BBC to introduce HDTV this year

Posted by T3 Online on Tue 7 Mar 2006

Cross-platform tests set for Sky, cable and Freeview - and they could include the World Cup.

The BBC has confirmed that it will begin Hi-Def test transmissions this year, launching a nine to 12 month trial in June. The programming, which will be free-to-air, will run on three different platforms: satellite via Sky's HDTV service, cable via Telewest's and, most surprisingly, terrestrial digital.

The latter will be a "closed" trial available to only a few hundred households in the London area, and it's unlikely that we'll see a proper Hi-Def service on terrestrial telly until the analogue switch-off in a few years - there simply isn't the space on the airwaves for enough channels.

Everyone with the Sky or Telewest HDTV packages, on the other hand, should be able to watch the crystal clear test service. But what will they be watching? Well, drama series like Bleak House and the gore-tastic togafest Rome have already been filmed in Hi-Def, as was Planet Earth, so these are likely to appear. Even more enticing is the BBC's suggestion that the World Cup - of which the BBC shares the rights with ITV - may well be included. "We very much hope we can deliver our half of the World Cup," says the BBC's Andy Quested in T3's sister magazine What Video and Widescreen TV. And you can't ask for much more than that!