Music channel broadcaster Box Television has upgraded its acquisition equipment to high definition with the purchase of Sony XDCam kit.

Two camcorders - a PDW-700 and a PMW-EX1 - plus a PDW HD1500 recorder/player have been bought from reseller CVP-Mitcorp.

They will be used for creating programming, promos, presenter links and other short and long-form content that appears between the music videos on its seven channels, 4 Music (formerly The Hits), Kerrang TV, The Box, Q, Magic, Kiss and Smash Hits.

The new equipment was delivered this month and replaces existing standard-definition Digibeta and MiniDV cameras. Box Television recently upgraded its Avid DS suite to HD.

Box TV senior editor Max Burgess explained that even though none of the music channels are currently broadcasting in HD, there were obvious benefits to shooting in a higher resolution. “It certainly makes our archive more valuable with a longer lifespan and increased resale potential,” he said.

Burgess also argued that the cameras open up exciting new creative avenues. “By using the oversized HD frames in an SD sequence for a promo, we can DVE [zoom] in and out without any loss of picture quality,” he said. “The creation of disaster recovery archives should also prove to be easier with this format.”

Box TV is a joint-venture between Bauer Media and Channel 4 and, with the latter having recently launched a high-definition service, Burgess hinted that there could be further opportunities for HD-shot footage in the future.

“Down-rezzed HD tends to look better than normal SD, so we would hope that the level of our output would improve,” he said. “Investing in SD equipment with a three-year life expectancy at this stage would not be a great business decision for us, in view of the opportunities to come out of our partnership with C4.”

CVP-Mitcorp, the company that resulted from the merger of Creative Video Productions and Mitcorp in January this year, sells and rents broadcast equipment.

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