can be cheaper than SD these days with some workflows) - the element of "HD Showcase" that BBC HD offered is less compelling, coupled with BBC Three and Four shows being more likely to air on BBC One and Two (and thus in HD) I guess.

Would they be able to put BBC3 and 4 shows up on iPlayer in HD to cover for the loss of a linear HD channel for them? Presume that would need Trust's approval, as at the moment I believe only the SD versions go up unless something has aired on BBC1 HD or BBC HD.

I was thinking just the same, and its oneof the ompromises they could come up with, apart from repeating HD stuff on BBC One and BBC Two, which is another viable solution. And with BBC iPlayer on more and more platforms, especially on TV, people will be able to watch HD content from BBC Three/Four when available if they want. That's if the TV apps allow HD, I'm not sure.

LG TVs certainly allow for HD streaming so presumably other connected TVs do as well.

BBC has apparently announced that it will show some Olympics in 3D on BBC HD, which somewhat confirms that BBC Two HD won't launch until sometime after that (if then don't decide to have the two channels running side-by-side).

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2012/02/15/bbc-confirms-live-3d-olympics/