BBC Studios and Post Production (S&PP) is upgrading Studio Six at Television Centre in White City to what is thought to be the UK’s first 1080p50-capable studio.

Systems integrator ATG has been contracted to help design and deliver an installation that will be able to handle and display all HD formats, including the higher quality 1080p50.

Production control, lighting and vision control areas are all being refurbished, as is the vision apparatus area, including the installation of dual-link 1.5Gb/s and single link 3Gb/s HD video infrastructure.

S&PP head of new business and entertainment Craig White said: “We’re seeing customer demand for HD increase, with BBC1 HD launching this autumn and ITV HD now fully up and running. Investing in 1080p50 technology will future-proof our offering.”

The 8,000 sq ft studio will be equipped with eight Sony HDC 1500 cameras with 1080p50-capable fibre outputs. Vision monitoring will be provided by Sony, Ikegami, Marshall and TVLogic.

Crystal Vision upconverters, down converters and dual-link to 3G converters have also been selected.

The refurbishment, which will give BBC S&PP four permanent HD studios, should be completed this month.

Picture: Hairy Bikers Cook Off will be recorded in Studio 6