[OT] TOTPs not offered in HD (720p)

[Vangelis forthnet]

Happy Holidays to one and all!

I think the subject of this post could be described as
"English consistency at its... worst!"

Last January, I started the following list thread:

http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2016-January/008577.html

(do read so as to know what I'm talking about...).
The 2014 TOTP shows were never made available as 720p
encodes on iPlayer; the 2015 ones suddenly became available
on the iPlayer site as HD versions on the afternoon of
Monday Jan 11th 2016 (i.e. 17 days after the Christmas
edition was broadcast...).

Fast forward to this Christmas episode:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086kmvx

Unsurprisingly for me,

get_iplayer --pid=b086kmvx -i | FindStr "modes" =>

modes:          original: 
flashvhigh1,flashvhigh2,flashhigh1,flashhigh2,flashstd
1,flashstd2,hlsvhigh1,hlshigh1,hlslow1,hvfvhigh1,hvfvhigh2,hvfhigh1,hvfhigh2,hvf
std1,hvfstd2,hvflow1,hvflow2,subtitles1

so, no signs of  hvfhd (720p50) or hlshd/flashhd (720p25) tvmodes.
But the programme was actually broadcast on HD;
the live BBC One TV stream on iPlayer was offering it
as 720p50 and already TV captures are available on
torrent sites as 1080p50 and 720p50 recodes...

So, what is special about the TOTP programmes
in that the iPlayer team can't offer them in a timely
fashion (if at all) as HD-on-demand will, again,
remain a mystery...
FWIW, their "Known Issues" page mentions nothing:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/programme-availability/programme-issues

So it'll again be a case of wait-and-see...
But, sadly, the announced change on the iPlayer site
will hit us in 2017, so no way to know beforehand
how that will impact on GiP functions...

Festive regards.