BBC HD on ntl cable?

Uncle Grueber

From ireland.com today:

"BSkyB HD television rollout hits problems
UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB has hit a snag in the rollout of its high-definition TV service after France's Thomson failed to deliver enough set-top boxes.

Installation for 17,000 households has been delayed, and in some cases households who had been told they would receive the HD service in time for next month's World Cup will not have it installed until after the tournament has begun.

"We ordered more than enough boxes from our supplier to meet strong demand from customers, and we're ready to install them, but they've not arrived from Thomson," a Sky spokesman said today.

"Most of those customers will be offered an installation date within two weeks of their original date. Every customer who was scheduled to have their HD box before the World Cup will either receive it before or during (the tournament)."

Broadcasters had high hopes that the World Cup would showcase the next-generation technology, which offers a sharper and more vivid picture, but due to rollout problems analysts expect only about 100,000 households around Europe will see the tournament in high-definition.

The BBC is broadcasting matches in high-definition, but they will only be available to Sky HD subscribers and some users on NTL's cable system."


Anybody know anything about this ntl: HD?

watty

NTL and Telewest in UK have merged.
It is only the UK Telewest that has HD on Cable.

NTL doesn't exist here any more. It and Chorus now belong to UPC. UPC will rebrand when they have fixed the networks.

So no BBC HD on Irish Cabel anytime soon.

The article is inaccurate as the FTA Pace 810 HD receiver does work for BBC HD too. Humax and other HD receivers will work "shortly".

Uncle Grueber

Cheers watty, that's cleared that up for me.

Alun

watty wrote:

UPC will rebrand when they have fixed the networks.

So it'll still be ntl: for another decade or so then ?

satgirl

Well, some government minister will probably announce HD 'trials' soon, just like we had DTT 'trials' some years ago.

lafors

satgirl wrote:

Well, some government minister will probably announce HD 'trials' soon, just like we had DTT 'trials' some years ago.

I read the other day that RTE are going HD soon, with end of 2007 being thrown out as a start of their ramp up. It said though that they don't have cameras etc to record in HD yet.

Uncle Grueber

Well, RTÉ have at least one HD camera. I've used it, and the quality is fantastic.

Calibos

Fingers crossed that Irelands tardiness in setting up a digital terrestrial freeview type service turns out to be a good thing. ie We skip the digital SD terrestrial broadcasting and go straight to digital HDTV terrestrial broadcasting.

Much like the fact that European broadcasters realisation that people actually might want quality of channels over quantity may have been for the best seeing as they can now take advantage of better compression algorithms these days (Mpeg4) for their HDTV broadcasts. They get to maintain a sizable chunk of the quantity of channels while still being able to offer quality in the form of HDTV all because of the better use of available bandwidth provided by mpeg4.

Although we looked on with envy at the US, Japan and much of Australasia deciding to go HD at the same time as their digital switchovers and decryed our European broadcasters shortsightedness, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. And lets be honest, its only now that there is HD programming in quantity and HDTV compatible displays at reasonable prices. Maybe its the US that jumped the HDTV gun? It would/will be a very expensive proposition for the US now to change everyones Mpeg2 HD STB's over to MPEG4 versions to enable them to make better use of available bandwidth.

For Ireland hopefully this will mean we have skipped Mpeg 2 SD terrestrial, Mpeg2 HD Terrestrial and will go straight to MEPG4HD Terrestrial. Imagine Ireland having a Digital fully HDTV freeview system with 14 or 15 quality channels and some premium subscription ad ins like SkySports/MoviesHD etc. I think you would see a massive excodus from NTL and Sky. From having NTL digital for a few years I have realised that I would prefer quality of programming and quality of Picture over the current situation of 220 channels and nothing on......with a crap low res picture to boot.

Is that gonna happen though.....................my ar5e!! Our shower of ****wits will screw it up with short sightedness no doubt.

bk

Well it looks like the DTT boxes that will soon be trialled in Ireland will support both MPEG4 and 2. I assume initially it will be mostly SD broadcasts, but hopefully they will include HD capability (HDMI, etc.) for future upgrades.

It would be stupid not to at this stage.

byrnefm

bk wrote:

Well it looks like the DTT boxes that will soon be trialled in Ireland will support both MPEG4 and 2. I assume initially it will be mostly SD broadcasts, but hopefully they will include HD capability (HDMI, etc.) for future upgrades.

I heard from a colleague at work that a number of households have been selected to take part in the DTT trials - does anyone know how RTÉ went about selecting people for the trial? I wouldn't have minded being a part of it, particularly as MPEG4 boxes aren't easily available to buy!

byrner01

does anyone know how or when we should expect to get bbc hd channel in ireland on sky digital:)

Pat Gleeson

byrner01 wrote:

does anyone know how or when we should expect to get bbc hd channel in ireland on sky digital:)

Not anytime soon, I would think.

The BBC HD trial has ended on cable and terrestrial in the UK AFAIK, and is due to end on satellite this coming July/August. The service is then "under review", and could leave our screens for the couple of months it would take the review, public consultations, etc. to be completed.

It hardly bodes well for BBC HD to appear on the Irish EPG, if it's likely to leave the satellite platform completely, even if only temporarily.

I would assume it's safe to assume that it would return, considering the amount of UK license fee money already spent on HD recording and broadcasting.

watty

The MPEG4 for DTT is to save bandwidth, twice as many channels, not for HD.

I'd thought the BBC HD TRIAL (only about 3 programs a day) was due to end in April?

A PC Satellite card to receive it is about €70 and will connect to a spare connection on Sky Dish Quad. You need a large screen than can do 1920x 1080i. Some Widescreen PC monitors will do 1920 x 1200 p which will do.

Decent true HD screens (1920 x 1080i native) big enough are over €3,000 still (most "HD Ready" sets are either too small or not enough resolution to get the advantage of HD).

So I wouldn't worry too much about HD till next year. There is not much content and it costs too much.

There is unlikely to be ANY HD on terrestrial till Analogue TV is closed, by then (four years time?) there may be a decent amount of content and decent TV sets.

Eamo71

watty wrote:

The MPEG4 for DTT is to save bandwidth, twice as many channels, not for HD.

I'd thought the BBC HD TRIAL (only about 3 programs a day) was due to end in April?

A PC Satellite card to receive it is about €70 and will connect to a spare connection on Sky Dish Quad. You need a large screen than can do 1920x 1080i. Some Widescreen PC monitors will do 1920 x 1200 p which will do.

Decent true HD screens (1920 x 1080i native) big enough are over €3,000 still (most "HD Ready" sets are either too small or not enough resolution to get the advantage of HD).

So I wouldn't worry too much about HD till next year. There is not much content and it costs too much.

There is unlikely to be ANY HD on terrestrial till Analogue TV is closed, by then (four years time?) there may be a decent amount of content and decent TV sets.

But is it true that SKy is broadcasting HD at 720 anyway so a HD ready set would do just fine??

Mossy Monk

only sport is 720p from what i know

also when Blue Ray and HD DVD become the norm the 'HD Ready' wont be able to display the full resolution on movies. then there are games consoles

watty

No, even Sport on Sky is 1080i.

Only USA and some other NTSC areas using 720p and 1080i (SD is 480i and basic HD is 840 x 480p approx in USA!)

In Europe SD TV is 576 line, so 720p is not enough improvement, Almost all is 1080i.

The Sky box can receive either and rescale to either.

Sky recommend seeting the box to 1080i. All HD Ready sets will display a 1080i signal, but unless they really have 1920 pixels x1080 lines the picture is blurred.

zilog_jones

I thought I heard that BBC were using 720p?

All sets with the "HD Ready" logo must have a vertical resolution of at least 720 pixels - this is still much of an improvement from a few of years ago when most the big plasmas and a lot of LCD TVs were mostly only 480 line!