Terrestrial switch off

I heard that there is a minimum the government need to provide, ie bbc 1,2 itv, c4, c5. I also heard that due to the fact that they used old frequencies they cant boost the single, so our area for example is pants reception.

[Fartpants]

Last week on News 24 there was a bit about how the government was trying to beat it's own target of 6-10 years for the switch off.

The industry reckon they can get 95% of people signed up to one of the digital providers. The government need 90%-95% (I think I can't remember precisely) for the switch off.

Maybe when we get to that 65% then digital tuners will be cheaper and punters will pay a nominal fee for a free to air box.

Predicting future public opinion is difficult, hard to tell how this will all go, for all I know within the next 6 months all TVs may have to have digital tuners built in!

The following link gives the 2010 cut off date, but admits that is optomistic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ent...00/1264090.stm

[mjwhitehouse]

It is so simple it is almost laughable. Middle imcome people like myself will have our tax allowances frozen, NI contributions raised, some allowances removed altogether, fuel duty will rise and there will be increase in tax on savings all to pay for decoders for those "voters" who can't or won't change . This is how all of these things happen, why will this be any different.

[squid]

i havn't even bothered with analog for well over a year . i did'nt have to good a pic so from the time i got sky dig i aint bothered with it .

actualy my arial fell down and i never even noticed it till somone told me . just left it down . itv is crap and i never used to watch it anyway

i can't wait for the box with the twin tuners to come out though . dose anyone know when it's comming out and if it will have a digital sound output??

[General Skanky]

Me too Squid.
My aerial came down, so I kept the NTL basic pack for ITV which is only watched now and again.
Sky for everything else.
But we are a minority.
As above, I do fear we will 'pay' for others to have digital. Same as always.

[squid]

if it's going to happen it could do with hurring up and then it's done with .

the same with everything it's all the pi**ing about that makes hings worse. i blame tv manufacturers . if they just stuck a digi tunner in everything then digi tuners would cost next to nothing and everyone would have one.

for an example if they produced didgi tuners instead of normal tuners for all the vcrs . they would sell more vcrs and production costs for the tuners would plumit and we would be able to record on another channel.

if the govenment want's to get rid of analog . i would have thought some sort of tax insentive for the manufactures if they put a digital tuner in somthing rather that analog .

just an idear . probaly not going to happen though

I predict the analogue switch off will never happen. The Govt, Digital companies etc are panicking at the moment as the figure of people installing digital has stalled at around 45-50%. OnDigital lost around 140 milion pounds last year! There are many people, myself included, who do not want/need any extra channels and feel that 5 is quite enough. In many cases people will simply see it as companies trying to sell us something we already have. Most people do not care about digital TV, one look at the listings is enough to put anyone off!
If the big switch off does come, then my TV set will simply become a screen for DVD or whatever.

Loads of people said they would never turn off analogue mobile phones as well as there would be loads of people still using them for years. I'm not sure if they have yet but how many people have an analogue mobile now?

I think within 2 years, all tv's will have digital tuners and as the cost falls, Pace and the like will be able to produce basic STB's for £20 or so. All most people will have to do is not spend their dole cheques on fags and Kays catalogues for a week. That should do it.

Bear in mind that there are still places in the UK where they cannot get an analogue signal yet and sattelite is the only answer.

S

Mobile phones are a good example. Although they are sited as the success story of the last few years, there are still around 30-40% of the population who do not need/want one. Again, like digital TV, the figures are slowing down and the market is now reliant on upgrades rather than new consumers. Imagine the outcry if BT announced it was planning to remove payphones. There was a mild fuss made when it announced it was not planning to build anymore!
Unfortunate as it is, Digital/cable TV has a rather downmarket image, and it has a lot of work to do if it is to dispell this. Round the clock big brother and more soaps/game shows is hardly likely to improve this.
No 5.1 sound either....
If the switch off does come, and I do not think it will, Digital TV needs to be a vastly different beast than the one it is now...Some of messages above seem to presume that it is the middle class that have digital rather than the doleys, and that their taxes will have to rise to pay for them? I do not believe that the demographics show this to be true, unless it is the middle class that are the target audience for ambulance chasing lawyers and "free easy to get loans" (pay of debts and have a little left over to spend on fags, microchips and scratchcards) commercials? I thought not...

My comments about lower income people were purely a juvenile attempt to get an abusive response. Shame it didn't work.

S

[Fartpants]

I might expect at sometime an approach similar to the current players.

All the companies try to get people to sign up by offering sports. Some events are guaranteed free to air, such as the cup final.

So if the government want to move things on I would not be surprised if these events become free to air via digital providers but not via analogue.

Yeah well, in many places the only way to get channel 5 is through digi. That should convince most people.

big events such as cup finals?
two words - pubs and clubs.

[kennydies]

we had a diabolical signal on terrestrial, and as the basic NTL package (including phone rental) is not much more than the basic BT phone rental we decided to purchase NTL. We are perfectly happy with the picture and the channel choice.

1 We do not want to upgrade to NTL digital as we would pay an extra £7 a month plus installation to receive the same channel choice we have at the moment

2 We will not buy an IDTV as we have recently purchased a top of the range Sony TV which will last many years to come. Also with an integrated TV what happens if you want to retain the TV and upgrade the box, it is just a bigger hasstle.

3 Would not want terestial to be switched off as then we would be stuck with with 1 channel choice.

As mentioned B4 if you could only watch 1 channel at a time why would we still have to pay for BBC, just does not seem fair.

These all need to be addressed B4 anything is switched off

That is my penny's worth in.

Firstly, I think you have the biggest problem that will be faced by the government, poor signal on digital. Until the thing works properly they can't even think about forcing people over.

Secondly, I am getting a new TV soon and will be buying a Sony IDTV purely because it is the most flexible option for a small premium. It will still pick up analogue, I will get extra free channels and I have the option of getting Ondigital without an extra remote and stb.

I agree that it is not future proof but if you need to in the future you can just get an stb to do whatever is required. In the meantime, I'd rather not have one.

I should have pointed out that I will be renting a TV as I feel prices will drop dramatically in the next 18 months and I will be able to afford a much better one.

Thirdly, terrestrial includes digital TV. It reffers to TV signals transmitted from our network, straight to homes.

On the subject of watching one thing and recording another, you can only do this because your vid and tv have seperate tuners. Soon vids will have digital tuners too but it will mean upgrading.

I hope they turn it off sooner rather than later so we can make some progress and stop moaning about everything.

Regards

Steve