[Trains123]

Do they broadcast in 1080 or 720? My bluray discs seem to be clearer and sharper than the HD channels, although must say I really enjoyed some of the recent snooker world chamopionships on the HD channel? i

[JeffG1]

Not particularly technical but I believe it depends on the bit rate. Don't forget that the BBC HD channels are rendering in real time, whereas there is all the time in the world to render the image on a blu ray disc (or prerecorded stuff).

Have you noticed how much more HD the aerial shots of the city of London in programmes like The Apprentice are than the rest of the programme?

[derek500]

Broadcast HD in the UK is 1080i, Blu-Ray is 1080p.

[porkenstein]

The bbc have been using 1080i/25 and 1080p/25 dynamic switching for sometime on the freeview hd platform. My sony tv's inbuilt freeview hd tuner used to suffer audio dropouts when it switched but that has long since been rectified, i might be wrong but i'm sure i read somewhere that the dynamic switching was applied to all other freeview hd platform channels late last year.

[crofter]

Not got too much to do with picture resolution - more to do with bitrate. Your Blurays can be up to 40.0Mbps whereas HD broadcasts are usually under 10.0Mbps as far as I am aware.

[porkenstein]

Aye bitrate is the all important factor i was just responding to the 1080 or 720 bit as i don't know a whole lot about it lol

[mossy2103]

Originally Posted by porkenstein

i might be wrong but i'm sure i read somewhere that the dynamic switching was applied to all other freeview hd platform channels late last year.

That was my understanding as well.

[sealion]

Another part of the 'picture' is. I believe, that Freeview HD is broadcast 1440x1080 as opposed to Freesat 1920x1080. I feel a little cheated having only Freeview at home.

[jzee]

Originally Posted by sealion

Another part of the 'picture' is. I believe, that Freeview HD is broadcast 1440x1080 as opposed to Freesat 1920x1080. I feel a little cheated having only Freeview at home.

BBC channels are also 1440 on Sky & Freesat.

[sealion]

I stand corrected having done a bit more research.
I was foolishly thinking the BBC would be on a par with other European satellite broadcasters.

Found this link which people may like to add there comments.

http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/

The most damning facts are ...
http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/#/key-facts/4545230770

[technologist]

The MOST important factor is how true to the input pictures the output is..... consistently .
That is what the BBC works to........
That is a combination of many things - including the way in which the H.264 toolkit is used ....
and thus resolution / bit rate / frame rate/Ior P have to do with that but there are all of these things and more!

THe BBC has been demanding HD delivery for all material (expect new/sport-nowHD) for longer than any UK broadcasters ..

[mossy2103]

Originally Posted by sealion

I stand corrected having done a bit more research.
I was foolishly thinking the BBC would be on a par with other European satellite broadcasters.

Found this link which people may like to add there comments.

http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/

The most damning facts are ...
http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/#/key-facts/4545230770

It is not all about bitrates though, as what is very important is how efficiently the encoder algorithms work (more efficient encoding can mean that less bandwidth is needed). And as encoder technology improves (as it does over time), then raw bitrates become less and less important.

Another important factor is whether the broadcaster uses stat-muxing or variable bitrate (again making the raw headline figure bitrate less important).