This just in: an unofficial denial from someone at Bell about the 1080p rumor

This morning I posted a story about a rumor which surfaced yesterday that Bell planned to roll out 1080p broadcast in the next fifteen months.

Well, I've heard back from an inside source at Bell, who gave me the following infomation, on the condition that I don't identify them, and make it clear that this is not an official statement from Bell:

Off the record - this is a rumour.

First no stations are using 1080p or planning on running 1080p as a broadcast format, why?

Well, 720p uses about 55 million pixels a second, 1080i uses about 62 million pixels a second, 1080p uses about 124 million pixels, so it would mean using double the bandwidth to send a signal.

Lastly only 5% of HDTV's in the field are 1080p, so why would Bell or anyone else use double the bandwidth to send to 5% of customers?

I knew in my heart the rumor was crap when I heard it, but as a new media journalist (how pretentious does that sound?), I am compelled to hunt this stuff down. Besides, controversy means more hits on my site.

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