ITV HD apologises for World Cup snafu
Human error blamed
It was billed as the first-ever World Cup in HD but those who watched Saturday's England V USA game in high definition wouldn't have seen Steven Gerrard's goal live as the channel cut to adverts instead.
For the first time this tournament, the vuvezela's were drowned out by the screams of anguish from English fans who missed the only goal their team has scored so far.
And, to rub it in, the transmission which re-appeared was in standard definition for the majority of the rest of the match.
ITV HD did apologise for the problems during the game, with presenter Adrian Chiles at half-time merely, saying "apologies for those watching in HD. I believe there was some interruption in your coverage."
But the official apology noted that it was due to "human error" and that there was a transmission problem blamed on supplier Technicolor.
Due to the fault happening right when the goal was scored, there have been some who are looking into whether or not the transmission was sabotaged, with the Daily Mail reporting that Paddy Power was giving odds of 8/1 that this would happen during the World Cup.
HD glitch
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Apparently ITV HD bosses are meeting in Chiswick today to discuss the problems at the weekend – the transmission, not the game – which has been called by ITV chairman Sir Michael Grade an "inexcusable glitch".
1.5 million tuned into watch England's opener in HD, but the 90,000 or so who had been trying to watch the World Cup online will have also found glitches with ITV's coverage over the World Cup opener between South Africa and Mexico.
According to the Guardian, the live stream stopped allowing new users to view the event, with ITV explaining: "We had a problem with our CDN [content distribution network] which was preventing new members joining the stream.
"It was an issue since half time in the game."
There is still a very long way to go in this World Cup and ITV will be hoping that it it doesn't have anymore Robert Green style blunders during its coverage of the event.
So will Freeview HD and Freesat - two companies that are pinning their hopes on the World Cup bringing HDTV to the mainstream.
Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.