Telewest first to launch UK HDTV service
Telewest has become the first British company to deliver a live HDTV (High Definition TV service) service to customers in the UK. Starting from today it is offering a limited High Definition service to a select group of 400 viewers in south London. The service will be rolled out across the Telewest franchise early next year. Telewest hasn’t put a date on when it will available nationwide but it is likely to be before the summer.
Unlike Sky, which will offer a HDTV service across at least seven dedicated channels, Telewest is taking a different approach. Its high definition transmissions will be available through its TV-on demand service Teleport. At the present time the service is fairly limited with a small selection of BBC series including Pride, The Blue Planet and Wild Weather. This will be followed by HD movies on demand early in 2006.
The company is apparently in talks with a number of other TV broadcasters. Spokesperson John Moorwood believes that ‘TV on demand is an interesting proposition for some TV companies to trial HDTV. It means they can gauge viewer response and don’t have to go to the expense of setting up a dedicated TV channel.’ To view the HD programmes Telewest viewers need to upgrade to the company’s new hard disk based video recorder system the TVDrive. This offers the viewer 160 Gigabytes of storage - enough for eighty hours of standard footage and twenty in HD. Users will pay between £10-15 per month for the new TVDrive box and access to the HD transmissions.
More details here
