Digital switchover

Am i the only one who got an Advert for Delta airlines before that report appeared?!

International BBC News users have to watch the adverts before watching, in order to get 'high quality' (256kbps )

Someone please tell that guy that BBC News 24 is in widescreen!!

I'm in the UK though, is it just an international link that one?

I agree, the length of time to achieve this is unacceptable.

I read a report about DSO in the US, which begins soon and will be complete by mid-2009. A country with more than 3 times the population of the UK. Perhaps they are just better organised.

I was also amazed by the man who said the STBs should have been given away free. Look, if you can't afford to put away 25p a week for the 2 years they have known about it (to get the basic £20 box), then chances are they can't afford the TV Licence so shouldn't be watching anyway!

Just three years ago, the 30th anniversary of Ceefax showed us, perhaps surprisingly, how what is seen by some as a dated service was still a valued one. I could go into the advantages of digital and traditional text services but that is not what this thread is for.

What I will say, however, is that despite the massive publicity a large number of people failed to get the message when Oracle closed at the end of 1992. The ITC were apparently deluged by calls in the new year from viewers wandering what was going on. My point being? When the new ITV franchises came in at the same time, it was they that were getting all the publicity and Oracle's transition to Teletext ended up being overlooked by the news coverage. You could argue that a similar thing is happening again with teletext, as the emphasis is on making people know that analogue CHANNELS are being switched off.

I like "OLD" teletext better,

I don;t know why, but I find it faster and quicker to use

But this is the problem - it's all well them saying digital is in most homes but I'll take a wild guess it's only on one television - and most homes have more than one. Where are the stats about what percentage of TVs have actually been made digital?

We have four TVs here, two are hooked up with Sky multiroom, one isn't plugged in (but could be) and the other doesn't have Scart so will be thrown out come 2012 (ok, I know you can get a coaxial/Scart adapter but it's still expensive).

Another house I'm regularly at has four TVs - one with Virgin, one with Freeview and the other two on analogue (one without Scart).

There shouldn't be any hurry to switch for the sake of it - look at the change to colour or 625 lines!

I wonder if anyone at BBC Two will bother to mention it before The Learning Zone tonight?

I need to get one, all I have is a 18 inch 12 year old telly in my room

the only Tv that has it ( Sky) and inbuilt sky) is the main one in the livingroom

That's the problem, though thinking about it my family and their households have all made the switch to digital completely in terms of TV - but it's videos which are the problem.

I also think delaying the switchover is causing unneccessary confusion over digital aerials. The main problem with reception is interference - and when the analogue signals are turned off there should be less interference, and therefore it's probably less likely you'll need a digital aerial - leading to some people forking out when in the long run they might not need too.

There are also quite alot of people who though they receive digital now fine through their existing aerial believe they'll need a digital aerial after switchover - and also quite a few aerial fitters willing to exploit that belief!

You don't need SCART if you get a freeview box with an RF output as well as input.

I can watch my freeview channels on both channel AV and channel 9 (tuned to UHF68)

Going into Snooker Extra, the announcer said "You're watching BBC Two, and the big switch-over begins tonight in Whitehaven in Cumbria. We'll see you on Digital TV from 2am. Until then, let's all enjoy the snooker".

Personally I've never enjoyed watching the snooker.

BBC Two in Whitehaven is tonight being replaced ITV1, and in ITV1s place, multiplex PSB1, which is like Mux 1, but with added Five.

It's worth remembering that the current DTT network is being upgraded and totally reconfugered. The MUXs are changing around and exsisting transmitters replaced by more powerful ones. There is also the task of extending masts and in a few cases building totally new ones.

Also with terrestrial Tv there are about something like 30 transmitters that serve 90% of the population and the other 1000 odd serve the other 10% (rough estimated figures, it's something like that!).

There's also the logistocal aspects of the switchover - Transmitter A can't have it's digital channels added because it would interfere with Transmitters B, C D and E so they have to be switched over first etc

It would be possible today to just switch off the analogue transmitters, today but we wouldn't have the universal coverage that analogue TV has either long term or some areas for a short time