Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 25, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
New HD content on ASTRA 19.2 degrees East: as the “Astra Insider” newsletter reports, ORF is expanding its HDTV offering, which until now has consisted of ORF 1 HD, and will also begin broadcasting the ORF 2 channel in high definition on December 5, 2009. This increases the HD content distributed via Astra in German-speaking countries to 14 channels. Three of the HD channels come from Austria: Servus TV HD, ORF 1 HD and ORF 2 HD.
The 24-hour ORF 2 HD schedule, which will continue to be broadcast in conventional resolution in parallel, consists of productions created in HDTV and programmes subsequently converted to HD, “Astra Insider” reports. “For ORF, as Austria’s leading electronic medium, enabling its audience to access new technologies is part of its self-image,” Director General Alexander Wrabetz said in Vienna. “This includes television in high-resolution picture quality, one of the major TV innovations of recent years. By broadcasting ORF 1 and ORF 2 in high definition, ORF offers its audience directly visible added value in the truest sense of the phrase—and at no additional cost.”
The first highlights on ORF 2 HD are a performance of Joseph Haydn’s opera “Il mondo della luna”, broadcast from Theater an der Wien on December 5, Robert Dornhelm’s film version of the opera “La Bohème” on December 12, and the Vienna Philharmonic’s traditional New Year’s Concert on January 1.
