Vatican to broadcast pope images in HD

Vatican television is gearing up to make the move to high definition images in December to ensure Pope Benedict XVI's message is broadcast as widely as possible, the Vatican said Tuesday. Benedict has stressed the importance of "careful and intelligent use of both old and new communication tools", Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican Television Centre (CTV), told journalists at a press conference. The move will cost up to "several million euros", said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, adding that the decision to go HD was "obligatory" in light of requests from television channels for increasingly high quality images.
"We can't not do it, otherwise the image of the pope in the coming years will have an ever decreasing presence in the television world," he added.