BBC to launch 5 HD channels

Gerry Wicklow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23326709

The BBC has announced it plans to launch five new high definition channels by early 2014.
There will be HD versions of BBC News, BBC Three, BBC Four, CBeebies and CBBC.
They will be available over rooftop aerials via Freeview receivers as well as satellite and cable services.

mike65

Claps like a mad seal!

evilivor

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23326709

The BBC has announced it plans to launch five new high definition channels by early 2014.
There will be HD versions of BBC News, BBC Three, BBC Four, CBeebies and CBBC.
They will be available over rooftop aerials via Freeview receivers as well as satellite and cable services.

Time to upgrade the Humax's harddrive methinks.

Great news.

excollier

Already done mine to 1TB last year.

dublinman1990

It's great news to hear from the BBC.

It will be great to have it on the Triax TSC 114 box whenever it comes out next year.

sky23

wooooooooo. bty are they saying there that bbc three hd & cbbc hd is going to be broadcasting for longer during the day?

Rick_

No. CBBC HD will broadcast from 7am to 7pm, like the SD service does and will use the capacity on DTT that is currently dormant but the BBC was trying to sell off but no-one would buy. Then BBC THREE HD will come on at 7pm until around 5am. The new HD services will share the same stream on satellite like the SD ones currently do, same goes for CBeebies HD and BBC FOUR HD. BBC News HD will be it's own separate stream.

mike65

Freesat should tweak the EPG to bring some order to the HD situation, you'd imagine that the majority of main use boxes will soon be HD standard

BBC1 HD
BBC1 HD
ITV HD
C4 HD
Five
(space for proposed "local" channel)
BBC3 HD
BBC4 HD
BBC1 SD
BBC2 SD
ITV SD
C4 HD
BBC 3 SD
BBC4 SD
ITV1+1
ITV 2
ITV2+1
ITV3
ITV 3 +1
ITV4
ITV4+1
E4
E4+1
More 4
More 4+1
4Seven
BBC Alba
S4C

and as you were beyond that

mackersdublin

BBC's press release http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/bbchdchannels.html

Great news for Freesat & Sky customers, hopefully UPC will add them as soon as they launch

Rick_

Any EPG is not allowed to have the HD channels at 1-5 yet due to broadcasting regulations. When HD becomes more commonplace with practically every channel having it's own HD version, then they may change it. Seeing as BBC ONE HD does not have local HD variants for every BBC ONE SD version, and the BBC are now proposing to keep the regions of BBC TWO and have HD versions for them, the swap to 101 and 102 is a long way off yet.

icdg

Moved to Broadcasting.

Its great news in and of itself (and justifies the shutting down of BBC HD) but the news that the national variants of BBC Two (yes I know some people round here hate them) are going to get HD versions - subject to BBC Trust approval - surely means that the talk of scrapping the BBC Two nations has surely been abandoned.

Rick_

It would appear so, but the BBC Trust may still tell them they can't have HD versions of the BBC TWO regions and to continue with their initial plan to close the regions and have a single, UK wide BBC TWO with all regional programming moving to BBC ONE.

Astra 2E is launching next week and will be operational by the end of the year. It is designed to provide space for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, so there will be plenty of space for the BBC to house a lot more HD channels than currently.

On a side note, these new BBC HD channels are part of a new initiative for UK DTT and this includes adding one but possibly two channels from Channel 4 onto the new space, so in addition to the 5 BBC HD channels launching in the next few months, we should also see E4 HD, More 4 HD and/or Film 4 HD coming to DTT. Hopefully this also means a FTA satellite launch is also on the cards for them.

mike65

I'd love Film 4 in HD on Freesat but won't hold my breath.

Gerry Wicklow

Paddy C wrote: »

.....
Astra 2E is launching next week and will be operational by the end of the year. It is designed to provide space for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, so there will be plenty of space for the BBC to house a lot more HD channels than currently.
...

I was under the impression that the launch of Astra 2E was put back several months following the accident(s) with the Proton launcher.

I too would love to see Film4 HD FTA. Aren't they in some kind of exclusive deal with Virgin at the moment?

Rick_

The exclusivity deal with Virgin expires shortly as it is launching on Sky in the next month or two. With Film 4+1 returning to DTT soon it would be nice to have C4, C4+1, C4HD, E4, E4+1, E4HD, F4, F4+1 and F4HD all on DTT for free. After Christmas this may just be the case (along with the 5 BBC HD channels too, a great time for free HD customers!)

ftakeith

rte1hd next year maybe on saorview

then in 2020 rte3hd might come to saorview

Rick_

Isn't RTÉ ONE HD supposed to be on Saorview by the end of this year?