BBC One HD Regions

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Gillor said:

No problem here. I've been watching Midlands News on Freesat in HD ever since the changeover on 6th February. 

But is it 1080 quality, or the blurry SD I saw last night? Even the studio footage was SD, I could excuse the outside footage being shot on a Nokia 8000 series in an emergency, but not studio footage.

If I remember I'll check out the East Midlands HD feed next week

Gillor

I'll double check on Monday.

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Something odd has been happening, as it mapped to 101 fine, but 101 keeps disappearing from my favourites. I've given up and added 963 to my favourites instead, and moved it up to the top.

Gillor

You’re right.

Checked West Midlands News this lunchtime and you're right, switching to Freesat from Freeview doesn’t result in any picture improvement. So still broadcasting in SD quality by the look of it.

Username03725

facade said:

Bumping this.

I actually watched the West Midlands News in  "HD" on Freesat today.

The picture quality is blurry, around 480, and if someone moves all their detail goes.

Meanwhile the London feed  on 950 is pinsharp, definitely 1080

Its 2023, and the local news is 1990s webcam quality.

Words fail me.... 

I’m not sure why it needs a 'words fail me' but as you asked…

The priority was to remove the red placeholder card on BBC 1 HD when regional programmes were being shown. That’s been achieved by replacing all of the regional SD services with their HD equivalent, and mapping them to 101. Sorted.

Separately there is a need to upgrade all of the remaining non-HD regional news studios to HD. This isn’t a simple job of buying a couple of HD cameras, the whole edit process and network switching needs to be upgraded too, at some cost. Given the years of licence fee cutbacks and freezes and the govt’s trick of putting its funding for free licences for the O75s onto the BBC's shoulders where it had been a govt funded benefit, there isn’t the necessary funding available to do the HD upgrades all at once.

They’re happening, some studios are already equipped for full HD. The rest will follow but some may take longer. West Mids is one example - the BBC are moving out of The Mailbox in the not too distant future so there’s no sense in upgrading that studio, and W Mids Today will remain an SD picture on an HD carrier for a while longer.

Username03725

List of the regions' studios current statuses:

London - HD

North East & Cumbria - HD

South - HD

South West - HD

North West - HD

Channel Islands - SD (HD during Spotlight simulcast)

East - SD

East Midlands - SD

South East - SD

Midlands - SD

West (Bristol) - SD

Yorkshire (Leeds): SD

Yorks & Lincs (Hull): SD

So currently only London, South, South West, NE & Cumbria and the North West (Salford so it would be) studios are emitting native HD, the rest are all emitting upscaled SD until the respective upgrades occur.

facade

Thanks for the info.

A pointless exercise really then, apart from I don't burn the "change the channel yourself" message into my screen.

So it is a 480 feed, which explains the low resolution, but not the motion blurring, Nick only has wrinkles when he has sat perfectly still for a second or two.

Username03725

So it is a 480 feed, which explains the low resolution, but not the motion blurring, Nick only has wrinkles when he has sat perfectly still for a second or two.

A touch of hyperbole is ok. I just watched the end of Mids Today on 959 (strewth Nick has aged since I last saw him) and although not great it was watchable. The PQ on the UB40 item was noticeably better than the studio quality but that only reinforces my earlier point, that The Mailbox isn't long for this world so no point throwing money at new kit. It looked to me to be just about scraping up to the 'about watchable' bar. My regular, East Mids, isn't much better but I wouldn't expect it to be for the same reasons.

Anyway.

A pointless exercise really then, apart from I don't burn the "change the channel yourself" message into my screen.

Not really. If you follow broadcasting you'd be aware that the single biggest criticism of the whole BBC1 HD / local news thing at 6:30 isn't that the local bulletin isn't in HD, it's that it's necessary to switch channels from a national service to the local one. Those of us who care for good picture quality are very much in a minority - tales are legion of people who routinely never watch BBC1 HD because it avoids the faff of switching over at the end of the news; or those who claim not to see any benefit in HD as it 'looks about the same to me'. Seriously.

So as already mentioned, the BBC had two linked requirements: to get rid of the red placeholder, and to upgrade regional studios to HD. Which then becomes a chicken & egg situation. Upgrade the regions bit by bit and switch to the HD equivalent as each upgrade completes? Or accept that more people are troubled by the placeholder than the lack of HD for the local bulletin, and do it the way they've done it? Seems like a no-brainer to me tbh.

You'd do well to burn in the message btw. It's only there for a few minutes before o/p switches to a showreel of BBC progs. A few minutes per day of the message interspersed with regular viewing won't leave an imprint.

droopsnoot

Username03725 said:

If you follow broadcasting you'd be aware that the single biggest criticism of the whole BBC1 HD / local news thing at 6:30 isn't that the local bulletin isn't in HD, it's that it's necessary to switch channels from a national service to the local one. 

That's been my issue - I want to take advantage of HD, but I can't be bothered switching channels, or at least when I do, I can't be bothered switching back again.

I'm only on Freeview, so none of this applies to me anyway. Hopefully that will happen soon.

Username03725

droopsnoot said:

That's been my issue - I want to take advantage of HD, but I can't be bothered switching channels, or at least when I do, I can't be bothered switching back again.

I'm only on Freeview, so none of this applies to me anyway. Hopefully that will happen soon.

Depends on your source but the simplest way was to set BBC1 HD to number 1 in the Favourites list so it’s literally one button push to get there.

Fortunately the BBC cleverly nudge us into moving away from BBC1 SD at the end of the regional news by putting on The One Show, effectively forcing a channel change or switching it off completely.