Is Top Gear broadcast in high definition in the UK?

[essentialatom]

Originally Posted by db2450

Thats the whole point of the "Stop" button in uTorrent, you stop the HD torrent until the smaller one is done .

Bear in mind that the HD files will take longer to encode though, so in addition to the time taken to download the files, if you want to download as soon as possible the SD rip will be the way to go.

[torqueless]

Originally Posted by Cobol74

In the UK its the next big thing and the broadcasters (well BBC - see upyourego's posts) are tooling up for a 100% service in HD in the next few years. We are going fully Digital in 2010 - 2011 with a complete analogue switch off then. I have limited HD 1080i from my cable system, and I can't wait for 100% cover.

good.


top gear in HD would be awesome. all TV should be done in HD.

i want the 24 hours of lemans in HD...like a live feed from my satellite provider, i'd pay for that.

[EverydayDriver]

Someone already said that the studio stuff is most likely the SD link in the chain.

But, besides the low-rez SD in-car cameras, they ARE using some HDV (you can see a SONY HDV camera in the Season 8 Convertible Espace episode).

Obviously, there's a huge mix of formats going on throughout the show. Some seasons the stuff at home base appears to be film for car exteriors. If you look the car review segments from season 1, compare to season 5-6 (where they talk about filtering), and then look at now there's definitely some format shifting going on.

Will be cool to see the future image quality.

[maateuszz89]

I've just downloaded 720p Polar Special and it's gorgeous, so clear, just great. I don't have a HD TV, but watching it in HD at computer screen makes big difference.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by maateuszz89

I've just downloaded 720p Polar Special and it's gorgeous, so clear, just great. I don't have a HD TV, but watching it in HD at computer screen makes big difference.

Heh, you should see the 1080p. It's even more awesome.

It requires a fairly beefy computer to play it back though. My old P4 3GHz couldn't handle it.

[Clegko]

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

Heh, you should see the 1080p. It's even more awesome.

It requires a fairly beefy computer to play it back though. My old P4 3GHz couldn't handle it.

My Macbook barely handles the 1080p. It was still very beautiful when I beefed up the ram.

[Cobol74]

1080p for the win IMHO.

[maateuszz89]

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

It requires a fairly beefy computer to play it back though. My old P4 3GHz couldn't handle it.

So 1080p might be a problem for my P4 2.4GHz

[Crazyjeeper]

Originally Posted by maateuszz89

So 1080p will be a problem for my P4 2.4GHz

Fixed

I have problems seeking on 1080p stuff with my 2.2ghz dual core, but it plays back just fine.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by Cobol74

1080p for the win IMHO.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by maateuszz89

So 1080p might be a problem for my P4 2.4GHz

As Crazyjeeper said, it WILL be a problem. It'll be like a slideshow.

On my P4 3GHz, it'd play the video decently smooth except on complex scenes, but the audio would fall farther and farther behind.

You'll need a decent dual core to play it back.

[maateuszz89]

Thanks for advice!

There is my bro's PC (1.8 GHz dual core) next to my room, I'll steal it

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by maateuszz89

Thanks for advice!

There is my bro's PC (1.8 GHz dual core) next to my room, I'll steal it

Dunno if that'll play it or not. You'll have to try it.

[Cobol74]

If its Vista and less than 2 GB memory, no chance.

[chvvkumar]

I think a dual-core with a good graphivs card will get the job done. I have a X2 3600+ paired with an 8600GT plays back 1080p very smoothly with purevideo enabled. I get around 35% and 55% average core usage.

That said, I think 720p ought to be good enough for evryone.

[ahpadt]

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

You'll need a decent dual core to play it back.

My old Pentium D840 could only play 720p so I'll raise "decent" with "pretty good".

I can happily recommend the new E8X00 CPU's from Intel. Extremely good value for money. I bought the E8200 and I don't regret it at all.

[BigDaveDogg]

My AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-64 2.20GHz (yeah, I just copied that straight from the System information), 2045mb of teh RAM, and nvidia PureVideo HD (took that from the sticker here on the laptop, in Device Manager it says it's a GeForce Go 7600, sound right??) couldn't handle the 1080 rip. I never deleted it, was gonna try it out on my brother's Alienware to see if it could hang. I woulda figured my specs could handle the 1080, but nope. They failed.

BTW runnin Vista too...

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by ahpadt

My old Pentium D840 could only play 720p so I'll raise "decent" with "pretty good".

I'm talking about 1080p. 720p is very easy to play back, 1080p is not.

[M. Brown]

They are talking about season 12 going to be in HD? As anything changed?

[leviathan]

Does 1080p make much sense if the actual screen resolution of the monitor is less that that? I mean, my 20" widescreen has 1680x1050, and 1080p would be 1920x1080 - so it would be scaled down to actually fit, and not look that great any more. The only screens capable of true full HD would be the huge 24"+ ones with native resolution of 1920x1200, man I want one of those

[Shawn]

^ It's true, there's not much point playing 1080 videos on a screen that doesn't support that resolution.

But I think 720p is good enough, especially if you're getting stuff of the web since it's not going to be 100 percent quality anyway. And the file sizes are just way too huge for 1080p... 1gb/hour is big enough, and that's the lowest you'll find for 720p videos.