TV switchover fiasco

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:25:54 +0100, Ad
wrote:

Ivan wrote:



As far as I know 2K chipsets only affected early On-digital boxes, also
after ITV digital folded a large number of subscribers 'won' their receivers
anyway.

If a tiny handful of people are still using slow early generation receivers
( from what I can gather later On-digital boxes were equipped for use with 8
K) and have owned them for more than five years, then surely they've had
their money's worth?

Especially when one considers that for the cost of a single TV licence, it's
now possible to purchase a couple of good quality Freeview receiver's!



So these people can forget about paying their license for 12 months, so
they can get a couple of boxes. I do not think the BBc will take that
excuse somehow.

Only a years T.V license, that is in total over £200, that is a lot of
money for asome people.

£126.50 to be more accurate
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/index.jsp

Scott

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:59:07 GMT, Kev wrote:

Scott said the following on 2005-03-30 21:57:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:46:34 GMT, Kev wrote:


Ad said the following on 2005-03-30 18:40:

Ivan wrote:
That would be suicide, if that happened, then people will just say sod
digital and go back to analouge.
I do not think it will happen, if it does, then how can we trsut Ofcom
not to change the system when it likes?

It's ITV Digitals fault. 8K transmission falls within the DVB-T
standard, but On digital rushed to market with boxes that arn't fully
complient with the specs.

IMHO ITV PLC should be responsable for replacing all 2K (on digital/itv
digital branded) only boxes still in use when the first analogue station
is turned off.

You seem to be forgetting that ONdigital was a subsidiary company that
went into receivership which means that legally ITV plc have no
liability for its obligations.

ITV PLC own all the boxes though as they brought them from the
administrators.

Do they? I understood they gave them to the users for time being.

I'm not saying they should be forced to, but as a final guester of
goodwill (especially seeing as they are being allowed to drop all PSB
programming from there licence, and will have reduced transmission
costs) they should replace the small number of effected boxes. With the
large number they would be buying (even if this was a couple of
thousand) they should be able to necociate a good discount - or even a
swap for a short advert during corrie.

I think all the other creditors of ONdigital would be a bit unhappy
about this selective approach to goodwill.

Scott

Ben wrote:


Which means that some poor sods will find out on the day of switch off
that they can not get any T.V


'fraid so :-)


Typical of this country to muck something up, why can we not get things
right in this country?


The problem here is this is just guess work, no one knows if this 8K
will make a difference.


Not at all, the effect of increasing the number of COFDM subcarriers is
well known.

They have never tried it in this country, so how do they know?

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:23:35 +0100, Rupert wrote:


"steve" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:46:34 +0000, Kev wrote:

Ad said the following on 2005-03-30 18:40:
IMHO ITV PLC should be responsable for replacing all 2K (on digital/itv
digital branded) only boxes still in use when the first analogue station
is turned off.

Why? They gave then away free FFS.

They cost £400 initally.

Caveat emptor.

The poster did say

"all 2K (on digital/itv digital branded) only boxes"

Ad wrote:
Ben wrote:



Which means that some poor sods will find out on the day of switch
off that they can not get any T.V



'fraid so :-)


Typical of this country to muck something up, why can we not get things
right in this country?

I'm guessing you're a 'glass is half empty' kind of person

The problem here is this is just guess work, no one knows if this 8K
will make a difference.



Not at all, the effect of increasing the number of COFDM subcarriers
is well known.


They have never tried it in this country, so how do they know?

Ermm, because they know how it works? The laws of physics tend not to be
region specific ;-)

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Do you really think it will work that way? No, they will cram crap
into the extra space.

Having more capacity will ease the overall pressure on bit rates. I'm
not saying that when we have 8K they will move channels onto new
multiplexes to increase the bit rates of channels we already have, but
at least there won't be the kind of pressure on new channels that there
currently is on bit rates now.


But if we have more space, they will not increase the bit rates of the
channels we got now, those will be left as is and more channels will be
jammed in. so we will be back to square one.


What we need is to take some of the crap channels off.
Top up T.v should never have been allowed to happen.
Too many shopping channels


Seeing as that is not going to happen then it is better to add more
capacity.

Which will be filled up with more channels again.
I know business and they will jam in as much as they can.



Compare the number of actual 160k+ stations with the number of possible
160k+ stations on he

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/wa...x_capacity.htm

Basically, the commercial radio groups do not want to use bit rates
higher than the minimum because they don't want us to get used to higher
audio quality.

Incidentally, the commercial radio groups are all in favour of lowering
the bit rates from what they are now (98% using 128kbps) to 112kbps, and
Ofcom proposed this in the recent DAB public consultation.

Do they not think people are not going to notice?
If the quality is worse than FM, then people are not going to use DAB.
I know DAB radio sales are suppose to have been good, but how many of
those radios are poxy little things with speakers that sound like a
1960's tranny?

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:59:07 +0000, Kev wrote:

Scott said the following on 2005-03-30 21:57:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:46:34 GMT, Kev wrote:


Ad said the following on 2005-03-30 18:40:

Ivan wrote:
That would be suicide, if that happened, then people will just say sod
digital and go back to analouge.
I do not think it will happen, if it does, then how can we trsut Ofcom
not to change the system when it likes?

It's ITV Digitals fault. 8K transmission falls within the DVB-T
standard, but On digital rushed to market with boxes that arn't fully
complient with the specs.

IMHO ITV PLC should be responsable for replacing all 2K (on digital/itv
digital branded) only boxes still in use when the first analogue station
is turned off.

You seem to be forgetting that ONdigital was a subsidiary company that
went into receivership which means that legally ITV plc have no
liability for its obligations.

ITV PLC own all the boxes though as they brought them from the
administrators.

I'm not saying they should be forced to, but as a final guester of
goodwill

The final gesture of goodwill was buying all the boxes and giving thme to
their keepers. What more do you want? You are talking of 10 year old end
of life kit the people have had for free.

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

This is the problem, things changes too much.


Current DTT receivers *CAN NOT* decode HDTV transmissions. HDTV is going
to happen, so anybody that wants to receive HDTV on DTT needs a new

On Dsat it will happen, but it will be a very long time before it
happens on terestrial.

set-top box and it makes perfect sense to change the video codec to the
most modern video codec available.


Maybe so, but how many people will have a T.V that can display HDTV?



Fantastic. they paid over the odds for their T.v and will have to use
another box.


No, not another box, a different box. And if they're just changing the
2K box for one that can receive 8K then you'll probably be talking about
such massive expense as £20 by the time such a change happens.

It depends if they have got a box now, after all if they got a IDTV, why
would they need a box at the moment?
The so called interactive is more of a pain than anything else.
The only good thing is the 7 day guide and a lot of new boxes can not
even get that.




so we are back to square one.



No; more multiplexes = more capacity = less pressure on bit rates.


More space to put put more junk channels.



Which is what I said, so lets concentrate on better quality, and not
on more channels.



No; more multiplexes = more capacity = less pressure on bit rates.


you keep saying that, but if there is more space, then they will put
more channels in that Space. do you really think they will update the
bitrates of the channels that are on now?
Mind you by the time the analouge starts to be switched off, so me of
the channles may have gone, including Top up with any luck.

news wrote:
but changing from 405 to 625, was an improvement, changing from
analogue to digital is not.


Something is wrong with your equipment or setup, or both.

How on earth can you say it is am improvment?
I do not mean the extra channels, I do not give a crap about ectra
channels, as long as the quality is better.

Michael Chare wrote:


but changing from 405 to 625, was an improvement,


There was also the introduction of colour which was only ever avaliable with 625
lines


So it was an improvement.
digital is a step back, apart from extra channels.


changing from
analogue to digital is not.


Something is wrong with your equipment or setup, or both.


If you get a better (clearer) picture with digital then likely the analogue
picture is not that good quite possibly because of poor reception which you may
be able to nothing about (easily).

The more I use satellite the more I think that it is the sensible solution. If
terrestrial analogue TV did not exist I do wonder if anyone would have bothered
with DTT. Just a pity ITV, CH4 and 5 are still encrypted.

satellite is not much better.