[Spencer]

apparantly there are retiring that gallery according to Amy and they go HD on Monday at long last it took ages.

18 years to the week since the launch of the original BBC HD channel. If they’d taken as long to switch to colour, Look North would still have been black and white in the mid 80s.

Still, glad it’s finally coming, and I hope they sort out the blue tint to the studio during the upgrade.

I’m guessing we might get some shared bulletins from Newcastle over the weekend, and maybe Monday Breakfast, as they carry out the work.

[agemame]

Reliably HD-produced Calendar popped out into the YTV garden tonight.

x.com 

HD produced, but still not aired as such on Freeview because of all the macroregion issues. Come to think of it, it's a very large population region to not have had native HD terrestrial local news, isn't it?

[lookoutwales]

HD produced, but still not aired as such on Freeview because of all the macroregion issues. Come to think of it, it's a very large population region to not have had native HD terrestrial local news, isn't it?

Point taken - though granted on the whole, ITV managed to move much faster into HD production.

18 years to the week since the launch of the original BBC HD channel. If they’d taken as long to switch to colour, Look North would still have been black and white in the mid 80s.

Did make me wonder what was the last BBC region to convert to colour.

IIRC, the fairly large TV studio at Woodhouse Lane was specially built for colour - and likewise happened in Plymouth, though an industrial dispute meant Spotlight remained in B/W until August 1974.

[James2001]

Watching the BBC archive twitter and youtube channels, and they post a fair few clips from as late as 1974 in black and white, especially Nationwide reports- a couple of Blue Peters too (the TV studio history site mentions BP coming from a B&W only studio for an episode in 1974... and a piece of old equipment blew up while they were on air and the studio was never used again). Some B&W OBs during the 1974 elections too.

[harshy]

So how does this work then on Monday they connect the new gallery up and it’s in HD? I wonder if the astons will render better and the lighting improves.

[Mike]

So how does this work then on Monday they connect the new gallery up and it’s in HD? I wonder if the astons will render better and the lighting improves.

I would guess the Astons will improve as the new solution is Ross XPression driven not Caspar.

In terms of the prep work I'd be keen to know, I know Norwich built their new gallery in a separate location and switched to using it then the old Project England gallery was dismantled and the lot moved/fully made operational.

[Spencer]

Do we know what time of day Norwich first used their HD gallery? Were they in HD at lunchtime or for the evening programme?

[Steve in Pudsey]

Did make me wonder what was the last BBC region to convert to colour.

I guess there was more pressure in those days because of regional contributions to Nationwide?

I have a hunch it was BBC East but I'm not sure why, or possibly an outpost like Bangor. (Not a region, of course).

Other theory is BBC East Midlands, which at that time was a sub opt/Contribution into Midlands Today.

[Spencer]

I guess there was more pressure in those days because of regional contributions to Nationwide?

I have a hunch it was BBC East but I'm not sure why, or possibly an outpost like Bangor. (Not a region, of course).

Other theory is BBC East Midlands, which at that time was a sub opt/Contribution into Midlands Today.

I would imagine there was a stronger drive to upgrade to colour, as it was such a massive, universally noticeable step-change in TV.

There seem to be lots of people who can’t tell the difference between SD and HD, and those who are happy to watch a stretched 4:3 picture in 16:9, but surely there’s nobody who didn’t notice when a programme was in black and white rather than colour.

[London Lite]

Channel Television was the last ITV region to convert to colour in 1976.