BT Vision Adds First High Def Content

When the HD standard was specified, studies were conducted to show that 1080i and 720p were roughly equivalent in terms of 'look'; interlacing does not have 'half' the resolution but is a compromise between static pictures and motion. The trouble, as Matt eluded, is the compression: the picture may look lovely in Hi-Def when still, but introduce movement and the compression has to put in artefacts to try to compensate for the reduced bandwidth of the source (yes the internal HDD has a high bandwidth, but the content does not, and one purposely limits the bandwidth to save on download time - if 9 hours can be called fast - and allow the box to be able to deal with multiple streams at once, like recording TV at the same time as watching a film).

Rather than too little too late, I'd say it was too much too early. This service cannot possibly be expected to work for consumers unless there is a national roll-out of fibre optic in whichever country it is deployed. In the meantime, BT need to try competing with the likes of YouTube and IMDb (or possibly tie-in with them). This service would be better waiting for BT to do a deal with the likes of Blockbuster to get a decent library ready for when broadband is fast enough. It can only be called a trial until then.

@Beaky69 - Not really - you are still only getting half the picture & then the TVs post-process that to 'guess' (i.e. de-interlace) the pictures - or does it add them up i can;t remember - whatever its NEVER going to be as good as 1080p o=for example.

On my TV 720P >>>>> better than 1080i (Sony TOTR a coupole a years ago)