counter
HDTV UK
Browse by:
Get daily news round-up
« Companies to form Blu-ray promotion group | Main | UK HD programming: BBC HD Euro 2008 England v Macedonia coverage »

UK HD programming: BBC HD brings Robin Hood

RobinhoodThe BBC is starting to introduce more unique high-def content onto its schedule, including original drama.

This Saturday sees the start of Robin Hood, which is being simulcast on BBC1 and which you've probably already seen the trailers for. It stars Jonas Armstrong as Robin Hood, with support from Lucy Griffiths as Marian and Keith Allen as the Sheriff. Other cast include Richard Armitage, Harry Lloyd, Gordon Kennedy, Joe Armstrong, Sam Troughton and William Beck.

BBC HD describes it: "Full of action, humour and romance, Robin Hood outwits and delights us as he fights the authority of the evil Sheriff of Nottingham with outrageous scams, disguises, tricks and ingenuity, breathtaking archery and incredible swordplay. This exciting, brand new contemporary drama will be a unique blend of exhilarating action adventure - something for all the family on BBC HD this Autumn."

It's on a 7.05pm and again at 7.50pm this Saturday 7th October. I'm quite looking forward to this drama, though unfortunately I won't be able to view it in HD. After the transatlantic discussion of how Hollywood actors look in HD, it'll be interesting to see how our home-grown actors of stage and screen shape up on HD, and how good the set and makeup designers have been. Will also be interesting to see the comparison between the SD and HD broadcast to get a glimpse of how much better high-def drama is.

Let us know what you think of it.

Robin Hood web site

Powermat: Revolutionary Gadget Charging

Posted by Andy Merrett on October 3, 2006

Comments

With the wonderful Telewest TV Drive I am going to set both BBC1 and BBC HD to record Robin Hood. A am also watching on a 1080p set. I will let you know how SD, upscaled to 1080i compares to true 1080i HD.

From experience a lot will depend on the SD bit rate used. Some CH4 SD stuff, upscaled to 1080i by the TV Drive, can look as good as a lot of BBC HD stuff.

Posted by: Jon Gardner | October 3, 2006 11:53 PM

Well I compared the two last night and it is subtler than I was expecting.

First I should say I am watching on a 46" 1080p set from about 8-9ft, so easily able to show up flaws in SD.

BBC were clearly using a good bit rate so there were no obvious artifacts in the upscaled (to 1080i) SD picture - no pixelation, no sharpening halos. All was pretty clean and very very watchable.

Surprisingly, for me, static shots, for example of faces, were very good in SD and switching between the two recordings with a good 10 seconds delay it was hard to say that HD had much more detail.

However, in a subjective difficult to quantify way HD was a much 'nicer', less harsh picture to watch and I think I WOULD be able to reliably pick it out even in a blind trial.

I think the main difference was not obvious detail, like texture in faces, but the depth in areas of high contrast. For example, in some of the opening scene where you see the sky through the trees of the forest, this looked like very harsh alternating areas of black and over saturated white in SD, but was much smoother and more detailed in HD.

No question which picture I would choose, but I am not sure it is a step up akin to VHS vs DVD.

Of course the Telewest box is upscaling to 1080i so it is not a simple SD feed and, although I did not watch it, I am 100% positive that, if I had watched the same show with the TV's built in Freeview decoder, I would have been a lot less satisfied! Also, a true 1080p source with less bandwidth constriction, as may be available on next-gen DVDs would I am sure have been even better than BBC HD.

Posted by: Jon Gardner | October 8, 2006 3:32 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.