Perhaps it's a knock on effect of the global rescession, but the latest report by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has found that TV viewing is at the highest it has been in 18 years.

Viewers watched an average of 3.75 hours of TV a day last year, the highest figure since 1992, according to IPA research.

As one would expect to find, the first and last quarters of the year, with less daylight and fewer people away on holiday, tended to show the highest television viewing figures.

Interestingly, the IPA revealed that only 8.2 % of UK households relied on an analogue signal to catch their favourite shows, showing that the digital switch-over is almost complete.

While ITV and GMTV gathered 19% of the total television audience in the last three months of 2009, likely thanks to the popularity of the X-Factor, BBC1 continued to achieve the highest share of all the terrestrial channels, at 21%. All five analogue channels continue to lose ground however, as multi-channel satellite options grow in prominence.

PS3 in one room and your HD TV in another? Fear not, for the Rocketfish WirelessHD adapter is here to foil your madcap plans to run HDMI cables through walls and up banisters!

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Via: Engadget

A little ahead of schedule, Virgin Media has announced that four new channels will be available in high definition from the end of July.

LIVING HD, FX HD, MTVNHD and National Geographic HD will offer a huge new range of high definition programming for Virgin Media subscribers, including Grey's Anatomy, Dexter, Generation Kill, Most Haunted, Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer, Privace Practice, CSI, The Wire, Family Guy, True Blood, live music events, Extreme Ice and Ancient Megastructures.

There's a lot of talk about Virgin Media adding more HD channels to its line-up, but still an absence of action.

The latest report, published in the Wall Street Journal, suggests that up to six high definition channels could be added by the third quarter (Autumn 2009).

"We'll be launching as many as six high-definition channels in the third quarter," said CEO Neil Berkett.

Following the BBC's recent upgrade of its iPlayer to incorporate high definition content, Virgin Media has announced that its customers can now get access to this additional HD content.

Executive director of content acquisition at Virgin Media, Katharine Burns Rivington, said, "As more households become HD Ready, we're keen to ensure that Virgin Media customers benefit from the most advanced digital TV service possible. BBC iPlayer has been a huge success on our TV platform and we're thrilled to be expanding the service with HD content. We're looking forward to increasing our line-up of broadcast HD channels over the next few months and combining the very best of HD and on demand TV."

Virgin Media customers will require the HD V+ set-top box as well as high definition TV in order to access the on demand content.

Virgin Media has announced that its customers will be able to watch season three of Dexter in high definition via the on demand service.

All Virgin Media TV Choice customers will be able to catch season three on demand, with V+ HD users able to enjoy the show in HD.

Season three begins on FX UK tomorrow, Friday 24th April, with Dexter setting his sights on Freebo, a dope dealer and killer, as his next target. It looks to be just another night of his dark justice, but things don't go as planned.

It's been over three months since Virgin Media's CEO, Neil Berkett, outlined his plans for high definition on the cable network, and yet it still seems as if nothing's really happened.

It still has the goal of adding three or four new high definition channels to join lonely old BBC HD, according to a report at Tech Radar. Troubles with licensing are causing the delay.

Virgin Media customers can already get access to a wide variety of on-demand HD content, so it's not all bleak, but with Sky looking to enter the VOD business, and already having large number of HD channels, Virgin Media really needs to get moving if it is to compete.

Related posts: Virgin Media to get range of ITV content including high-def | Virgin Media looks towards HD future | Virgin Media happy with HD primarily on demand

In the rush of CES last week I missed the announcement that Virgin Media is to make a range of ITV's programmes available as a free catch-up service to its cable subscribers.

As well as the standard fare of soaps and other popular content from ITV's four channels, there'll also be a range of high definition programmes available.

Presumably this won't eat into Freesat's ability to claim that it's the only platform to offer live ITV1 HD content, though it would be no bad thing to get ITV's high definition content onto a range of other platforms.

(Via MSNBC)

Virgin Media's CEO, Neil Berkett, has suggested that the company is ready to act in bringing more high definition content to its customers now that conditions are more favourable.

In the past, Virgin Media has said that it prefers to deliver HD via on-demand services, but speaking at the 36th Annual Global Media and Communications conference, Berkett said that it would be launching four new HD channels (to complement the existing two) over the next three months.

Claiming that the company could catch up to Sky quickly, particularly once its remaining analogue homes are switched to all digital, he said that the capacity is available to deliver between 30-40 HD channels over the current 24Mbps-capable fibre-optic network.

Digital Spy reports on a growing disappointment amongst its forum members on the widening gulf between Sky, which is continuing to add new high definition channels to its line-up, and Virgin Media, which has maintained its policy of not competing directly with Sky on HD broadcasts.

Currently, BBC HD is still the only channel that can be received directly with Virgin Media, while Sky adds Eurosport HD and others to its offering, and isn't ashamed to shout about it, either.

The FCC, on behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), is looking into remotely blocking consumers from recording broadcast high definition movies to their PVRs, in a bid to protect revenue from disc and download sales.

The film studios say that they'd like to be able to broadcast new releases earlier than they currently do, possibly before the high definition disc is available, but need a guarantee that consumers can't record, and so potentially copy, them.

Selectable Output Control (SOC) technology could be used to implement this, though its use is currently restricted.

Though HD broadcasts are not, technically, of such a high quality as that encoded on a high definition disc, the studios' worry is that the quality is good enough to tempt some to copy and redistribute the content.

(Via Digital Media Wire)

A senior executive at Virgin Media has defended the fact that it only broadcasts one channel -- BBC HD -- in high definition, with the rest of its HD offerings available via the Video on Demand service.

CTO Howard Watson said there are around seven million HD Ready TVs in the UK, adding that only certain content works well in high definition.

"I don't think we're losing customers because we don't have the HD line-up that Sky has," he said. "It's not causing us a churn problem, all of our HD customers are PVR, so its difficult to separate them but a part of that is HD."

Virgin recently added more high definition content to its VOD service.

(Via Broadband TV News)

Virgin Media has announced that new high definition content from HBO has been added to its On Demand service.

Programmes including Steven Spielberg's "Band of Brothers", and "Sopranos", will be available this April and May, as well as comedy from Bill Maher and George Lopez, and factual show "Little Rock Central".

Malcolm Wall, chief executive of content at Virgin Media, said "The public's appetite for high definition programmes continues to grow, so we're delighted to offer our customers two of the US' most popular and highly acclaimed shows in HD. We're constantly adding new films, TV shows and music videos to our already huge On Demand service, but the addition of Band of Brothers and the Sopranos is a real coup."

Virgin Media

Digital Spy has learned from Virgin Media that no date has currently been set for Channel 4 HD to launch on their cable service.

However, they make the point that a number of Channel 4's high definition shows, such as Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Brothers & Sisters and Studio 60, are already available in high definition via their on demand service.

(Via Digital Spy)

Virgin Media has announced that it is to make Channel 4's 4oD service available on its own on-demand service. Some of Channel 4's content is already available in high definition, downloaded from the 4oD service, even though Channel 4's full-blown high definition simulcast isn't due to launch until December.

Under the new deal, Virgin Media has the option to carry the full channel should it wish to. Malcolm Wall, VM's chief exec of content, said that he was delighted that they were adding Channel 4 content to their "growing lineup" of high definition programming.

VM's current on-demand library already includes high definition offerings from FilmFlex, the BBC, and the History Channel.

Head of VOD at Channel 4, Sarah Rose, said that the demand for high definition content is increasing, and that it's important for them to be meeting viewer demand wherever they can. She said that the amount of HD content in Channel 4's schedule would increase over time.

(Via Digital Spy)

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Sky/Virgin Media CEO's agree against "gifted" HD spectrum
VIrgin Media to offer streaming Football League matches via broadband and mobile

BSkyB’s Sky One has announced details of its autumn programming schedule, which it claims is ‘unashamedly about entertainment’. There is a host of new shows from the UK and US including a new game show hosted by Noel Edmonds.

“We have never invested so much at any time in the channel's history and all of our new shows will be broadcast in glorious high definition, “ said Richard Woolfe, directors of programmes fro Sky One.

ABD has unveiled a number of new technology solutions designed to open new opportunities for digital TV broadcasters. These include the company’s latest range of IPTV, Advanced Video Coding and high-definition set top boxes – providing a complete portfolio for cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcasters.

ADB has become established as the leading supplier of hybrid IPTV set top boxes in Europe, including the world’s first single chip, high-definition set top box based on advanced video coding (AVC), the award winning ADB3800W.

Motorola is going to implement a 26 channel high-definition MPEG-4AVC encoding system for US broadcaster, HBO.

The system compresses, encrypts, modulates and receives high-definition signals within a single, integrated transmission system that means HBO can expand its number of HD offerings to 26 channels.

Elgato Systems has released an HDTV tuner that can be used to watch US high-definition broadcasts from Apple Mac computers.

Users still need to supply their own antenna or unscrambled cable connection to receive HD images – and to be able to view 720p and 1080i programming the Mac needs to be a dual G5 or Intel Core Duo-based model.

BT is thinking about speeding up its broadband service to the super fast 50Mb per second in an effort to to gain a foothold in the HDTV market competing with the likes of Sky and Virgin.

BT chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, told the Financial Times that it was looking at increasing its download speeds to between 40-50Mbs – far quicker that the typical 8Mbs speeds offered by most UK firms. It would cost in the region of £4 billion but could offer great long-term value in the HDTV marketplace.