The University of Wisconsin's football opener on Saturday is not being produced in high definition by the Big Ten Network.

BTN is broadcasting six games on Saturday, and only four are being produced in HD, with the stumbling block simply being a lack of equipment, BTN spokesman Mike Vest said in an interview Thursday.

"When producing that many games it's tough to procure enough HD-capable production trucks," Vest said. "We have some HD trucks but not six."

There also is extremely high demand for the HD trucks owned by independent companies at this time of year, Vest added.

The issue only comes up during the nonconference season when the 11 Big Ten schools aren't matching up with each other as they are during the conference season, meaning there are roughly twice as many games involving Big Ten schools each week.

"The start of the conference season also comes with the end of the baseball season, which frees up a lot of (HD) trucks," Vest said.

Over the course of the season, more than 90 percent of BTN game broadcasts will be in HD, Vest said.

On Saturday, BTN is producing Akron at Wisconsin and Western Kentucky at Indiana in standard definition (SD). Both games are at 11 a.m.

BTN is doing HD broadcasts of Maine at Iowa, Youngstown State at Ohio State, and Coastal Carolina at Penn State, all at 11 a.m.; and Northern Illinois at Minnesota at 6 p.m.

Other Big Ten games Saturday are Syracuse at Northwestern at 11 a.m. on ESPN2, Utah at Michigan at 2:30 p.m. on ABC, and Illinois vs. Missouri at St. Louis at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.

Purdue does not play this weekend.

Fans trying to figure out what channel each BTN game is on with their particular provider can go to BTN's "Gamefinder" service. Type in your zip code and the name of your provider, and you get what games are available on what channel.

Vest said a weekend's games typically are posted by the middle to end of a week.

The good news for Wisconsin fans is that the following Saturday's game against Marshall on BTN will be in HD, Vest said, although he cautioned that that does not guarantee that a provider will carry a game in HD.

The Badgers were on BTN five times last season -- against Citadel, Northern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State and Minnesota -- and will be on at least three times this season with the guarantee for each school to have one conference game on BTN.

Madison area cable provider Charter Communications launched BTN on Thursday afternoon, a day after announcing that it had reached an  agreement in principle on a multi-year deal with the network.

Charter put BTN on Channel 73 for subscribers with expanded basic and higher levels of service, and on channel 795 for HD, although the HD channel won't matter for Saturday's SD broadcast.

Charter spokesman John Miller said Wednesday that the company does not plan to carry BTN's overflow channels this season so it will only be carrying one BTN game in a time slot this season. When the Badgers are on BTN, that will be the BTN game Charter carries, he said.