Have your say & ask the experts

All Virgin have is BBCHD and a variable feast of HD stuff in their various On-Demand sections. Not a lot, really and they're on record as saying (pragmatically, to my mind) that HD is not their focus.

I have V+ and I also have a 47" Full HD TV set, BluRay player and very expensive cabling whilst my nephew has an equally impressive 52" Full HD setup with Sky HD and what I can say with absolute conviction is that most of the HD content is not that great (on either)

The technical reasons are that a large proportion of HD content is broadcast with a resolution of 1280x720 rather than 1920x1080, which means that the TV (or other assigned hardware) is having to scale the image.  Although, because of the maths involved, the scaling is much easier from 720p than from SD, it still does lose fidelity.  In addition to this, the HD broadcasts are compressed, so even though they start off as HD some of the detail is lost.  The few 1080i broadcasts I have seen do look a lot better, but still not anything like the quality of true HD on BluRay.

Don't take this the wrong way though, HD content is better than SD, just not THAT much better.  Also, if you have a 720p TV then you will probably benefit more from the HD services available (But equally will not benefit as much from BluRay)

One thing I have noticed is that on Virgin, BBC1 is usually a reasonable picture, but if the same program is being shown on BBC HD then the picture on BBC1 is more highly compressed and practically unwatchable at times, so, for example, I would not recommend watching Strictly on BBC1 on Virgin if you don't have HD as the terrestrial picture may well be better... but the results show will be fine because it's not on HD!

ITMonkey:

I have V+ and I also have a 47" Full HD TV set, BluRay player and very expensive cabling whilst my nephew has an equally impressive 52" Full HD setup with Sky HD and what I can say with absolute conviction is that most of the HD content is not that great (on either)

The technical reasons are that a large proportion of HD content is broadcast with a resolution of 1280x720 rather than 1920x1080, which means that the TV (or other assigned hardware) is having to scale the image.  Although, because of the maths involved, the scaling is much easier from 720p than from SD, it still does lose fidelity.  In addition to this, the HD broadcasts are compressed, so even though they start off as HD some of the detail is lost.  The few 1080i broadcasts I have seen do look a lot better, but still not anything like the quality of true HD on BluRay.

Don't take this the wrong way though, HD content is better than SD, just not THAT much better.  Also, if you have a 720p TV then you will probably benefit more from the HD services available (But equally will not benefit as much from BluRay)

One thing I have noticed is that on Virgin, BBC1 is usually a reasonable picture, but if the same program is being shown on BBC HD then the picture on BBC1 is more highly compressed and practically unwatchable at times, so, for example, I would not recommend watching Strictly on BBC1 on Virgin if you don't have HD as the terrestrial picture may well be better... but the results show will be fine because it's not on HD!

I have v+ and i have never noticed reduction in picture quality on bbc1 when same program is being shown on bbc1 HD . I have px80 42"

heh, like said this has been running for years, since rebranding virgin have no intrest in providing HD, which makes their HD service a bit of a sham.

 I gather this is in part down to when the regulator set the tariffs sky charges cable, HD wasn't included so is a additional service & if virgin want it rupert will charge silly $$$$, and nothing will change untill there's another review.  Virgin can increase capacity by losing the analogue channels- there can't be that many people still using analogue boxes surely?
 

Jonathan_E:

Andy Clough:

Mind you, could do with more storage capacity on the V+ as even recording a couple of BBC HD programmes can soon fill it up.

you're not wrong there.

I've given up recording stuff on HD: it takes up about five hours for every one in SD - I get 'Critical' on my space remaining bar before I blink.

One other V+ advantage: I still find the three tuners worryingly useful (record two while watching one).

I must get out more. Or lose a couple of kids, I guess...

 Guy on digitalspy swapped it for a 750 gig, works fine but in theory virgin could get upset about it (not upset enough to bother enabling the SATA link for offboard HDD it seems though.  Yes it's copy protected and ready to go, but for someone at virgin pressing a button...)
 

whether the V+ could handle more than 1 HD operation simultaneously is questionable though, and perhaps part of the problem...