BBC HD

BBC HD
Launched	15 May 2007
Owned by	BBC
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Audience share	0.1% (March 2010, BARB)
Sister channel(s)	BBC One BBC Two BBC Three BBC Four BBC News BBC Parliament
Website	http://www.bbc.co.uk/hd/
Availability
Terrestrial
Freeview (UK)	Channel 50
Satellite
Astra 2D	10847V 22000 5/6
Freesat (UK)	Channel 108
Sky (UK & Ireland)	Channel 143
Cable
Virgin Media (UK)	Channel 108
UPC Ireland (Ireland)	Channel 135
Naxoo (Switzerland)	Channel 336
Cablecom (Switzerland)	Channel 073
Teledünya (Turkey)	Channel 6

BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007. The first HD originated programme to be shown on the channel was Planet Earth, shown on 27 May 2006.

The broadcasts are generally six to nine hours per day, and include simulcasts with other BBC channels, such as Top Gear, Doctor Who, Michael Palin's New Europe and Hustle, and replays of HD programmes such as Planet Earth, Bleak House, Torchwood, and Hotel Babylon. Live coverage of events such as The Proms, Wimbledon Tennis Championships, the Eurovision Song Contest, the FIFA World Cup, and the Concert for Diana have already been shown, with the first live event to be broadcast being the opening World Cup game between Germany and Costa Rica on 9 June 2006.

When high-definition programmes are not being shown, the channel broadcasts a looped preview containing clips from BBC HD programmes.

Initially the trial lasted 12 months, after which the BBC Trust agreed to a Public Value Test (PVT) which began on 21 May 2007 and the BBC extended its own HD trial, which was to end in June, until the end of the PVT process. It was announced on 19 November 2007 by the BBC Trust that following the PVT they had approved the BBC Executive's high definition television proposals to allow the launch of UK's first free-to-air, mixed-genre public service HD channel.^[1]

Contents 1 Technical details and availability 1.1 2009 bitrate drop 1.2 International versions 2 BBC HD service 3 Worldwide events 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Technical details and availability

BBC HD is available to viewers of the Astra 2D satellite with suitable reception equipment. The channel was also broadcast as a digital terrestrial (DVB-T) service from London's Crystal Palace Transmitter until May 2007, enabling the channel to be viewed by a selected trial group of 450 companies and homes.

Both the satellite and terrestrial broadcasts are free to air, which means that anybody with the necessary equipment will be able to view the channel. The cable broadcast is available through Virgin Media's basic television package.

Until 2 April 2010, when ITV1 HD was made available to all platforms, the BBC was only terrestrial broadcaster to offer a "platform neutral" HD offering. Channel 4 HD is currently available through Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media. ITV, Channel 4 and Five also took part in the terrestrial HD trials from London's Crystal Palace Transmitter, ITV also made their trial available through the Telewest cable service.

The BBC HD channel launches on digital terrestrial television on a region-by-region basis, starting on 2 December 2009 and ending in 2012.^[2]

The UK broadcasts are typically at a resolution of 1440x1080i and encoded in MPEG-4 H.264/AVC on satellite and terrestrial television and in MPEG-2 on cable. Although it is not 1920x1080, the resolution is within European Broadcasting Union specifications for HD.^[3]

On 27 April 2010, BBC HD launched on the Sky EPG in Ireland.^[4] Before this date, BBC HD was only available in the UK on Sky.

From Autumn 2010, BBC HD will be statistically multiplexed on satellite with BBC One HD.^[5]

[edit] 2009 bitrate drop

On 5 August 2009, BBC HD switched to new transmission encoders, and satellite bitrates on Astra 2D dropped by nearly 40% (from 16Mbs to 9.7Mbs), leading to a large number of complaints of poor picture quality.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} The cable version has remained at 17Mbs and is encoded by Virgin Media themselves,^[12] while the later launched terrestrial version is statistically multiplexed between 3Mbs and 17Mbs.^[13]

European Broadcasting Union (of which the BBC is a member) documents (EBU Tech 3328 and 3334) recommend that the 1080i HD TV format should run at a minimum bitrate of 12Mbps to 14Mbps. Andy Quested, BBC principal technologist, said that the documents were issued in May 2008, which was "long before" the BBC started testing on the new encoders. "Tests have demonstrated that at transmission bitrates, H264 encoders should deliver approximately a 2:1 efficiency over MPEG-2 encoders. Depending on the manufacturer and their current stage of development good HD at 8-10Mbps is achievable now." Quested also pointed out that EBU Tech 3334 says, "With the expected future developments in video coding, it is assumed that HD fixed bitrate requirements will be reduced to 8Mbps to 10Mbps per programme. There will also be advances in the transmission system such as DVB-T2."^[3][14]

By mid-December 2009 the BBC had received around 130 complaints on the issue, one of which was sent to the BBC Trust.^[15] Tests run by consumer publication Which?, published in December 2009, found no significant decline in picture quality on the BBC HD channel, labelling the difference in picture quality between the new and old BBC HD broadcasts as "insignificant".^[16] A petition was added to the official Number10 website in December 2009, petitioning Prime Minister Gordon Brown to bring the BBC in line with current European Broadcasting Union standards by restoring the correct transmission bandwidth on the channel, after the BBC remained steadfast in its belief that there is not actually a problem on the channel.^[17]

BBC HD continues to broadcast to the rest of Europe at around 16Mbps with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.^[18]

On 30 April 2010, a delegation of viewers unhappy about the picture and sound quality on BBC HD met with BBC HD controller Danielle Nagler and BBC principal technologist Andy Quested at BBC Television Centre to discuss the "current poor picture quality level of the corporation's flagship high definition television service".^[19] They argued that BBC HD is failing in its obligation to "deliver a very high quality technical service to viewers, by adhering to, or seeking to exceed, industry standards for picture resolution". Paul Eaton, who has also appealed to the BBC Trust about the channel's technical quality, said: "The BBC should increase the bit-rate for its HD channel on satellite to 14-16Mbps, and increase picture resolution from 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 to be in-line with the majority of other HD broadcasters."

From 3 June 2010, the BBC launched a raft of picture quality improvements for BBC HD, the changes include Variable Bit Rate encoding, a fix for mix/fade problems and a new approach to noise in pictures.^[20] Variable Bit Rate encoding allows the broadcaster to maintain the same average bandwidth, while increasing the bit rate for more demanding scenes such as fast movement. The ‘mix/fade’ fix treats a specific problem in changing scenes, while a configuration change for ‘noisy’ video means the BBC no longer needs to add noise reduction, which often reduced the overall picture quality. John Temperley, of the BBC HD Campaign, said: "We are pleased to see that after nearly a year of campaigning, BBC HD has taken these measures and, as we expected all along, the results have been a significant improvement in picture quality."^[21]

[edit] International versions

It was announced in September 2006 that BBC Worldwide planned to broadcast an international version of BBC HD in the near future.

In Australia, an Australian version of BBC HD was broadcast on the Foxtel HD+ service which was made available to subscribers on 2 June 2008 and was officially launched at the end of June 2008.^[22] On 15 November 2009 it was replaced on Foxtel HD+ by UKTV HD.

During the first broadcast of BBC World News America, it was announced that BBC America HD would be launched in 2008. The channel in fact began broadcasting on 20 July 2009.^[23] Of May 2010 Open From Poland

BBC HD started broadcasting to the Scandinavian countries in 2008.^[24]

[edit] BBC HD service

The BBC has been approved to provide a service of nine hours per day, 15:00 to midnight, with some flexibility to extend beyond this to allow for the coverage of significant live sport or other events. The BBC Trust stated that the service should be available on cable and satellite as soon as the service licence was effective, and the channel had its official launch on 1 December 2007. The decision to provide an early Freeview four-hour overnight schedule has been put on hold with the preferred option being to provide the full nine-hour service as soon as possible, this would be reviewed in spring 2008 when there would be greater clarity over spectrum bandwidth and broadcast standards for digital television.

The BBC HD channel is a mixed-genre service. Its aim, as far as possible, is to showcase programmes produced in HD from the schedules of other BBC channels. These are broadcast in HD end-to-end, not converted from standard definition (SD). Any individual programme may contain up to 25 per cent of non-HD material converted from SD — for example, archive shots in a documentary. It must be noted that some high definition recording formats like HDV as well as some film formats like 16 mm are considered by BBC to be "non-HD".^[25]

The content comes from across the BBC's portfolio of television channels. It was found by the BBC Trust from the PVT that there was considerable support for BBC HD to show programmes in prime time that would most benefit from the uplift to HD, and not to be just a channel that would simulcast BBC One programmes at this time.

On 28 May 2010, it was announced that BBC HD Channel will extend its regular broadcast hours from around nine hours a day to twelve.^[26] The announcement coincided with that of BBC One HD, a high definition simulcast of BBC One, leaving BBC HD to showcase the rest of the BBC.

[edit] Worldwide events

So far, the BBC has broadcast the 2006 World Cup, Wimbledon, Open Golf, England football internationals, action from the FA Cup and Six Nations rugby in high-definition. The US Masters golf from Augusta National was screened in HD for the first time in 2007. The Eurovision Song Contest was also broadcast live in high-definition on BBC HD, these include 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and is likely to broadcast upcoming contests in the same way.

The Euro 2008 Championships were broadcast during June and from 8 August, BBC HD showed coverage of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, considerably extending the channel's operating hours to do so. Coverage of the Australian Open and French Open tennis tournaments in HD, which the BBC hold the rights to along with Eurosport started in 2009. BBC Sport officials have indicated that they hope to offer all of their output in HD by 2012, based on the availabilities of global feeds and planned new studios or HD-friendly renovations in London and Manchester.^[27]

The BBC also showed live coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2010 FIFA World Cup in HD.

As well as sport, the 2009 United States presidential inauguration was also shown on the channel and coverage of the 2010 United Kingdom General Election

[edit] See also

	Book:BBC Channels (UK)
Books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• High-definition television in the United Kingdom
• BBC HD Scandinavia

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• BBC HD at BBC Online
• BBC HD International
• BBC HD Australia
• How to receive BBC HD at BBC Online
• Report on the digital terrestrial HD trial at BBC Online
• BBC HD at TV Ark
• BBC Trust Public Value Test Final Conclusions document
• BBC FOI HD - An unofficial website on the BBC's new transmission encoders and HD service

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