BBC & Sky opt for 1080i for HD

22nd May 2006

Despite Sky saying publicly a few times that they preferred the 720p format, and that it widely thought that the BBC would also use 720p, largely because the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) were trying to convince all of its members (the European public service broadcasters) to adopt 720p, the BBC is transmitting its HD trial services in the 1080i format, and its guidelines for accepting HD content only allows content to be provided in the 1080i or 1080p formats, as can be seen below:

BBC Summary of Delivery Formats

"1. Video Standards
1.1. The BBC will accept High Definition programme acquired using either of the following:
1920 x 1080 interlace at 25 frames a second (now called 1080i25) or
1920 x 1080 progressive at 25 frames a second (now called 1080p25)
1.2. All delivered high definition master tapes must be 1080i25 (whether acquired 1080p25 or 1080i25). Rollers and moving captions must be added in 1080i25 to prevent unacceptable judder."

And Sky have also announced that they're now adopting 1080i as well, which is even more surprising than the BBC's decision.

I've been opposed to the EBU's plan for Europe to adopt 720p ever since they first published their views on the matter. In my opinion, the EBU seemed to be favouring 720p because it can be used at slightly lower bit rates than 1080i, but my opposition to this is that it would come at the expense of picture resolution, because 1080i has a 67% higher picture resolution than 720p, so 1080i will provide a much sharper picture.

I felt that the EBU were trying to sell us short in order to save the broadcasters a small amount of money, much in the same way that the EBU Technical Department is still supporting the current DAB system despite the fact that it should have been upgraded years ago, because it is ridiculously outdated and any country that has adopted it in recent years is seriously letting their radio listeners down.

Thankfully the BBC and Sky have seen through the EBU's scare tactics about interlacing, which is a crude but highly effective compression technique, and getting rid of it and instead having to use a much lower resolution format is akin to throwing the baby away with the bath water.

Now the UK is all set for a true high-def future on TV, I think it's time they begin providing us with high-def on the radio as well. Of course, that's never going to happen on DAB, but the BBC at least could provide their channels at very good audio quality on satellite, Freeview, cable and especially via broadband if it wanted to.