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Analogue Switch Off

Vote: How long till the Country is Digital? (February 2004)

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NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
cwathen posted:
Anyway, I don't believe government claims of digital penetration. A house with a Sky box in the front room has not converted to digital. A house has converted to digital when it no longer has any dependencies on analogue TV reception, and I'd estimate that very few people are in that position. Indeed, it's very hard to be in that position when some devices are either only available or virtually only available with analogue tuners (can I get a DTT pocket TV from Argos? I know someone has finally brought out a DTT VCR, but can I go to Dixons and buy one?).


I think its mainly this and in addition to previous arguments in this thread that's going to not "kill" it as such but seriously hold the conversion to digital back by some considerable way. We need the new tuners built into the TVs and the VCRs as standard, perhaps alongside the current traditional tuner for UHF frequencies. A digibox, nice (and often fickle) as it is, will only let you work with one channel at a time, you can't record BBC Four and watch something else on Challenge at the same time for example. Okay, there's Sky+ and all but if you follow the Sky newsgroups these things don't work full stop if they can't see a satellite signal.

All very well having a digibox in the front room. But you're not "converted" to digital. Yes, you can go and pipe that feed to another telly somewhere else if you're that way inclined but why should you? As has been said, most secondary TVs in the bedrooms and what not are usually connected to indoor aerials which are, we're told, not suitable for Freeview transmissions. Again, yes, you could go and hook it up to the main aerial on the roof which, if you're in a catchment area, will get you Freeview on secondary TVs but the point is all this costs money. Joe Public just wants to pay one-off £89 for Freeview and then, once analogue's gone, be able to watch it on any telly in the house if not do that now. As things stand right now, he's going to end up paying more than £89 to do something that the government should be doing, surely?
SI
simpfeld
We can't be far away from every new TV having a DTT tuner built in. When boxes fall to say £20 then the cost of integrating a DTT tuner will be small.

I too am sceptical about selling off the frequency spectrum. When 2006-2010, HDTV will be becoming a bigger thing. Is this forever to only exist on cable/satellite? Couldn't some of the spectrum be considered for this purpose? With MPEG 4 (or future versions) we'll be able to fit 2 or 3 HD channels on a mux.

I can't agree that Analogue TV is far from superior to digital. The best you can say is that a perfect analogue signal is better than a perfect digital one in the present incarnation. Very few people get a perfect analogue signal. It's slightly grainy on most peoples TV's. And digital does look better for most people.

The present digital system has been compromised by accountants squeezing too much out of the system. The main "problem" with digital is that it's flexible enought to allow this to happen..
High rate MPEG (or SDI studio links) are excellent quality

There are so many digital systems now in broadcasting that it's hard to see any pure analogue transmission. Loads of programmes now are played out from servers using MPEG or OB links over MPEG. In fact in the nations all network programming is sent by MPEG links.
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Adam
simpfeld posted:
Very few people get a perfect analogue signal. It's slightly grainy on most peoples TV's. And digital does look better for most people.


Digital looks much worse than Anologue here, even without all the blocks. The Anologue signal is superb.
MA
Matrix
Katherine posted:
gonna be a tough job getting some sectors of society, like the elderly for example to make the switch....... I know my grandparents are likely to be confused and a little overwhelmed by all this new technology......

I'd like to see analogue continue alongside digital, as analogue's a far more reliable way of transmitting pictures. With digital you still get blocking, sticking etc.... why is the choice of analogue being denied to the public?


Really good point, My parents won't have a clue, try and take the TV back pobabilty, I'll speak to them, although that does seem to do any good these days.
MO
Moz
Matrix posted:
Katherine posted:
gonna be a tough job getting some sectors of society, like the elderly for example to make the switch....... I know my grandparents are likely to be confused and a little overwhelmed by all this new technology......

I'd like to see analogue continue alongside digital, as analogue's a far more reliable way of transmitting pictures. With digital you still get blocking, sticking etc.... why is the choice of analogue being denied to the public?


Really good point, My parents won't have a clue, try and take the TV back pobabilty, I'll speak to them, although that does seem to do any good these days.


Oh come on!!!

On Freeview, you press '1' on the remote and you get BBC One! You press '2' you get BBC Two, etc, etc. Exactly the same as analogue.

If you can't work this, then it's euthanisia time!!

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