If ever there was an excuse to buy a new TV for the wife/partner/dog this Christmas then here it is. The BBC has announced it is to begin to test High Definition TV on digital terrestrial TV in London in the next few months.
For those of you who have been wallowing in the TV dark ages, HD-TV is the best thing that has happened to the format since they rolled out the snooker in colour. It is similar to comparing the quality of a VHS tape to a DVD but even better.
HD-TV provides a sharper, clearer and more colourful image than the current standard television picture. This is due to the way the picture is filmed, broadcast and displayed on compatible HDTV sets, which use a greater number of pixels to display images than on a standard television set. Many HDTV broadcasts will also include a soundtrack which will provide surround sound to viewers using appropriate speakers.
Finally there is a reason for our license fee. So far only the sexy series 'Rome' and 'Bleak House' have been filmed in HD but the BBC aims to produce all its programmes in high-definition format by 2010. BBC director of television Jana Bennett said:
"Our promise to our licence payers is to give them the highest quality television, so the time is right for the BBC to get involved in high definition.
"High definition may take time to grow in Britain, but as with the other technologies we helped to build, the BBC wants to prepare now to be able to deliver the benefits of HDTV to all its licence payers in the long term."
Londonist is so excited about this we might explode - *pop*
