HD Roll-out timetable
England
| Area | Transmitter group | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Manchester | Winter Hill | Broadcasting |
| London | Crystal Palace | Broadcasting |
| Newcastle and Tyneside | Pontop Pike | Feb 2010 |
| Leeds / Bradford | Emley Moor | March 2010 |
| Birmingham | Lichfield | March 2010 |
| Liverpool, central Lancashire, Cheshire, north Staffordshire | Winter Hill relays | March 2010 |
| Exeter, parts of Devon, Somerset, Dorset | Stockland Hill | April 2010 |
| Bristol, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire | Mendip | April 2010 |
| Devon, Cornwall, and the Isles of Scilly | Beacon Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross, Redruth | Aug 2010 |
| Cumbria and the Lake District | Caldbeck | Oct 2010 |
Then Freeview HD rolls out with the rest of the switchover programme:
2011
Bedfordshire, Berkshire (parts), Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, East Midlands, East Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Humberside, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire (parts), Stoke-on-Trent, West Midlands (remainder), and West Yorkshire (remainder).
2012
Berkshire (remainder), County Durham, Greater London (remainder), Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Surrey, Sussex, Teesside, Tyneside.
Wales
| Area | Transmitter group | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Cardiff, Newport | Wenvoe | March 2010 |
| Swansea | Kilvey Hill | March 2010 |
| west and central Wales | Blaenplwyf | March 2010 |
| Carmarthenshire | Carmel | April 2010 |
| rest of Wales | Long Mountain, Moel y Parc, Presely | June 2010 |
| Anglesey | Llanddona | July 2010 |
Wales will have switched over to digital and the roll-out of Freeview HD will be complete by the end of July 2010.
Scotland
| Area | Transmitter group | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glasgow, central Scotland | Black Hill | Feb 2010 | |
| Shetland | Bressay | May 2010 | |
| Orkney | Keelylang Hill | May 2010 | |
| Caithness, North Sutherland | Rumster Forest | June 2010 | |
| Lewis, Wester Ross, North West Sutherland, Western Isles | Eitshal, Skriaig | July 2010 | |
| Angus, Dundee, Perth, and parts of Fife | Angus | Aug 2010 | |
| Aberdeenshire | Durris | Sept 2010 | |
| Morayshire, Strathspey, and parts of Easter Ross | Knockmore | Oct 2010 | |
| South West Scotland | Caldbeck Scotland | Oct 2010 | |
| Inverness and the Great Glen | Rosemarkie | Oct 2010 | |
| South West Highlands and Islands | Torosay | Oct 2010 | |
| Scottish Borders | Selkirk | Nov 2010 |
Northern Ireland
Freeview HD rolls out with the rest of the switchover programme so that the whole of Northern Ireland is switched over to digital and will be able to receive Freeview HD by the end of 2012.
Other areas
| Area | Transmitter group | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Isle of Man | Douglas | Oct 2010 |
| Channel Islands | Fremont Point | End 2010 |
Freeview HD goes live
COMMENTS
'will be expanded to five channels when encoder improve'
Given that H264 encoders are now mature - improvements are marginal, so i call usual freeview/ofcom BS. What it will mean is we'll have a HD service with picture quality close to what the SD service would be giving if they didn't insist on 50 shitty channels eating all the bandwidth ... or insist on selling off all the bandwidth they could be using to give 20 or 30 multiplexes instead of the 6 we've had for years and will be stuck with post analogue switch off.
Lossless?
"As we all know, Freeview uses a lossless compression technique."
No it doesn't. It's lossy, as you describe in your next paragraph. Just like JPEG and the MP3s you were slagging off earlier (along with half the UK population). And why would we "all know" that anyway? The Reg readership is pretty diverse.
I don't doubt that you are a clever bloke, but you've taken "patronising" to a whole new level, even for a Reg comment - and that's saying something.
What I would actually like...
HD would be lovely and all, but I was thinking about this last night and realised that the only reason I would really want HD would be to get rid of some of the compression artefacts that muck up standard Freeview.
I find it particularly jolting when (frequently) a close up of a character speaking is rendered as an unmoving mask with only the regions around the eyes and mouth moving.
Am I the only one? Wouldn't it make sense to improve the standard picture for the viewing public before moving on to HD?
Re: Lovely, an' all but...
"will there be anything worth watching on?"
Er, no. You must have missed the bit in the article where it said...
"Launch channels are BBC HD on EPG channel 50, and ITV 1 HD on position 51. "
...so in fact the BBC appear to have no plans to make even BBC1 and BBC2 available. How crap is that?
Top tip: the actual kit will be a tenth of the price if you wait until there's something worth watching. (Probably best not to mention this in the presence of hardware vendors.)
Guide+
Some sets include Guide+, which does indeed have advertising. But that's dependent upon the particular manufacturer, and nothing to do with the BBC.
Whether or not the licensing agreement for the FreeviewHD badge will preclude any advertising appearing on the EPG screen where the Freeview logo is show, I don't know. But I will try to find out.
