BBC HD

Six?
1) BBC One HD
2) 301 HD during the summer, followed by BBC Two HD in the autumn
3) BBC HD
4) ITV1 HD
5) Channel 4 HD

Yes, plus 'slot 6' that the Beeb have put out to a competitive bidding process ?

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1644069

If we are having a third HD stream during the Olympics surprised it wasn't announced today. I'd also prefer it to offer an alternative to 301 actually to at least up the options available for HD viewers, or possibly rather than one HD channel put 3-4 of the SD Olympic channels on there to at least begin to close the gap on the plans for Sky.

Longer term even with a sixth HD channel I'm not sure the BBC should have 3 HD channels on Freeview. Although the current BBC1 HD/BBC HD arrangement is better than BBC1/2HD I think E4 or Film4 HD would be a better use of the fifth channel and then a sixth channel to another commercial broadcaster. I doubt ITV will break their deal with Sky though, I don't think C4 should have 3 channels for the same reasons as the BBC - and though C5 would complete the portfolio nicely I'm not sure they deserve it having cocked it up twice.

If we are to have SIX HD services on the Mux, which I've not heard of until now, I sincerley hope the encoders have some sort of quantum leap pretty soon, I know the available bandwidth is pooled but on a neutrally allocated basis to allow only 4966 kBit/s per HD service (pre error correction) seems remarkable.

(Remember that during the Royal Wedding, the number of active streams was reduced by removing moving content from the BBC HD Channel - raising the bandwidth available to the other channels)

I don't think there any plans for six HD channels. Perhaps the BBC are putting in a bid themselves for the fifth slot, as well as opening it up to the market - which is maybe where I heard this rumour from.

The fact that it's not available till September definitely points towards them using it themselves for the Olympics, though.