BBC Switchover Plans

*Burp*

No more wine.

Az.

"Ed" wrote in message

To get Sky or
Freeview or the DVD player connected through SCART, press a button and
cycle through AV1 AV2 RGB SVHS, when actually most of the time I am
using my boxes so I just want a button that says AV1 on my remote AV2,
or even better the ability to assign a channel number to AV1 rather
than an analogue frequency.

Sure you can't do that on the presets table? It has certainly been possible
on Sony's for many, many years.

Az.

Jim wrote:


I had forgotten about the rental, but then the sets were so
expensive (around £300+ for a colour set around 1970, IIRC, must
have been at least a month's wages). Cost and reliability are
less of an issue these days - a set is around a week's (average)
earnings now, with a STB and a cheap VCR around a day's.

Mid 60's ISTR that 405 line b/w sets were around £70 - around three
week's wages, I think. Yes, b/w!

Stuart
--
Try stuartsmacs at dsl dot pipex dot com to email me.
The writing of Sarah Kent plumbs new depths in Shark
Infested Waters, with her ill-informed generalisations
about the subjects of Emma Rushton's 'English Clergy 92'

Ed wrote:

To get the analogue channels you
press the channel number button, wonderfully simple. To get Sky or
Freeview or the DVD player connected through SCART, press a button and
cycle through AV1 AV2 RGB SVHS, when actually most of the time I am
using my boxes so I just want a button that says AV1 on my remote AV2,
or even better the ability to assign a channel number to AV1 rather
than an analogue frequency. I think for most people that is more
important than having an IDTV.

And it would be nice if TVs remembered that they were showing AV1 (DTV)
when they were turned off, and resume on AV1 when re-powered-up. It
would save using the TV remote entirely.

--
Try stuartsmacs at dsl dot pipex dot com to email me.
The writing of Sarah Kent plumbs new depths in Shark
Infested Waters, with her ill-informed generalisations
about the subjects of Emma Rushton's 'English Clergy 92'

"Aztech" wrote:

"Ed" wrote in message

To get Sky or
Freeview or the DVD player connected through SCART, press a button and
cycle through AV1 AV2 RGB SVHS, when actually most of the time I am
using my boxes so I just want a button that says AV1 on my remote AV2,
or even better the ability to assign a channel number to AV1 rather
than an analogue frequency.

Sure you can't do that on the presets table? It has certainly been possible
on Sony's for many, many years.

On the Sony DX150, you can assign the AV inputs to an ANALOGUE channel
number, but not a digital one. So, because I always use the digital
channels, to use that feature, I'd have to press the digital button to
toggle to analogue, then the channel number, and when I'd finished, I'd
have to remember to switch back to digital. Not very user friendly. So I
always select the external units by switching them on. Or off then on,
if necessary.

--
Dave Farrance

In article 1gcytmg.bk8qgex9y7neN%[email protected] spam.com,
Stuart Bell wrote:
And it would be nice if TVs remembered that they were showing AV1 (DTV)
when they were turned off, and resume on AV1 when re-powered-up. It
would save using the TV remote entirely.

Quite a lot of them do. Mine does, and it's not a particularly new one. I
rarely need to use the TV's own remote, just as you suggest.

Rod.

"John Porcella" wrote in message
...
Is there really such a pressing need for an early national
analogue switch-off?

Most decidedly yes! The Treasury wants to get its hands on the
money from a
sale or sales as soon as it can.

The point that you snipped was that the demand for the
frequencies only exists in parts of the country. The Treasury
could maximise returns and minimise costs using a regional/local
approach.

"Aztech" wrote in message . ..
"Ed" wrote in message

To get Sky or
Freeview or the DVD player connected through SCART, press a button and
cycle through AV1 AV2 RGB SVHS, when actually most of the time I am
using my boxes so I just want a button that says AV1 on my remote AV2,
or even better the ability to assign a channel number to AV1 rather
than an analogue frequency.

Sure you can't do that on the presets table? It has certainly been possible
on Sony's for many, many years.

Az.

I am sure there should be a way to do it, convinced when I got the TV
that it should be possible, but nothing in the manual, no way of doing
it on the remote that I can find, and nothing found trawling usenet.
Perhaps I ought to ask Toshiba, just to find out once for all, and if
not suggest to them it would be useful.

In article 1gcytmg.bk8qgex9y7neN%[email protected] spam.com,
Stuart Bell wrote:
Ed wrote:

To get the analogue channels you
press the channel number button, wonderfully simple. To get Sky or
Freeview or the DVD player connected through SCART, press a button and
cycle through AV1 AV2 RGB SVHS, when actually most of the time I am
using my boxes so I just want a button that says AV1 on my remote AV2,
or even better the ability to assign a channel number to AV1 rather
than an analogue frequency. I think for most people that is more
important than having an IDTV.

And it would be nice if TVs remembered that they were showing AV1 (DTV)
when they were turned off, and resume on AV1 when re-powered-up. It
would save using the TV remote entirely.

Phil: Depends how the sets respond to the SCART switching signals - edge
or status (level) operation.
With Philips TV sets, I have no problem with it autoswitching to SCART(s)
- it always goes to the latest one triggered to on (edge detect) - but I
also have a PACE PVR in on Aux1 and Sky/DVD in on Aux2: therefore the TV
naturally displays the PACE on power up - until the Sky line is toggled,
for instance, (or another Aux / channel is selected)

--
Phil Spiegelhalter:
==== Technical Training for Broadcasters =====
*RE CUE Mobile DV Multi-Camera Production and Non-Linear Editing*

"Jim" wrote in message ...
"Ed" wrote in message
om...
DTG reports
(http://www.dtg.org.uk/latest/latest_bbc_switchover.htm)
on the BBC's report on Switchover from analogue to digital.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/switchover.shtml

snip

I was just thinking about the similarities with the changeover
from VHF to UHF, and wonder if the BBC/Crown Castle and NTL still
have any staff with experience from that time. Presumably, the
files were still available to those doing current studies.

I don't remember much about the period, but did TVs sold at the
time need dual tuners as well as converters? (I don't suppose
there were any STBs then for standards conversion.) Aerials
would have needed changing as well. For the viewer, though,
there was no change in the interface - it was just as easy to use
the new system as the old, which is not the case for digital.

According to sources on the web, the first UHF 625-line
transmitter was on air in 1964 (for BBC2), and the VHF 405-line
service was turned off in January 1985, so the conversion took 20
years - twice as long as the period proposed for analogue
switch-over, in a time when most households would then have had
only one TV set, and there were no VCRs. OTOH, there was no
satellite and not much cable, whereas today these are already
largely converted to digital (though it does seem a bit of a
cheat to include these in the "digital users" stats, since the
standards are different).

Perhaps it was the last 10% (or whatever) that took so long to
reach, because of the need for extra relays (VHF had longer
range, right?). I can understand why satellite seems such an
attractive option: without it, we'd be looking at 2020, not 2010.

snip

I was pretty young and I would struggle to provide accurate dates but
otherwise I remember this period quite well.

My elder brother and sister are old enough to remember when there was
only one channel: BBC (not 1). My mother complains that as soon as
ITV started, my brother and sister argued about which channel to
watch.

The first TV that I remember was a 405 line VHF only set. The channel
changer was a huge knob which clunked between positions. I don't
remember quite how many but it was about 10 or 12. If you looked
inside the set, you would see that the knob was turning a large barrel
with loads of chunky connectors on it. It was not just turning a
variable capacitor.

In our area, near Southend in Essex, BBC was on channel 1 and ITV on
9. I think that the transmitter was Crystal Palace. We could also
pick up a poor quality signal from a transmitter in Kent. At the
time, the ITV regions varied more than they do now so we got a little
more choice that way. Even when the content was the same, the
scheduling sometimes varied so if you missed your favourite soap, you
might be able to catch it on the other ITV. The numbers 1 and 9
became ingrained and we often called ITV channel 9 even after it
ceased to be relevant.

Sometime after BBC2 was launched on 625 UHF we got a set that could
receive it. Of course, us kids wanted it straight away but we had to
wait for the old set to breakdown.

This new dual mode set had two tuners and two aerial sockets. You
needed a new UHF aerial (similar to modern ones) as well as the old
huge VHF one. There were two tuning knobs. A clunky one for
switching between the various VHF channels and a smooth turning UHF
one. One position on the VHF knob selected UHF. When only BBC2 was
on UHF, the second knob could be tuned to it and left alone. The UHF
position on the VHF knob could be regarded as the BBC2 position so the
three channels could be selected by turning the one clunky knob.

Later when BBC1 and ITV appeared on UHF, we had a choice. We could
ignore them on UHF and still use the VHF knob to select stations. Or
we could leave the VHF knob always in the UHF position and select the
station with the UHF dial. Using UHF gave better quality of course
but you had to remember the approximate positions of the stations on
the dial and carefully tune the dial each time you wanted to change
the station. It was like a cheap radio. My brother and I appreciated
the extra quality but my mother did not and preferred the old way. If
we left the UHF knob tuned to BBC1 or ITV, she would be puzzled or
annoyed that she was getting one station twice and no BBC2 when she
turned the VHF knob.

Later we moved to colour and I am not sure but I expect this was a
single mode with easier station selection (not remote of course, that
was still many years away).

The old VHF aerial stayed on the roof for quite a long time. Later I
used it for the FM radio. It was probably not ideal but it was better
than the bit of wire hanging out of the back of the receiver.

Seán O'Leathlóbhair