[Stooky Bill]

They're multiplexed together, each service isn't a single transmission so bringing each one on air individually probably isn't that much use, they'll want to check that the whole ensemble works.

In this case what is happening is that the new line up of transponders if coming from a different (newer but not brand new) set of encodering and multiplexing kit, so each transponders mux is presumably already set up and ready to be switched to air on the appropriate date. 

There will be a test period before they're live to viewers, but my understanding is that several will be made available at one go. For a start they won't want to be sending out more updates to the two platforms than they need to. Also it's not just the BBC1 regions that the changes effect, a lot of current HD services are moving and there's a few new ones too. There'll be enough EPG changes as it is without doing a region a day

[harshy]

BBC One South HD looks great, it clearly is being encoded by Sky, there is a nice shine to the picture, the pop which you don’t get when the BBC do the encoding and is comparable to BBC World News HD… the only downside is because there’s too much picture detail, you can see all the scrapes on the front desk of BBC South Today.

[IanJRedman]

BBC One South HD looks great, it clearly is being encoded by Sky, there is a nice shine to the picture, the pop which you don’t get when the BBC do the encoding and is comparable to BBC World News HD… the only downside is because there’s too much picture detail, you can see all the scrapes on the front desk of BBC South Today.

This is music to my ears! Looking forward to the 'go live' in the next few weeks.

[Jimbo2022]

Let's hope the new encoders perform better and give better sharper pictures. Not long to wait now I don't suppose.

[IanJRedman]

Let's hope the new encoders perform better and give better sharper pictures. Not long to wait now I don't suppose.

I have to say, on our LG 4K OLED, the existing BBC HD channels do have a slightly soft appearance at times (albeit hugely better than SD of course), fed from a Freesat box in 1080p - but it's tricky to tell whether that's just a side-effect of upscaling.

[Technologist]

Let's hope the new encoders perform better and give better sharper pictures. Not long to wait now I don't suppose.

The “new” DSAT coders  are the old PSB 3 coders …
A great bit of recycling !

[Stooky Bill]

Also Sky have a lot more bandwidth to play with on that transponder than the BBC will have on theirs. So the bit rate of BBC1 South will possibly be higher than the others

[ASnep]

Also Sky have a lot more bandwidth to play with on that transponder than the BBC will have on theirs. So the bit rate of BBC1 South will possibly be higher than the others

Not really, Sky has more channels on that transponder than the BBC has on thiers (currently 9 compaired to 5 on the BBC TPs). And Sky run higher error correction (2/3 vs. 3/4 on the Beeb) so they only end up with about 3 mbps worth of more capacity on that TP and per channel you actually end up with less space than on the BBC transponders.

If you go to Digitalbitrate and compare the BBC1 South feed with the others that are on the two BBC transponders they all do have an average of around 5mbps for the picture, but while the Sky hosted South feed tops out at around 8mbps the others look like they can do up to 17 on demanding scenes.

[harshy]

All I can tell you is visually really bbc1 south hd is on a par if not better then bbc world news which has a constant bitrate of 8.7mbps on 19.2e, the detail is definitely there.

[Stooky Bill]

Also Sky have a lot more bandwidth to play with on that transponder than the BBC will have on theirs. So the bit rate of BBC1 South will possibly be higher than the others

Not really, Sky has more channels on that transponder than the BBC has on thiers (currently 9 compaired to 5 on the BBC TPs). And Sky run higher error correction (2/3 vs. 3/4 on the Beeb) so they only end up with about 3 mbps worth of more capacity on that TP and per channel you actually end up with less space than on the BBC transponders.

If you go to Digitalbitrate and compare the BBC1 South feed with the others that are on the two BBC transponders they all do have an average of around 5mbps for the picture, but while the Sky hosted South feed tops out at around 8mbps the others look like they can do up to 17 on demanding scenes.

Yes you're right, I'd forgotten about Digitalbitrate. Yes because of the different FEC the Sky transponders only have about 3Mb/s more despite the 9Mhz more bandwidth.

There's a lot more headroom (null packets) on the BBC transponders. Obviously some policy making sure they're a bit more cautious and conservative with their space. Though they'll be a bit fuller once this process is done