for all your "not defending" its clear that theres lots of H264/avc content becoming ready and indeed the bbc and other production houses have been filming in professional HD camera's since 2004 at least, and its that content that will be down-converted to both SD and the new DVB-H (handheld) H.264 format coming across the whole of the EU and elsewere very soon.
also,apparently pace will be showing off their new HD cable box to the EU people
http://www.pacemicro.com/corporate/n...422&template=0
"
Pace brings HD and next generation products to ANGA Cable 2006
* Latest products to be exhibited at the Show * Pace Expert to speak on networking HD around the home *"
"
Pace will be showing its family of HD set-top boxes, including a new free-to-air HD set-top box which will be available in retail across UK and Europe from May this year. This set-top box is based on the DS810 platform - which was the first DVB-S2 H.264 HD set-top box in the World and launched the Premiere HD service in Germany in December 2005."
looks like DVB-S2 H.264 HD 'is the standard' everyones using, as we have been saying all along, no matter what the new NTL ex TW top guy tells them to go with long term....
still with contracting for 1.3 million samsung old mpeg2 cable boxs with VxWorks/liberate (they dont seem to have very much H.264 related software that i can find) installed, and thats just NTL, TW had somthing like 1 million contracted too i seem to recall, than that puts them and by default, the end-users having to finance that before any real inovation i suppose........