Analogue terrestrial switch-off

[altis]

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is expected to announce the formal go-ahead for the switch-over from analogue to digital television.
In a speech to broadcasters, she will say viewers on the English-Scottish borders will be the first to have their existing TV signals switched off.

This will happen in three years' time, and the rest of the UK will follow, region by region, ending in 2012.

...

The switchover will enable the analogue spectrum to be sold off for other uses, as well as encouraging the public to take advantage of multi-channel television.

...

Switching off the existing analogue signal means every TV and video recorder, in every room, must be connected to a digital receiver if it is to work.

Many people may also have to pay for a new aerial.

...

On Wednesday evening in Cambridge, Ms Jowell is expected to announce the timetable for switchover, starting in the ITV Border region in 2008.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...io/4247622.stm

I think it's up to all of us now who have ederly relatives to get them used to digital tv, like freeview, so once we set it up for them, there will be no fear for them using it, now, and after it happens.
I've bought my mum a bush freeview box, with 2nd gen tv guide listings, which are easier on my mums eyes (she's 82), for £45 from tesco's, now she's enjoying tv, as she said "I can now watch channel 5 properly).

[Martin]

My aunty made the switch to Freeview digital and it has proved quite painless! She just uses the extra channels all the talk of interactive and radio on the tv are just that bridge to far!! I hate to think how she'd manage with Cable or Sky.

[Angua]

Neighbours have just switched to freeview from sky and you should see the hastle they are having with the aerial as the old sort has a terrible reception.

[AndyCambs]

It's ok this rush to digital TV, and encourage people to buy Freeview boxes, Sky packages or NTL/Telewest subscriptions, but how can you manage to record one programme when you are watching another on the video recorder? Does that mean we all have to buy new types of recorders as well?

[Martin]

You would need another box to record on the video if you were watching another! Personally Sky+ is probably the way forward now!!

Originally Posted by Martin

You would need another box to record on the video if you were watching another! Personally Sky+ is probably the way forward now!!

Sky+ is only the way forward if you want to pay a subscription for the privilege of videoing your favourite programmes and don't mind being unable to pop your recordings in a box for long-term safekeeping, as you can with a trusty VHS videotape (my mum still has most of Live Aid on tape!).

If you want to continue home taping, then you need to buy a freeview decoder for your video recorder. However as the digital terrestrial market matures, recorders (probably DVD rather than VHS based) with integrated digital reception are bound to appear. I believe the reason we don't already have them is that the UK has been leading Europe in the uptake of digital terrestrial, and we alone are not a large enough market for the likes of Sony and JVC to bother manufacturing them.

Or you can go to:

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewreceivers.html

And maybe buy this:


Fusion FVRT200

Features: Personal Video Recorder (PVR)... Record programmes in digital quality without videotapes and pause live TV. Record up to 80 hours of TV onto a 80Gig hard-disk. Twin tuner records 2 channels simultaneously.

Available for £179.99 from Dixons

David Sinclair, policy manager at Help the Aged, welcomed the expected announcement, but warned that in a recent survey, 57% of older people still saw digital television as a threat.

"While there is no doubt that digital television offers enormous potential for delivering services and information to isolated older people, it's vital that vulnerable groups are not pushed aside in the dash for digital."

Dash for digital? We've been going digital in this country for five years or more and it'll be another three years before the first analogue signal goes off. That's hardly a dash. More of a shuffle, really.

I smell an over-zealous Public Relations exec let loose on her first press release.

[Nemesis]

ntl's view

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...gue-switch-off

[Martin]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Sky+ is only the way forward if you want to pay a subscription for the privilege of videoing your favourite programmes and don't mind being unable to pop your recordings in a box for long-term safekeeping, as you can with a trusty VHS videotape (my mum still has most of Live Aid on tape!).

I personally have Tivo and used it for years with Sky and then NTL and i love it, completly changes the way TV is viewed! Since Tivo isn't made anymore SKY+ offers the next best thing! As for video i can transfer anything to my DVD Recorder so no real loss there! VHS is passed its sell by!!

[AndyCambs]

Originally Posted by atlantis

Or you can go to:

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewreceivers.html

And maybe buy this:


Fusion FVRT200

Features: Personal Video Recorder (PVR)... Record programmes in digital quality without videotapes and pause live TV. Record up to 80 hours of TV onto a 80Gig hard-disk. Twin tuner records 2 channels simultaneously.

Available for £179.99 from Dixons

So as well as take out subscription to a digital service or buy a new Freeview decoder - people have to buy a new video recorder as well?
And - quite frankly, does the quality of the programmes warrant the increased expenditure?

[carlingman]

Well I think older folks better get used to it as it is going to happen and our very own culture secretary on the news tonight stated they will be raising the licence fee so we can shell out more to pay for the over 75s to get it for nothing.

[jrhnewark]

http://www.exthus.co.uk/columns/post/29/

Sorry, hate to plug my own stuff, but I hate inaccuracies even more. Well done, Beeb.

[AndyCambs]

Originally Posted by carlingman

Well I think older folks better get used to it as it is going to happen and our very own culture secretary on the news tonight stated they will be raising the licence fee so we can shell out more to pay for the over 75s to get it for nothing.

I think that's quite likely.
We pay a television licence fee - we're now asked to pay for another decoder to receive the television programmes. It's not just simply a case of buying a Freeview box at £40 as advised by the culture secretary - at the best it would mean a new aerial to most. That is, if you are able to receive the Freeview channels. In my area, the channels are not good in transmission, and one elderly friend has problems with a tree outside his property which during the summer causes him to lose channels 3 and 4 regularly. The other channels are very pixelated.
So basically it would be FreeSky or the satellite version of Freeview in this area (or conventional Sky or cable of course) but all that means additional cost.
A tax on middle England? Yup!
Squeeze till you hear the pips squeak!