Virgin Media Television (Flexitech) channels go widescreen

digital spy tells us....

Virgin Media-owned television channels including Living and Virgin 1 will broadcast in widescreen from tomorrow.

All the company's services will be transmitted in the 16:9 aspect ratio on all platforms, director of television Claudia Rosencrantz has announced.

"Every great picture needs the perfect frame – and television is no exception," she said. "Widescreen will give our audience that little bit extra of the shows they love, and will add a cinematic dimension to our glossiest and brightest content."

Virgin's other wholly-owned channels are Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Challenge and Trouble.




So yay at that. On a related note, I've noticed more of the archive on UKTV is appearing in widescreen now so they must be getting new copies from the BBC.

I'm sure the Beeb said virtually the same tosh about "bigger pictures need a bigger frame" when they launched digital channels over 10 years ago...! Glad to see that satellite and cable channels are finally catching up.

I only found out before when I noticed the DOG on Virgin 1 had altered, and then it went into a widescreen break. I'm very pleased with the rebrand for Challenge, it looks very nice and is alot better than the previous look.

Bravo, however, the only pres I've seen on the channel is silent, and IMO it's pretty boring without any music or sound...

I don't suppose cropping is too much of an issue now for UKTV Gold considering "Gold" seems to be programmes from the last 12 months, and from the US.

About time - they should have done this when Virgin 1 launched with the new Terminator series.

I noticed last night that they've changed the DOG on Bravo to the name rather than the 'devil's head' logo.

http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/bravo.jpg

Has Bravo really been going since 1985, even before Sky Analogue launched?

Yes, I remember it in the early days of Swindon Cable.

Well I never. Every day's a school-day as they say.

Yep - originally Bravo was a retro-TV channel - showing 60s, 70s and more recently 80s shows like The Avengers, Max Headroom etc. It morphed into a much more laddish channel relatively recently - sadly. I quite liked the mix of retro stuff it used to show.

Bravo used to have one of the grandest opening idents on cable. The one with the transmitter when it branded itself "Timewarp Television". Ah back in the day.

I remember that too, from when I first got cable from Comcast. The present style and logo appeared around 1997 ISTR which is when I got Sky Analogue then Digital.

The channel seems to have tried to tame the laddish image of late and has started showing some of the Star Trek franchise similar to Virgin 1.