digital switch over

with the right equipment you can get digital we have proved many times.
digital at the moment is weak and rightly said when the analog is turned off the digital strengh will increase.
 
rubin1961 said:
with the right equipment you can get digital we have proved many times..
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I know of a few completely dead spots around my area, and around my parents area. Then again both of these area's are reasonably dead for anlogue too. Satellite is the only real option.
 
My friend actually lives in Ferryside in Carmarthenshire where they have already turned the analogue signal off... they gave out free digiboxes to the whole village apparently - "How many TVs do you have in your house?"... "Five?"... "Ok, here are five digiboxes...(!)".
 
daz said:
When they turn off analogue, they will have lots of spare frequencies to play with - to do something else with, or to simply expand the freeview channels etc...
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The Government will rent them to mobile phone companies...
 
rubin1961 said:
you can still get analog there no probs
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Part of the village is in a valley and is obstructed by surrounding hills/cliffs.
Even getting a mobile signal is difficult. :p
 
Over here in the channel islands (guernsey),we are not going be able to receive digital TV(freeview) till at lest somewhere between the years of 2010 & 2012..

If they turned off the analogue signal before that time then there would be very big problems with people who cannot or not allowed to put sky dishes up..As we has no cable tv over here as well..

I can even see how much harder it is to buy just an analogue TV USB/card for the PC now..(Online places are mainly starting to stock only the digital ones)
 
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Only if you don't have several thousand tonnes of earth i.e. a hill between your house and the only freeview transmitter in range. The only transmitter I can get an analogue signal off is Bilsdale West Moor, a good 45 mile away. Even if they double or trippled the wattage I still will not get a digital signal.

To get 95% coverage they are going to have to put more digital tansmitters on current analogue repeater, something which was supposed to be ruled out.
 
This digital switchover is going to cause great problems for a lot of people. And not just the very old. The problem for me lies with a lot of the freeview set top boxes. Think of it this way. For most of your life you've had a TV, with 4 or 5 channels. You switch it on, you press (1-5), you play with the volume. Nice and simple.

Now you'll have this:

- Turn on TV, turn on STB
- No picture? You need to switch to AV1. No thats AV2, keep cycling through, there it is!
"Oops I accidently pressed "3" on the TV remote rather than the STB, now I can't get back to the STB. What's that AV button again?"
- STB crashes - you have to pull the plug out to reset it. Now the channels have all reset and it's doing "Automatic Setup".
- I've accidently brought some kind of setup menu up, how do I get back to TV?

For techy people like me, and most people under 60, Freeview is easy. But for a LOT of people over 60 it'll be a complete nightmare. They're going to have a "switch on and watch" TV replaced with a complicated set of inputs, channels and menus. Even in the best case scenario whereby everyone buys a top quality STB that doesn't crash, things will still seem complicated.

In my mind, the ONLY way to solve the problem for the older generation is to replace the whole TV with one that ONLY has an integrated digital tuner, no analogue. That way they can switch on, press 1-5 and get normal TV. Then if they want they can watch the other channels that digital provides.

Switching to digital may be easy for you and me, but for millions it'll be a total waste of time and nothing but trouble :(
 
Don't forget the record functions of a ordinary VCR will be vastly limited when only digital exists, having to record from the AV input and not being able to make use of the on-board tuner.

In short people won't be able to record one program and watch another.
 
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norm said:
Don't forget the record functions of a ordinary VCR will be vastly limited when only digital exists, having to record from the AV input and not being able to make use of the on-board tuner.

In short people won't be able to record one program and watch another.
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That's true. My grandparents always tape stuff that's on later in the evening. Currently they can still use tha analogue VCR tuner.. but after that.. nothing!

I'm sure older people will have no trouble connecting the second scart output of the STB (IF it has one) to the VCR input (NOT Ouput), selecting the correct input on the VCR, setting all the timing up, remembering not to change the STB channel, remembering to leave the STB on..

Yeah.. moving to digital IS easy :rolleyes:
 
I thought it might be a bit tricky for elderly people till my garndparents who were both about 80 got a new widescreen TV and a digibox. They've taken to it like ducks to water, and love it!!!

I think in most peoples homes, they'll be set up using scart which should, with most TV's that aren't ancient autoswitch to the correct AV channel.

As for the using the video, it will be a nuisance but they'll probably have to upgrade to a new PVR, which initially will be a bit confusing but once they've got used to it, and the freeview playback service begins next year, they'll love it cos they'll be able to record every showing of the antiques road show and other such things.

Valve
 
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