OK so Glastonbury and Euro 2008 are over and thus goes two good reasons to go out and buy an HD television, but nevertheless, the BBC has begun trials of HD terrestrial television.

The test service began broadcasting today from a transmitter in Guildford. And while HD services have been available via Sky, Virgin and most recently on Freesat, this is the first trial to use a technology called DVB-T2.

Rather than sending Arnold Schwartzenegger back through time to save Tom O'Connor, this broadcast technology manages to fit an extra 30 percent more bandwidth into a single multiplex. The theory is that this extra bandwidth plus better compression algorithms (think MPEG-4) would be enough to squeeze a few HD channels into a small amount of spectrum.

The BBC is aiming to have HD broadcasting via Freeview to the UK by 2009.

Justin Mitchell, leader of the DVB-T2 modem development team at the BBC, said: "We are delighted that our team, in collaboration with our partners, has been able to deliver such a key piece of technology in such a short timescale.

"This is a big step forward in enabling the introduction of full HD terrestrial on Freeview by the end of 2009," he continued.

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