This is taken from the Financial Times:

BBC quickens race towards high definition
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson,Media Editor
Published: February 20 2006 02:00

The BBC plans to make high-definition television programmes available through its online media player and free satellite platforms. The initiative, which would help circumvent broadcasting spectrum limitations, could accelerate the adoption of HD technology.

The corporation's plans come as British Sky Broadcasting is expected to launch commercial HD services within two to three months, predicting the number of homes with sets capable of displaying high-definition images will rise from 700,000 to 2.1m this year.

HD screens deliver 720 or 1,080 viewable lines rather than the 576 typical of the Pal broadcast standard, offering a marked improvement in picture quality.

Ashley Highfield, the BBC's director of new media and technology, said: "We want to be ready to move with HD on to FreeSat and I'm also very interested in getting HD on to the interactive media player."

Most computer screens are already high definition, allowing HD pictures to be sent over the internet as well as across the airwaves or via satellite and cable.

The BBC this month completes its trial of a service for downloading and watching programmes online, known as the interactive media player or MyBBCPlayer. The home page of the service, which is already being tested in 5,000 homes, includes a section for high-definition content, although none is part of the trial.

The BBC and ITV said last September they would launch a free-to-view satellite television service called FreeSat for people unable to receive the Freeview digital terrestrial service. The specifications of the service, originally due to launch early this year, are still under discussion but could include the capacity to receive high- definition images.

Sky already markets its own FreeSat service, offering 140 non-subscription channels for a one-off fee to cover installation of a set-top box.

Tens of thousands of people have registered an interest in Sky's HD service, the company says, before it has confirmed the likely timing of its launch or what it will charge for the set-top box and subscriptions.

James Murdoch, Sky's chief executive, said this month the service would launch in the first half of this year, in time for the football World Cup, which starts on June 9. It has chosen Thomson to make the set-top boxes, which analysts believe it could start selling in April. "I wouldn't expect large volumes before the World Cup," Mr Murdoch cautioned. "The real push will be next Christmas."

Sky has begun preparations for the HD launch, announcing a line-up of channels including sports, films, Artsworld and Discovery. It has also reorganised its programme guide to leave the red button on handsets free to HD content.

Sky hopes the BBC and ITV will film World Cup games in high definition, giving fans an incentive to subscribe to its HD service.

Because HD broadcasts contain five times as much information as standard definition images, they consume large amounts of spectrum. The BBC is vying with mobile television and wireless internet services and other broadcasts for access to this capacity. Some commercial rivals have questioned why the BBC should invest in a technology that they see as a niche interest.

The BBC has been driven to invest in HD equipment in part because commercial rivals in the US and Japan, such as National Geographic and Discovery Channel, are adopting it as the standard.

It has used the technology for its latest natural history series, Planet Earth, pointing out that HD cameras can film from further away, causing less disruption to animal behaviour; in lower light, enabling it to capture unfilmed species; and allowing for slow-motion images with no loss of clarity.

Sales of "HD-ready" television screens still account for a small share of the UK market but are expected to outstrip sales of standard definition sets in the US this year. US broadcasters have aired events such as the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in high definition, and some advertisers are adopting the technology.

Experience in the US market suggests that people might buy high-definition television sets even without the equipment needed to watch high-definition images over them.

The head of one Hollywood studio told the Financial Times that this could be storing up disillusionment. "More than half the people who've bought a high-definition screen [in the US] don't realise they're not hooked up to a high-definition picture. The placebo effect only works so far."

The growth of HD comes amid growing concern that the adoption of the technology could be slowed byconsumer confusion about the rival high-definition DVD technologies being ambushed by two consortia, led by Sony and Toshiba.

The Blu Ray and HD-DVD technologies are currently incompatible, setting the stage for a clash akin to that between VHS and Betamax in the early years of the video recorder.