The Sport Thread

They will be the same thing from the middle of next year. There will be no separate playout area for BBC One SD - it will be a straight down-convert (and ARC for 4:3 analogue) of the BBC One HD feed. Just as they closed the separate BBC One analogue playout area once BBC One digital was running securely, so they will close the BBC One SD playout area once BBC One HD is running safely.

This means that whilst it may be possible to split the two operations currently - it won't be next year - so you couldn't have two different feeds (one for SD, one for HD) for the two different BBC One outlets.

No - BBC One SD will soon be a straight downconvert of BBC One HD, and there won't be two presentation areas. Whilst it MAY be possible to do some split pres for the regional opts, it wouldn't be feasible to do split programme presentation, particularly on live shows which have multiple main, reserve AND backup feeds. (Can you imaging coping with that in two flavours in the current set-up?)



I think you'll find it's the other way round.

At the moment the HD pres is bolted onto the SD pres - which means that the trails, idents (and sometimes the ins and outs of HD programmes) are still SD. AIUI the eventual aim is for BBC One to be operated entirely in HD, with SD shows upconverted to HD, and the SD digital (and analogue) versions of BBC One downconverted from the HD feed (rather than being derived separately).

There have already been discussions about SD shows on SD outlets having been up- and down-converted on the way - which means some shows may get HD upgrades earlier than expected, or some HD facilities tacked onto their SD operations.

What would happen though if the FIA, broadcast only one HD feed, containing the 16:9 graphics?

Suspect that is very unlikely to happen - many markets are still downconverting 16:9 HD via 4:3 centre-cut for SD networks. (The US and Canada for instance - where 16:9 SD is rare...)

If it did though, the BBC would presumably have to treat the sport as if it were a movie, and broadcast it 16:9 letterbox on analogue. (And answer all the complaints...)

ITV acquire free-to-air Ashes highlights for ITV4 :

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/pressreleases/programmepressreleases/itvsecuresfreetoairasheshighlights/default.html

Due to the ridiculous restrictions on the rights imposed by Sky it's pretty much the only slot it could air in. Some Freeview folk though lost ITV4 last year thanks to the shake up caused by the launch of Freeview HD - but it should still do well enough on ITV4 and probably wouldn't rate much better on ITV1 at 10.35pm - a slot which wouldn't be consistently available anyway.

Interesting to see Nicholas as host. You'd think that Five had his services exclusively in the UK, but clearly not.

This really is excellent news, and I can't wait to see the programme.

Do Channel 9 produce a highlights programme, which might just be repackaged for ITV. Is Richie Benaud still commentating for them?

And I don't know if they've changed the graphics recently or not, but Channel 9 were using a tweaked version of the old C4 package.

Richie Benaud was commentating last night on the Australia A v England match which is showing on Sky Sports with coverage taken from Channel 9.

Richie is still a Channel 9 commentator - but appears less during the day, as they've started to experiment with a three in the box rota of commentators.

Channel 9 are still using the Alston Elliott designed Channel 4-ish graphics for cricket (at least they were on the last set of one-day'ers Sky Sports showed recently) a bit deeper green, and more beveled than Channel 4 - but still using the DIN font - and still not adapted to use the full bottom screen score aston (unlike pretty much every other broadcaster of cricket in the world) but using the top right score box.That had something to do with the match director (Rob Sutherland IIRC) who hated the cross screen strap and refuses to use it.

..but there's nothing like an Ashes test to launch a new set or a refresh of the current graphics package. I think the current look was updated for the last ashes series that Channel 9 were the host broadcaster for.

Looking tonight at ITV Sport's output. They've aired Darts on ITV4 with Eng vs Fra on ITV1.
The Darts is sporting the 2006 look - doesn't look too bad, whilst the football coverage has opted for an amended version of the World Cup 2010 graphics, even though other football coverage still uses the older look.
I know that football tends to do their own thing, but other sports broadcast recently have gone for totally different looks also.

Is it time that ITV looked to create a new unified look again? Or do people prefer the each production looks different approach?

Although the number of analogue viewers must be very low now and will be gradually decreasing during the next F1 season, surely it can't be a consideration for much longer?