ZollyMonsta: Sky finished moving to mpeg4 three to four weeks ago...
I just looked in my TVHeadend. Damn, they finally did it! lol. They still haven't changed the audio from mpeg-2 though. Even ESPN HD is still on mpeg-2 audio. And they still haven't removed or changed the secondary audio feed from mpeg-2 for any of their HD channels too.
I also checked out the freeview channels, they are still on mpeg-2 video. (Apart from the Sky HD ones)
networkn:
switched off the satellites? Well, then the reason would be all the tens of thousands of users rurally who would have next to, or just NO TV.
Not sure how you interpreted that comment to mean switching off the satellites. He means removing the SD channels that already have a duplicated HD counterpart in H.264. Maybe it's because some really really old non HD ready TV's still can't do 1080i..? But I doubt it, I have no idea. Nothing about Sky makes sense.
@Beniore. I presume you are using oscam? Do you find you have to refresh the card a lot more than before? Now I'm having to put the card back into the decoder every couple of months. I think Sky must have changed something.
About the quality for ESPN HD. Interestingly if you compared the quality with NBA.com, ESPN looks better at least when I compare them side by side. NBA.com is 720p as well, not sure what the bitrate is though.