Friday, 26 November 2021

Reports: Virgin Media start BBC One HD local tests (UPDATED)

Following information thanks to epsilon (UPDATED on Nov. 19th, 24th and 26th):  

November 19th: 14 new service labels have been added to the SDT, all labelled "BBC One HD" and set initially to channel 108. 

I've been told that, at the moment, none of these name the region in the service label and they haven't yet been added to the NIT, so it isn't possible to guess the regions at this stage. 

These changes are thought to be the start of preparations for the addition of the BBC One HD English regions. (SID 10178 to 10191). 

This is probably just Virgin setting up separate streams for each BBC region, they did something similar for 4HD when the London version of 4HD moved to channel 104. 

I guess, because regions aren't included in the service name, that they could initially all be fed with the all-England HD service and switched out to the correct region when the BBC makes it available.

November 24th UPDATE: Some minor progress yesterday with the status of all of the new BBC One HD regions changing from not running to running but still no sign of any video etc streams.

November 26th UPDATE: Two extra versions of BBC One South East (SDT labels) added overnight on SID numbers 10129 & 10130 (channel 858) but, apparently not allocated in the NIT.

Source: epsilon via Cable Forum and Digital Spy Forum.

When launch BBC One HD will be in the following areas:
  1. BBC One East [East] (East of England)
  2. BBC One East [West] (Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and parts of Buckinghamshire)
  3. BBC One East Mids (East Midlands of England.)
  4. BBC One NE & C (North East of England and Cumbria)
  5. BBC One North West (North West of England)
  6. BBC One Oxford (Oxfordshire & Parts of Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire)
  7. BBC One South (South of England)
  8. BBC One South East (Kent and East Sussex)
  9. BBC One South West (South West of England)
  10. BBC One West (West of England)
  11. BBC One West Mids (West Midlands of England)
  12. BBC One Yorks (Yorkshire and North Midlands)
  13. BBC One East Yorks & Lin (East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)