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On the tenth day of Christmas Auntie brought to me ... five more HD channels

It is confirmed. If you use Freesat HD, Sky HD or Freeview HD, the BBC have five more HD channels for you from December 10th.

Everyone is happy to see Auntie in her best definition!  Photograph: Shutterstock
Everyone is happy to see Auntie in her best definition! Photograph: Shutterstock
published on UK Free TV

It would seem the BBC are going to have five HD channels for many UK homes in plenty of time for Christmas.

Here is the evidence. First, YouView is listing the channels from 7am/7pm on 10 December 2013.



And if you look into space, you can see the channels lined on satellite too.



Remember that for Freeview HD viewers, you need to use the Crystal Palace (London), Belmont (Lincolnshire), Black Hill (Central Scotland), Emley Moor (West and South Yorkshire) and Winter Hill (Greater Manchester) transmitters to get BBC FOUR HD, CBeebies HD and BBC News HD.

UPDATE 9/12/13

The channel numbers are:

Sky HD subscribers will get the HD channels on the "usual" channel numbers: CBBCHD on 613 , CBeebies HD on 614 , BBC Three HD on 115 and BBC Four HD 116. (Virgin will get CBBCHD on 710, CBeebies HD on 711, BBC Three HD on 163, BBC Four HD 164 and BBC News HD 604).

See BBC - Blogs - About the BBC - CBBC HD, CBeebies HD, BBC Three HD, BBC Four HD & BBC News HD launch Tuesday 10 December 2013 for more.



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All five public service channels now free to air!6

Comments
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Brian Wright
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

7:55 PM

Michael
Sunday 8 December 2013 4:30PM
2 days ago
However I'm not sure what you expect in terms of picture quality when you take a 1920x1080 source and display it on a 65" 3840x2160 resolution screen..
I agree but displaying an 1080 source would not please me If I was the manufacturer of the set.
Does anyone know when we can expect the BBC to have HD continuity between the regional news & London news? having to change channels at 6.30 every night from 101 to 1 when ITV seem to have sorted it ages ago.

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Brian Wright's 77 posts GB flag
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:21 PM

Brian Wright:
The transmitted HD signals are all of 1980x1080 resolution. The electronics in the receiver interpolate that to 'fill in' the non-transmitted pixels available on the screen. So a single pixel at 1920x1080 becomes the equivalent of four to give 3840x2160 resolution (roughly speaking, it 'averages' between the pixels above and below as well as those to the left and right, so generating 'new' pixels to 'fill in' the ones not transmitted). If the receiver software design and implementation is good enough you should see what appears a good highly detailed image, but it is an interpretation generated from an originally lower resolution. You don't loose anything and the software can't 'invent' something that is not in the original, that's why they use interpolation algorithms.
Interpolation is a very widely used method of regenerating lost or missing image information and has been used for many years.

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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
R
Roger Young
4:19 PM

I am only receiving CBBC HD & BBC3 HD on my Sony Freeyiew HD TV, The signal comes from the Mendip transmitter, Are the full range of BBC HD channels being added later or is this all that can be allowed on the Mendip transmitter? I have the full set on my SkyHD box.

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Roger Young's 1 post GB flag
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:25 PM

Roger Young: Mendip's COM7 (which carries BBC Four HD, CBeebies HD, BBC News HD and Al Jazeera HD does not come on air until some time next year - no date is given by Digital UK.

link to this comment
Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:27 PM

Brian Wright: 'I agree but displaying an 1080 source would not please me If I was the manufacturer of the set. '

Your quite right! We generally show the 4K's abilities via their demo disks/files (a very nice set of scenes from the US, in the case of Samsung). However, they do get turned over to other sources sometimes, occasionally when customers find the secret remote stashed behind it and start to play (I had to vanish one remote quickly the other day for just this reason).

To be fair, since nobody is broadcasting in 4K (and there is no sign that Sony is going to ship their preloaded server to the UK, for instance), if your buying one, your going to be watching in HD, so we might as well show what it will look like!

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Thursday, 12 December 2013
T
trevorjharris
sentiment_satisfiedGold

9:32 AM

Sky has been building up an archive of 4k material. I guess they will start a 4k service in pubs like they did with HD. I also suspect they will go 4k for 3D as well. Sky also has access to a big range of 4k films.

BBC has been dabling with 4k as they did with 3D.


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trevorjharris's 367 posts GB flag
R
Richard E
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

9:06 PM

Will Sudbury get the Com7 multiplex anytime in the future? I know its not on your existing timeline on other pages , but was wondering anyhow .

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Richard E's 42 posts GB flag
K
KMJ,Derby
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:05 PM

Richard E: It is unlikely, unless there is a change of heart by Ofcom or political pressure to increase coverage of COM 7. As it is the plans are to reduce the spectrum used for Freeview even further around 2018, meaning that some relays might have to be housed initially in the C31 to C37 zone. There is then discussion taking place to transfer all or most TV viewing to satellite or internet usage. What, if any, DTT could be retained in such an event to provide a back-up service remains to be seen.

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KMJ,Derby's 1,811 posts GB flag
Friday, 13 December 2013
R
Richard E
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

8:38 PM
Halstead

OK , many thanks , will probably try Freesat sooner or later ,just in case .

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Richard E's 42 posts GB flag
Richard's: mapR's Freeview map terrainR's terrain plot wavesR's frequency data R's Freeview Detailed Coverage
M
michael
sentiment_satisfiedGold

10:05 PM

"On the tenth day of Christmas Auntie brought to me ... five more HD channels." Well, to some of us. There are some big coverage holes. And "five more" is cheeky. Two carry children's programming in the daytime and BBC3 and BBC4 in the evenings. They are not separate channels. Freesat will doubtless gradually become the solution of choice for many. BUT many others will not have line-of-sight to 28°E or sufficient internet bandwidth to manage without Freeview. Hmmm...

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michael's 869 posts GB flag
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