Hello, I'm just an interested telly watching punter but it seems to me that the way the whole digital switchover deal is being handled is asking for blind panic is a year or twos time when OAPs screens start going blank.
Having read through a fair few posts on here before I registered I know that a lot of you know some serious stuff on the TV front so I wanted to see what you thought. Is it just me or is switchoff being communicated in a jumbled up way?
To be fair, the Digit Al campaign has literally only just started and should, in theory, do a lot to educate the nation about the switchover. Until this campaign, the only adverts have really been from the broadcasters themselves - the BBC adverts have taken many different forms (both good and bad), but I would suggest many people mistake them for the BBC flogging their own stuff and don't understand the eventual requirement to switch across.
I would bet good money on there being a lot of confusion, but we are still some time before the campaign becomes well known.
As an aside, my friend's dad has stuck with analogue cable even though he would get more value for his money with a Freeview box or a digital service, simply because he does not want to be rushed into the digital switchover. So I suppose that provides some anecdotal evidence that the need to switch IS getting through, even if people aren't fully aware of the choices they have.
Fair point, although to be honest making the central character a space aged robot, when the audiences you really need to get to are on the margins - the eldery in particular, wasnt a smart move in my eyes. When you know many of this group are apprehensive around technology and modern gagits why align digital Tv with a robot!! It should be being communicated as the simplest thing in the world, not as an alien concept. Unless the Govt is waiting on these annoying old folks to die off before they are switched off of course!
When you know many of this group are apprehensive around technology and modern gagits why align digital Tv with a robot!!
That's a good point.
I don't expect Digit Al will be the start and finish of campaigns to push digital, and frankly I'd expect nothing less than messages at every junction in the final few months.
In my opinion, HD is more chaotic than going digital. To go digital, you just need a box. HDTV requires an expensive television, and an expensive HD reciever.
In my opinion, HD is more chaotic than going digital. To go digital, you just need a box. HDTV requires an expensive television, and an expensive HD reciever.
and in my opinion HD is just complicating matters and turning buying a new TV into a complicated process.
Talking about the digit Al character, surely instead they should have Gloria Hunniford doing adverts for digital tv in the breaks of Countdown instead!
You'll probabally get people buying HDTVs and presume everything magically becomes HD. Then wonder why it hasn't. It's no different to the late 60s when the BBC were innundated with phone calls wondering why their Black & White TV sets weren't giving colour pictures. Generally, the british public have little clue about technology. That's why there's millions of people with expensive widescreen TVs with the digibox set to 4:3 and hooked up via RF. I won't be suprised to find that some people already think they are watching digital when they really aren't.
Well, is there any way for the companies to have it that only Analoge gets them? Cause I don't think preaching to the crowd isn't going to do much good.
That's why there's millions of people with expensive widescreen TVs with the digibox set to 4:3 and hooked up via RF. I won't be suprised to find that some people already think they are watching digital when they really aren't.
It's possible to conect digiboxes with RF? I thought it was only possible to use RGB/Scart
You'll probabally get people buying HDTVs and presume everything magically becomes HD. Then wonder why it hasn't. It's no different to the late 60s when the BBC were innundated with phone calls wondering why their Black & White TV sets weren't giving colour pictures. Generally, the british public have little clue about technology. That's why there's millions of people with expensive widescreen TVs with the digibox set to 4:3 and hooked up via RF. I won't be suprised to find that some people already think they are watching digital when they really aren't.
While we're on the subject, a rant - The fact my Digibox has 2 SCART sockets with only one of them actually outputting RGB, is beyond me. They are both occupied sockets, So the main TV has to put up with slightly dodgy-looking composite/RF standard output - Eugh!
Probably a way around it, but no doubt I'll have to wait half a year before I get a response from support!
This HD business looks to be quite fussy. I don't like how LCD or Plasma are placed at the forefront of HD set-wise. Plasmas can be expensive and LCDs are more like a step backward in picture quality IMO, fine for a laptop but not much else.
We've purchased equipment however many years ago that serves us well -- monitors, set top boxes, DVD recorders and other video recording devices, but getting HD isn't a matter of just changing the source to output the higher resolution;
everything
else has to be changed along with it to accept or display this higher quality.
The ease of digital switchover is then apparent, dwarfed by the fuss of this complete replacement of standard definition with their shiny new (expensive) HD counterparts. Good job upgrading to HD isn't a necessity like digital will be.
That's a good point.