analouge or digital ? can you help me undersand.

[limi]

Hi I am an old NTL customer, I have had my analouge system since the year dot and have never seen much point in changing.

I have internet, tv and phone all basic package.

Can anyone tell me (in an easy to understand way) what i would gain by switching to digital. Or should i keep my analouge system thinking ntl may offer a better deal later to encourage customers to switch as it is mostly in ntl's benifit to have everyone on one system?

Bare in mind I use the internet mostly , rarely watch tv. and hardly ever use the phone.
they have told me alot of silly infomation that dosent seem to fit or benifit me at all and seems quite agresivly marketed against my interest in places.

e.i.

1 enhanced better tv signal (i dont see how a digital cable tv signal is better, its sent using the same optical cable light)

2 more chanels ( you can only watch one at a time, the good programmes being on mostly at the same time frame. plus i assume they mean they would have the ability to sell me more channels and I would'nt get anything good / extra thats free worth watching. As i said i hardly watch tv anyway and use the cheapest basic package)

3 I was told my cost would need to increase slightly for the benifits, when i objected to this and said i was'nt interested in paying more for what i already have, I then get told that i may be able to save using a different package! (see what i mean about trying to agresivly disadvantage me!).

4 The goverment is forcing the change to digital so i will have to change, (I would have thought that would only apply to air bourn signals)

Please can someone give me a more customer based bit of advise.

with thanks
Mr Limi

Hi

I have just arranged to have my analogue box changed to digital, which should be happening on Friday.

My reasons for doing so are as follows

more channels, and they don't 'timeshare' like analogue ones do.

only digital customers can get video on demand.

better compatibility with our widescreen TV.

- what I am not expecting is a better quality picture, I'll be happy if it is the same.

Oh and my package, which includes family pack & movies, via 2 set top boxes, will increase by about £4 a month, although I did qualify for a discount for taking all 3 TV/Phone and Broadband.

I have to say I was offered this as my cheapest option, for a 'like for like' swap & didn't feel it was aggressive marketing, at all, but to be fair, it was me that initiated the query.

[danielf]

From what you say you might be better off considering freeview. Assuming you have a decent rooftop aerial, it would allow you to drop NTL TV altogether for an initial outlay of £50-£100.

More info (including channel lineup) at www.freeview.co.uk

[limi]

thankyou both for your replys.

what is meant by time sharing please Homealone?

I do have a sony free view box in the bedroom and a unused wire from a satalite dish not that i get to use the freeview box much, but thankyou for your suggestion.

I have found Ntl not very helpfull when trying to considering all the options available and much as i bitch about their standards of customer helpfulness.

They do provide me with a fair product even if trying to judge what would best suit me is made as gaurded as a secret project

any other advise is also welcome

mr limi

[danielf]

One advantage of digital if you're into sports is that some channels offer multiscreen options. Thus, when watching the world cup or wimbledon, only one match may be on offer on the main channel. With digital, on major tournaments, you can press the red button and choose the match you want to watch from several matches. Nice if you're a sports fan and your favourite country/team/player is unlikely to be shown on the main channel. You could watch the Holland game when England are playing! Great!!!

Regarding your freeview box: I've never had freeview, but as I understand you need a rooftop aerial (not a dish) for that to work. If you have a rooftop aerial, you could plug the cable coming from the rooftop aerial into the box and see if you really need NTL.

[thelem]

What how much are you paying at the moment, and what channels do you get?

The main advantage of digital is more channels, but you also get 3 days of programme listings, and greater choice of which sport/match to watch during major events broadcast by the BBC. If your area doesn't already have VOD, that will be rolling out over the next year and will let you watch certain programmes as if you had videoed them. They have a good selection of films on there too, for a few pounds each.

For £5.50/month (not including phone line), you can get all the freeview channels, plus sky one, uktv gold, living tv and maybe more. Or you can go for their £32.99/month value pack, which gives you their middle tv package, free off peak phone calls and 1Mbps internet.

[Chrysalis]

depends on what you watch but analogue is much worse then you guys think.

E4 isnt all day on analogue
no sky sports extra
no VOD
no premiership plus
more expensive for premium channels
not elegible for ntl special offers
no bbc3/4 itv3 etc.
no sky sports news.
plus other missing channels.

[King Of Fools]

Originally Posted by limi

1 enhanced better tv signal (i dont see how a digital cable tv signal is better, its sent using the same optical cable light)

Digital TV is less suceptable to interference (it either works or it does not) so you do not get fuzzy pictures like you do on analogue.

Transmitting TV is by definition lossy (i.e. the signal received is not as good as the one sent). For analogue TV this means that the picture slowly get worse the further away you are from the source. Digital lets you recover the original picture exactly as it was sent by use of error correction algorithms until you get far enough away that you cannot receive anything.

Originally Posted by limi

2 more chanels ( you can only watch one at a time, the good programmes being on mostly at the same time frame. plus i assume they mean they would have the ability to sell me more channels and I would'nt get anything good / extra thats free worth watching. As i said i hardly watch tv anyway and use the cheapest basic package)

Digital has all the Freeview channels plus any more you want to pay for. There are a lot of channels that are simply not available on analogue, whether you would want to watch them is another matter!

Originally Posted by limi

3 I was told my cost would need to increase slightly for the benifits, when i objected to this and said i was'nt interested in paying more for what i already have, I then get told that i may be able to save using a different package! (see what i mean about trying to agresivly disadvantage me!).

It really depends on what package you are currently on. If you have the basic analogue then the basic digital is probably about the same price (£5.50) per month. If you have the full analogue package then you could well find that an equivalent digital package is cheaper or more expensive.

Originally Posted by limi

4 The goverment is forcing the change to digital so i will have to change, (I would have thought that would only apply to air bourn signals)

As you say the government analogue switch-off would probably have nothing to do with cable. However, it has been stated that NTL will probably switch-off analogue before the government do (in the next year or two) because they can then use the freed-up bandwidth to improve broadband or add more digital channels and make more money out of it than they ever could out of analogue. I would be very suprised if NTL still have an analogue service by 2012.

[jtwn]

An actual EPG service is on digital, as opposed to that crappy scrolling tv guide channel they had, I say had as I don't know if it still exists now.

Originally Posted by limi

what is meant by time sharing please Homealone?

It is where two programmes share the same channel number, like Bravo & Trouble, Discovery 'Real Time' & Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network & Paramount. Depends on the time of day which programme you get.

Also some are only on at certain times of day, UKTV Documentary stops at 1600 hrs, TCM doesn't start until 2100 hrs.

[Chrysalis]

king of fools, I would be surprised if they switch of analogue in 2 years, they gotta spend some major ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£ÃƒÆ ’‚£ before they do that as they havent fully rolled out digital yet.

[King Of Fools]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

king of fools, I would be surprised if they switch of analogue in 2 years, they gotta spend some major ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£ÃƒÆ ’‚£ before they do that as they havent fully rolled out digital yet.

True, but they may find it more cost effective to lose a few analogue customers than spend those major ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£ÃƒÆ ’‚£s.

[jtwn]

For the networks that need to be upgraded, its no real beef in leaving them analogue if digital cannot is not already offered. I mean, there are those parts that don't have digital or bb now.

[King Of Fools]

Originally Posted by jtwn

For the networks that need to be upgraded, its no real beef in leaving them analogue if digital cannot is not already offered. I mean, there are those parts that don't have digital or bb now.

But NTL would have to eventually turn-them off when analogue gets switched-off locally or pay for extra equipment to decode the digital signals and rebroadcast the analogue signals. In fact, I wonder if they would even be permitted to rebroadcast digital signals on analogue under the terms of their licence as they were refused permission to have BBC3 and BBC4 on analogue.

[Chrysalis]

will be interesting to see what does happen, I do remember that occasion when I spoke to PA of the chief exec and she was indicating the service could be ceased when the switchoff happens.

I suspect tho if this does happen they will continue broadband and phone and not just kill all their revenue from the area.