Regional news for Yorkshire and the North Midlands finally in true HD, over a year after the rest of the channel upgraded to HD.
- Look North from Leeds upgraded as part of two stage project.
Viewers tuning in to the Leeds-based edition of Look North presented by Amy Garcia, will be able to enjoy improved picture quality from today, Monday 13th May.
The BBC Yorkshire studio and gallery have been the subject of a two-stage upgrade as part of an England-wide project to transform presentation of regional news programmes.
In the first stage, the Look North studio was upgraded to the new standardised regional news set rolling out across England. The second stage saw BBC Yorkshire being upgraded to enable it to broadcast in HD.
Ahead of the upgrade, viewers saw a combined regional bulletin from Hull at the weekend.
Late arrival for Look North HD
The regional BBC One channels were upgraded to HD on all platforms in early 2023.
However, in regions where the local studio and gallery were not ready for HD, some programmes had to be upscaled from standard definition.
This led to noticable drops in picture quality in the run up to regional bulletins and inserts. Notably, during BBC Breakfast, output would suddenly deteriorate from full HD just before and after regional opt-outs. During the national weather in the News at One, Six and Ten, the map would become less sharp as the switch from London to Leeds was made ahead of Look North starting.
This is now history for viewers in the BBC Yorkshire region, which covers West and South Yorkshire, plus parts of North Yorkshire and the northern tips of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
Look North from Newcastle, which serves some Yorkshire viewers, is already broadcasting in full HD.
However, Look North from Hull, covering East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and presented by Peter Levy is still not fully converted to HD.
The East and West Midlands are also still pending a full HD upgrade.
ITV Yorkshire HD launched on satellite and cable in 2016, with East Yorkshire joining in 2020.
By: Marc Thornham | Image: Look North screengrab