Archive for the ‘HD’ Category

If you’re a Freeview user, don’t be surprised to find Channel Five missing from it’s usual slot when you turn your TV on tomorrow.But don’t worry it’s not gone forever - all you need to do is retune your Freeview box.

As well as Channel Five, you’ll also need to retune your Freeview box to get ITV3, ITV4 and some radio stations back on your TV.

This is happening because despite many customers switching over to Freeview from analogue, there are still some half a million UK homes which cannot receive Channel Five.

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Virgin Media has announced a deal with Channel 4 to broadcast many of its shows in high definition.

4HD will broadcast a range of content from Channel 4’s core schedule in high definition, including dramas such as Skins, Shameless and Desperate Housewives as well as documentaries, news programmes and current affairs.

A range of high definition channels will be available on the Virgin Media platform, including FX HD, MTV HD and National Geographic HD which all launch today. ESPN HD will launch on 3rd August, with 4HD and Living’s high definition channel coming soon.

Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer at Virgin Media, said: “Channel 4 is home to some of the UK’s most talked about and innovative TV programmes with a great mix of fantastic home grown shows and top imports, and we’re delighted to be bringing them in HD to our customers. We continue to evolve our TV service, across linear TV channels and on demand content, and our growing HD line-up offers a great choice from some of the best UK and US TV series, documentaries, comedy, sport and music.”

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Virgin Media has announced it is to launch four new high definition (HD) channels.

Living, Virgin’s lifestyle channel with a penchant for the paranormal, will be broadcast in HD, along with HD channels from FX, MTV Networks International and National Geographic. Virgin Media is due to launch its first HD channel towards the end of this month.

The four channels will be made available to all its 3.6 million TV customers. Those who subscribe to the Virgin Media XL TV package will receive the channels for free, while customers on other contracts will be charged for the optional channels.

The new channels will offer HD shows and content including Grey’s Anatomy, Dexter and Generation Kill, as well as live music events in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

Commenting on the new HD channel line up, Neil Berkett, chief executive officer of Virgin Media, said: “As more homes become HD-ready, the launch of four new HD channels marks the next stage in the evolution of our pioneering TV service. Our line-up of HD channels and hugely popular on demand content is a unique and winning combination and we’ll continue to bring more sport, films, entertainment and documentaries to our customers.”

Virgin Media is also reportedly in negotiations with UKTV about establishing a Good Food HD channel.

The BBC has announced that it will begin broadcasting programmes in High Definition on terrestrial television from December.

Freeview HD, initially comprising of high definition services from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, will be launched on what is currently known as multiplex B. The roll-out of the service is planned to coincide with the digital switchover, starting with the Winter Hill transmitter which serves Liverpool and Manchester. Regions that have already made the switch to digital television will also receive the HD service from December.

In a posting on the BBC’s Internet blog, Graham Plumb, Head of Distribution Technology at the corporation said,” The plan is still to launch Freeview HD on December 2nd at the Winter Hill transmitter serving Manchester and Liverpool. The plan has always been to roll Freeview HD out around the country following switchover and Winter Hill was selected as the first achievable transmitter. There will need to be a retrospective upgrade of regions that have already switched.”

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Comedian Steve Coogan is the latest British TV star to announce a cinema appearance, as he confirmed plans to bring Alan Partridge to the big screen.

Speaking to Radio 1, the Night At The Museum actor disclosed that “there are plans afoot” to create a movie about the hapless chat show host.

“We are planning on making a movie,” he said. “We’re talking at the moment. What it is we’re not quite sure.”

Coogan admitted that a storyline had already been drafted, but refused to disclose further details. When asked whether he was worried about sustaining humour throughout a feature-length film rather than a half hour programme, the 43-year-old said that he would have to approach his character in a different way for the big screen.

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New Sky1 controller Stuart Murphy has ditched the channel’s revamp of the former Saturday night favourite Gladiators after two series, and will shift his focus to new entertainment shows.

The show, which sees members of the public contend with the super-fit Gladiators in games such as Hang Tough and Gauntlet, was revived in 2008 after a nine year break.

The new version of the show was presented by former Arsenal footballer Ian Wright and Kirsty Gallacher, with Caroline Flack replacing Kirsty in the second series. Wolf from the original series has also made appearances on the show.

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Sky1 has acquired the rights to the award-winning American medical drama House, starring Hugh Laurie as a cynical medical genius with an addiction to painkillers, which previously aired on Channel Five.

Sky1 will broadcast the fifth series of the show, which airs on US network Fox, after signing a deal with NBC Universal International TV Distribution. The series will air on Sky1 and Sky HD from the summer.

The acquisition follows former head of Sky1 Richard Woolfe’s move to become director of programmes at Five. The former BBC3 controller Stuart Murphy has been lined up to take over Woolfe’s position at Sky1.

The medical drama, set in the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital sees Dr Gregory House head up a team a team of diagnosticians who are often left baffled at House’s theories about his patients’ illnesses, which tend to be based on subtle or controversial insights. The drama has won three Emmys, two Golden Globes and two Screen Actors Guild awards.

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Traditionally airing brash and brassy dramas such as Dream Team and Mile High, as well as a glut of American imports, Sky is to up the ante by investing a reported £20 million in home-grown high-definition drama over the next three years.

Previous drama offerings from Sky have been aimed squarely at readers of ‘Heat’ magazine, such as Mile High, which chronicled the romps and arguments between cabin crew on a budget airline. But Elaine Pyke, the commissioning editor for drama on Sky1, recently announced that the channel would focus on creating “dramas with power”, specifically adaptations of popular airport novels.

“I would like to say that this is year zero. That isn’t to say that I’m not proud of Dream Team and Mile High, because I am, but this does feel like a very big step away from them,” said Ms Pyke.

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Former Blue Peter presenter Gethin Jones has landed his own daily quiz show on Sky 1 based on the hectic bun-fight of the stock exchange.

In the “greed-based” show, called Sell Me the Answer, which is due to be broadcast this summer, contestants will be asked up to 10 questions, each worth an increasing amount of money. If they do not know the answer they can ask the audience, or “traders” for help. The traders then “fight it out” in scenes of mayhem, trying to persuade the contestant to negotiate a price for their answer.

But there’s a catch: the traders can lie, and those who bluff successfully can win up to £25,000 in cash while the contestant walks away with zilch.

Andrea Hamilton, Sky1’s commissioning editor for entertainment, said: “It’s an innovative and noisy quiz show format that is the perfect antidote to other quiet, contemplative quiz offerings. Time, greed and money are the essence of the quiz.

“The stakes are high and it’s a game of all or nothing. There will be a real sense of tension and excitement in the studio that will leave the players unsure of who they can trust. This is a quiz show that people will definitely be talking about the next day in the office or at school and Gethin has the perfect mix of warmth and fun,” Hamilton added.

Gethin said, “The lure of money does funny things to people. I expect that there will be fireworks in the studio.”

Sky1 has commissioned 50 episodes of the hour-long quiz, also to air on Sky HD, which will kick off in May. To participate, call 07929 149458.

In a venture that some may view as a fascinating social experiment, others as hot air, Sky Arts is to screen sculptor Antony Gormley’s new project, in which a different group of 100 people stand on Trafalgar Square’s empty fourth plinth for an hour at a time, 24 hours a day this summer.

Gormley, best known as the creator of Gateshead’s Angel of the North, said he wanted areas of Britain exactly represented in his living artwork, which is called One & Other and begins on 6th July. The project’s 2,400 participants will be chosen at random from those who apply via a computer programme that ensures they will represent the population density of parts of the UK.

The ‘action’ will be broadcast on Sky Arts in a series of live programmes, as well as in a weekly highlights show filmed from the plinth. A special website, www.oneandother.co.uk, will allow viewers to follow the project at any time of day through a 24-hour webcam, and give them the opportunity to vote for their favourite moments.

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