Plans for BBC One HD

[Kunst]

Many France 3 regional versions are in HD, actually; even broadcasting-wise, not just in technical terms

But that's I guess partly because Canal+ switched to MPEG-4

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This continual messing around is making the UK broadcast infrastructure a laughing stock when the rest of Europe has hd as standard and we get crappy 576x544 or576x720 pictures.

Not good enough in 2022!

I'm not sure that's a fair assessment.

The public service broadcasters in Europe that have regional variations have very similar cost and bandwidth challenges to us, and as such many of them still broadcast their regional variations in SD with non-regional versions in HD, much like the BBC services here. Off the top of my head I know that the regional versions (on satellite) of France 3, Rai 3 in Italy and WDR in Germany are all broadcast in SD.

As for BBC Two NI HD, it's important to remember that it's the first BBC channel being carried on a Sky operated transponder, not one of the BBC's own, so the infrastructure to encode and distribute the channel is different to the other services. The link between the BBC and Sky has clearly gone down, but that's ok as the channel is still testing and they're likely still figuring things out. It's possible they tried out one distribution method, hit some issues with it, and are in the process of changing it. Just give them chance, it's better they take their time and get it right rather than rush launching a service and having it fail much more publicly later.

You're correct about Rai 3 channels, but the "die Dritten" channels are all in HD, although they do that but having the splitting the channels only for some regional programmes, saving a lot of bandwidth (but reducing HD quality during sub-regional programmes)

I don't know how the practice is called, but there are limitations with that on Sky in particular, AFAIK; because of that, BBC needs a lot more space