HD versus film for TV

This is an old article but an illuminating one. This is a report (in word doc format) from the august British Society of Cinematographers, on a BBC HD day in September 2006, where the message was sent out by Alan Yentob no less, "Drama on Film has got to stop!" (here it is in google HTML format). The reason is, apparently that the MP4 encoders that the BBC will use for HD cannot handle the random grain pattern of film. However (as pointed out in the article) this will also count for pseudo film effects added in post, or in low light situations where gain has to be used for HD. Basically the BBC (in the guise of chief technologist Andy Quested) is decreeing to producers how shows have to look in order not to annoy picky license fee payers who've just bought expensive HD ready TVs and get grumpy about things like a grainy image. So more Hotel Babylon gloss, less Life On Mars grit.

Life on Mars incidentally, and its follow up Ashes to Ashes are both shot on Super16 specifically for aesthetic reasons. (ITV's twinned shows Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach are shot of film and HD respectively for similar reasons). It would be interesting to know how Kudos, the production company behind Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes managed to get that one past the boffins at the Beeb. Has policy changed since again 2006? This document from Kodak (PDF) lists Ashes to Ashes as using stocks from fine grained 50D all the way to grungy and fast 500T ASA stocks. Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes do use a lot of slow motion effects that may have compelled them to use film over HD. Bear in mind that all this time, Dr Who, one of the Beeb's biggest shows is still being shot on 576i SD and deinterlaced in post.