BBC HD volunteers

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StevenBagley
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Joined: Aug 14 2000

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4883532.stm

World Cup TV trial seeks viewers

Participants can watch England's World Cup games in HDTV
Four hundred and fifty volunteers in London are being sought for a six-month trial of high-definition broadcasts through digital terrestrial television.

Steven

Alan Roberts
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Off you go then, and let us know what it looks like. I haven't got HD-ready tv yet.

Get my test cards document, and cards for 625, 525, 720 and 1080. Thanks to Gavin Gration for hosting them.
Camera settings documents are held by Daniel Browning and at the EBU
My book, 'Circles of Confusion' is available here.
Also EBU Tech.3335 tells how to test cameras, and R.118 tells how to use the results.

The-Video-Compa...
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Joined: Mar 3 2004

Great, you'll be able to see someone taking a dive before being cured with the magic sponge in even more detail. :D

Same As It Ever Was! :(

StevenBagley
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Joined: Aug 14 2000
Alan Roberts wrote:
Off you go then, and let us know what it looks like. I haven't got HD-ready tv yet.

And being Nottingham based, I'd need a huge aerial to have any hope of receiving signals form CP...

Steven

simond83
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Joined: Sep 5 1999

I've just signed up!! Fingers crossed!!

ClaireTall
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Joined: Jan 28 2004

How much would we get paid because I'm not watching football for free...............no sorry I can't do it, I'm washing my hair that fortnight.

Studio with green screen for hire near Gatwick Airport.
Kit hire facilities on site.
excelsiorstudios.co.uk

Alan Roberts
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That's basically my line as well, although it doesn't take a fortnight to wash it these days :(

Get my test cards document, and cards for 625, 525, 720 and 1080. Thanks to Gavin Gration for hosting them.
Camera settings documents are held by Daniel Browning and at the EBU
My book, 'Circles of Confusion' is available here.
Also EBU Tech.3335 tells how to test cameras, and R.118 tells how to use the results.

Roryquo8
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Joined: Jun 1 2003

You lucky 450 people in London being able to watch England in the World Cup. I'm extremely envious and shall certainly miss all those reruns of that wonderful day in '66 when we conquered the invading Hun and sent them homeward to think again . . . wait a minute, 'homeward to think again'. I've heard that before somewhere. Now if I can only remember (Bannockburn) where . . .

Cheers
Mike

SimonMW
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Joined: Nov 16 2004

Will they never get it right? Who runs these trials? What happened to the Womens Beachball championships? Or Playboy Mansion Weekend. Tssk. ;)

popper
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Joined: Apr 13 2006
ClaireTall wrote:
How much would we get paid because I'm not watching football for free...............no sorry I can't do it, I'm washing my hair that fortnight.

LOL :) im not one for sport eather (even if i do live in manchester) :rolleyes:

it would probably be a good thing if they put some sci-fi on future (will it ever trial in)manchester ,were the bbc are now
based if i read it right ?.

i think its a little short sited that they state you need
a HD ready TV, it should be possible to use a TV card in your PC
such as "AVerMedia AVerTV Purity 3D MCE 500 PCI TV Tuner"
http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/review.php?item=avermce500&file=1

with its "dual tuner, and a FM receiver. In addition you can connect two s-video or two composite connections"

although i didnt know at the time its onboard "ViXS XCodeII"
chip is apparently able to Encode as well as Decode HD content
to i assume H.264/avc HD standard,although that may need modifyed
drivers ,and yet if the BBC trials are broadcast in H264
then you only then need to pass that PS stream signal directly
to harddrive so that can work also.

failing that perhaps something like this
"AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 is a full height PCI ATSC HDTV card for free over-the-air digital TV and full quality free over-the-air HDTV reception" might do the trick.
http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/review.php?item=avermcea180&file=1
other brands can probably do just as well or even better with the right H.264 chip onboard.

also peoples PC today are more than able to display H.264 HD content with the right
direct x codec installed such as the new CoreAVC/platform being
discused here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=761387#post761387

will they ever trial in south manchester and what kit will they supply ?,
hopfully a HD tv card based on "ViXS XCodeII" or better
could be part of the future options. :confused:

Alan Roberts
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My latest information comes from an informal viewing in the last few days, of a "transmission example" of HD. It was 24Mb/s MPEG2, looked very like the best that HDV (format, not cameras) can do. And that's why these are proper tests and not the pre-launch preparations for a full service. The BBC can't launch HDTV without the approval of the authorities, because it would be a new service and has to satisfy the criteria set out recently.

I wouldn't put any money on MPEG2 surviving these tests, and I really don't know why MPEG was chosen (except that there are boxes made for the Oz market that will do the decode properly), and it seems odd in the light that France has decided that SD is MPEG2, HD is MPEG4 (presumably H-264). But, I'm not a gambler anyway.

Get my test cards document, and cards for 625, 525, 720 and 1080. Thanks to Gavin Gration for hosting them.
Camera settings documents are held by Daniel Browning and at the EBU
My book, 'Circles of Confusion' is available here.
Also EBU Tech.3335 tells how to test cameras, and R.118 tells how to use the results.

infocus
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Joined: Jul 18 2003

Living in the area served by Crystal Palace I put my postcode into the site and was told I was ineligible because of location. I can only assume that some previous speculation that the HD terrestial trials may be at limited power may therefore be accurate. Damn. (My PC card should have otherwise worked if unencrypted.)

Regarding what Alan says about 24Mb MPEG2, that does seem odd. I can't see that datarate ever being acceptable for any eventual terrestial broadcasts, which begs the question of why even bother trialling it? Or is it as well as an MPEG4 variant, as a control against which the MPEG4 version can be compared to? If it's a simple matter of decoder availability, wouldn't it be sensible to postpone the tests until more relevant boxes are available?

Or, perish the thought, could the reasoning behind the trials be as much political as scientific, and the timing more to do with Skys launch than technology? The BBC actively now signalling what it thinks the future should be? What a difference a year makes.

Alan Roberts
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Joined: May 3 1999

Para 1: sounds plausible.

Para 2: I don't know what will be broadcast, but I've seen pictures which I was told are an example of it, and that it was 24Mb/s MPEG2. I'm not in a position to know more.

Para 3: I think that's spot on. BBC can't launch a service until it has convinced the authority that it meets the government criteria for value for money. But it can assess the need and rummage the system this way, and show that it means business. I hope.

Get my test cards document, and cards for 625, 525, 720 and 1080. Thanks to Gavin Gration for hosting them.
Camera settings documents are held by Daniel Browning and at the EBU
My book, 'Circles of Confusion' is available here.
Also EBU Tech.3335 tells how to test cameras, and R.118 tells how to use the results.