Slightly OT: Reginal News TV transmissions in HD

London is the same. The BBC cannot afford to upgrade to HD as they are paying their celebrity preseters too much!

In article , Chris Hogg writes

Same here - North West.

You might find this answered better in uk.tech.digital-tv. But it is most certainly true here in the south. But it is Meridian (ITV) which is most interesting. The last time I checked - a few months ago - on 103 (ITV HD) local news is shown, but here in south central Hampshire we get the South-east local news from east Sussex and Kent! On SD it is the local news from this region.

Scotland receives BBC One and STV on HD. BBC Two (Scotland) is SD only with HD carrying BBC Two (national). This will change next year when the new BBC channel for Scotland launches. BBC Two will then revert to being a national channel.

In this context 'national' refers to the main UK service. I believe Wales and NI will continue with BBC Two opt-outs but stand to be corrected.

Dunno, but it's the same here in Kent (BBC South East). It's a pain.

minority?

If they wait much longer they can skip HD and go straight to UHD...

How ever I think the real reason(s) are rather more mundane and technical. As I understand it the HD distribution MUXs are assembled in London. So to insert a region into a MUX you need to send it to London and then send the assembled MUX back to just that region. Repeat for each region and sub region that opts out of network...

Cross posted to uk.tech.broadcast.

Well here we get BBC TV from Manchester. BBC local radio from Stoke. So weather on TV comes from Manchester and weather on radio comes from Birmingham. We are in the Borough of Cheshire East but if you want to hear all the local news you would have to listen to BBC radio Stoke Radio Manchester and Radio Merseyside. As far s BBC is concerned Cheshire doesn't exist. BBC Manchester covers Greater Manchester Merseyside Lancashire and Cumbria. BBC West Midlands covers Stoke, Staffordshire and all points south. All part of the EU scheme to promote City States to replace the nation state.

Or to summarise, the local news is almost certainly _shot_ in HD, but there aren't the distribution channels to _distribute_ it in HD.

AIUI (I don't have satellite) all the regional variations are available on satellite (to all regions, i. e. you can watch your local news even when you're on holiday in another region); I don't know whether in HD though.

What is more frustrating is that they don't even have the ability to insert an upscaled SD version of the programme into the HD broadcast - so if you are watching the national news in HD, you need to change over to SD to see the local news, and then maybe switch back to HD for the next programme.

I wonder whether it was simply cost that made BBC have a different network topology for HD than they do for SD.

ITV manage it OK. They evidently have a different topology for their HD, more akin to their SD one. They need to, in order to insert regional adverts for each transmitter, and no doubt use that same method for regional opt-outs.

Same in the NE - but worth mentioning that it's also the same for the local ITV channel here as well - that's still in SD. John M

A quick google just revealed there are specific weather forecasts, from whatever source, provided by the BBC for at least five different towns, if not more in West Cheshire. All of which appear to differ in small ways.

It's impossible to win with weather forecasts.

If they're too specific then they naturally arouse suspicion and are too easily proved inaccurate.

If they're too general then they're not specific enough to meet particular requirements in any many cases

Regardless of this, I've always found web pages more useful when it comes to weather. Being more precise even if as equally inaccurate as the more generalised impressions its possible to glean from spoken forecasts; if these are remembered at all.

Plus as compared with TV forecasts, they also remove the possibility of any distractions resulting from the use of particularly attractive presenters.

But as you say, apart from the five forecasts above, and possibly one or two others I'm not aware of -

" As far [a]s [the] BBC is concerned [East] Cheshire doesn't exist"

michael adams

...

If its important for me to know what the weather may be doing before committing to spending, say, £100 on petrol and entrance fees to an event that may be abandoned because of rain I will always look at the weather forecast in the morning of the day that I'm going AND the weather satellite images. With the latter, and the time lapse history of the previous 6 or 12 hours, its usually easy to judge what the cloud cover and likelihood of rain will be in the next 6 to 12 hours.

Its very common. What I do not get is why they cannot regionalise the hd and simply send out the regional news as sd over the hd system. Seems to be a no brainer. Brian

When I suggested this on another newsgroup, I was told it was down to cost. Each multiplex has to be encoded so for England instead of encoding one HD multiplex the coding process would need to be carried out a dozen or so times at additional cost.

Que? The petrol will still be there to use whether the event is cancelled on not.

Are entrance fees not normally refunded in the event of a cancellation?

In article , michael adams writes

East Cheshire does not exist as a political entity, and only exists in the structure of NHS CCGs and hospital trusts.

In article , Scott writes

Only if less than 20 overs are bowled on a cricket test match day.

Yes, I suppose 'abandoned' is different to 'cancelled'.

Er no (most) of Cumbria is covered from Newcastle as in "North East & Cumbria" from Caldbeck and its relays. The southeren edge only is served from Manchester from Winter Hill and its relays.