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The (SD) Waters of Mars

ABC has opted not to buy a high definition copy of Doctor Who from the BBC.

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waters_of_marsDoctor Who: The Waters of Mars may be coming to ABC in a little over a week, but it will be coming in SD rather than HD.

ABC has opted not to buy a high definition copy of the special from the BBC, citing cost as part of its decision.

It will be upscaled on ABC HD but not to true high definition quality.

In a statement issued to TV Tonight, ABC’s Director Television Kim Dalton said, “Over the past few years ABC TV’s focus, resources and budget have been on our multi channel strategy.

“The development of our SD channels ABC2 and ABC3, along with iView have been our primary concern.

“However in 2010 we will be developing our HD strategy with the intention of moving towards a more distinctive HD offering.”

The special airs 7:30pm Sunday December 6th on ABC1…. and ABC HD….

33 Responses

  1. Future News Bulletin.

    Australian FTA networks broadcast a HD program in actual HD, within a few days of UK or US airing and in a pre-advertised fixture on their schedule.

    Copyright Lawyers and ISP’s fear bankruptcy when piracy completely ceases overnight.

    Network executives celebrate as FTA ratings skyrocket and TV sponsor revenues boom.

    …as if.

  2. I have HDTV okay the screen is not full HD and I can still see the quality difference between SD & HD, but I do agree it’s not as good as BluRay I’ve seen on a 1080 screen. Right now we get just 7HD and ONE HD, WIN HD is still re-building it’s HD service, ABC and SBS are not full HD.

    So if you’re not into sports you’re down to one network broadcasting in full 1080 HD and even then it’s only a limited number of programs. But retailers are still out there selling the benefits on HD with very little real world content to use them with.

    Maybe by the time people get around to their 2nd or 3rd HDTV we willhave the content to use them fully?

  3. Wow, I’vwe never read so many stupid remarks about HD for a while. And always comes from people who don’t own HD TV set in the first place. Aussie HD TV programs stink in quality because our TV stations don’t have enough bandwidth to carry quality HD programs. Occasionally Ch 9 shows a movie in a good HD quality and that’s about it. With appearance of multi channels the TV stations will have to cut back on quality somewhere else, which means that in the enar future we’ll be left without genuine HD TV, only a bunch of SD channels and a HD channels with an average HD quality.
    I dare people to compare any TV program they see with the movie watched and blu-ray and they will notice the difference.
    HD TV is fantastic, which can’t be siad for our government (technologically clueless and TV stations too stingy to fork out money for proper equipment).

  4. Laughing at Jimmy’s (8:48am) comment below!

    And I’m with Greg (10:32am) in relation to Dalton’s line on ABC HD possibly having a “more distinctive” offering. I was thinking he meant more breakaway programming from ABC1 like NineHD, SevenHD & TenHD used to do. Very interesting…

  5. @tasmanian devil – “…I don’t own an HD television…” Precisely why you don’t realise that the difference between SD and full HD is night and day. Unfortunately the attitude towards HD in this country from viewers is about as disappointing as their attitude towards quality shows.

  6. @Tim, I agree. HD just seems overrated to me. I don’t own an HD television, but from what I’ve seen it really isn’t that much of a difference. And it’s not like the quality of SD is anywhere at all near like what one could expect from You Tube, so I don’t see why people make such a fuss about shows not being in HD.

  8. The BBC (which owns right to Dr Who) is becoming more and more keen to generate revenue from program sales and other means so not surprised at all to hear HD versions of their shows cost a lot more

  11. Last night while watching the end of Graham Norton show ABC2,
    which had David Tennant as guest, the voice over said talkning about
    water of mars followed by end of time will be in the new year

  14. I think the more interesting part of this is this quote

    “However in 2010 we will be developing our HD strategy with the intention of moving towards a more distinctive HD offering.”

    So let the speculation begin … When will ABCHD be a totally separate channel?
    Should it be news?

  17. Heck we should be grateful we’re getting it before Xmas.

    If it weren’t for the Interwebs and people d/l’ing it already, we’d probably see it at Easter.

  19. With having to share the lowly 21Mbps or so of bandwidth with ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABCHD, DiG Radio, and DiG Jazz, I don’t think ABC HD is going to look particularly good anyway…

  25. Excuses, excuses, Dalton. Bottom line is, it looked great in HD for me and many thousands of other fans.

    I’d love to know exactly how great the cost difference is. Surely a time will come when masters are just supplied in HD by default.

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