Digital switchover

In article , John
Rumm writes
Alan wrote:
In message ,
John Rumm wrote

Well not really... it is a solution that could be fitted once and
then forgotten about, at a stroke making all the TVs and VCRs in the
house spring back into life with no need to learn new remotes or concepts.
They may have to learn new concepts. When everyone has a 8 day EPG

Some people are not able to. I can think of at least one person I know
who has short term memory problems following a stroke. Leaning new
stuff like that is immensely difficult.

Understandable, and most regrettable, but not a reason to halt new
concepts. One day it will be an old concept.

transmitted on their digital TV is there going to be a market for the
TV listing magazines?

Yes. In exactly the same way email never killed the post, or eBooks
have not replaced the paper versions. Listings mags are a "high touch"
rather than high tech, and people (rather than technology geeks) like
that.

I consider myself to be a bit of a "technology geek", but I prefer a
listing magazine which I can read on the train home and plan viewing up
to eleven days ahead.


--
Ian G8ILZ
There are always two people in every pictu the photographer and the viewer.
~Ansel Adams

In message , John
Rumm wrote

Yes. In exactly the same way email never killed the post,

Email has probably killed of a lot of friend to friend type of snail
mail, as has text messaging on the mobile phone. Business now offer
paper-less billing and banking and there is a recent trend to offer
company reports to shareholders via email etc.

What is keeping the snail mail service alive is junk mail that never has
been widely accepted via email.

What hasn't happened is the overnight collapse of the regular snail mail
service but it may still happen over the next ten years.

or eBooks have not replaced the paper versions.

Probably because the means of reading an ebook with current technology
isn't that practical.

In some areas of industry the shelves full of data books and catalogues
have been replaced by CDs/DVD containing the data in an electronic
format.

Listings mags are a "high touch" rather than high tech, and people
(rather than technology geeks) like that.

You don't have to be a technology geek to be able to use the EPG on
current boxes, although some EPG implementations are a lot better than
others.

A 8 day program guide will be on the screen and the software in the
boxes will tell you when the program you want to watch is about to start
, having first programmed a search.

Listing magazines will become an unnecessary item for a large percentage
of the population. As sales fall the cost of producing such a magazine
for those who may need it will be uneconomic.

--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

Prometheus wrote:

Some people are not able to. I can think of at least one person I know
who has short term memory problems following a stroke. Leaning new
stuff like that is immensely difficult.

Understandable, and most regrettable, but not a reason to halt new
concepts. One day it will be an old concept.

I was not suggesting that one should hold back the tide of new
technology. That does not stop one developing transitional technologies
that make the transition smoother though for users that might otherwise
fall by the wayside. As people replace TVs with IDTV versions it will
become a non issue, but people are still buying analogue only kit now
that may well still be going strong in 2017.

transmitted on their digital TV is there going to be a market for the
TV listing magazines?

Yes. In exactly the same way email never killed the post, or eBooks
have not replaced the paper versions. Listings mags are a "high touch"
rather than high tech, and people (rather than technology geeks) like
that.

I consider myself to be a bit of a "technology geek", but I prefer a
listing magazine which I can read on the train home and plan viewing up
to eleven days ahead.

Yup, it is one of the reasons fax still survives!

--
Cheers,

John.

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Alan wrote:
In message , John
Rumm wrote

Yes. In exactly the same way email never killed the post,

Email has probably killed of a lot of friend to friend type of snail
mail, as has text messaging on the mobile phone. Business now offer
paper-less billing and banking and there is a recent trend to offer
company reports to shareholders via email etc.

What is keeping the snail mail service alive is junk mail that never has
been widely accepted via email.

What hasn't happened is the overnight collapse of the regular snail mail
service but it may still happen over the next ten years.

You are right that inroads will be made in transferring existing posted
communications to other means, but there will remain a need to get paper
versions of stuff delivered as well. Perhaps when people accept digital
signing more readily even this will decline.

or eBooks have not replaced the paper versions.

Probably because the means of reading an ebook with current technology
isn't that practical.

Indeed.

In some areas of industry the shelves full of data books and catalogues
have been replaced by CDs/DVD containing the data in an electronic format.

And much of that could be replaced by online services. (I remember the
first version of CapsXpert I used for component specs - came on 400 CDs
IIRC. That would fit on a single hard drive now)

Listings mags are a "high touch" rather than high tech, and people
(rather than technology geeks) like that.

You don't have to be a technology geek to be able to use the EPG on
current boxes, although some EPG implementations are a lot better than
others.

I agree that EPGs are good, but I don't think good enough yet. Many
still seem to suffer dropouts for some channels, and few of them contain
the amount of extra stuff that you get from some of the listings mags
(cast details, review etc)

A 8 day program guide will be on the screen and the software in the
boxes will tell you when the program you want to watch is about to start
, having first programmed a search.

PVRs also make this less relevant. Once you have told it to record the
whole series, knowing when it is about to start is not that important.

Listing magazines will become an unnecessary item for a large percentage
of the population. As sales fall the cost of producing such a magazine
for those who may need it will be uneconomic.

Or the mags will diversify in content to attract punters for other reasons.

--
Cheers,

John.

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| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"Owain" wrote in message
...
Andy Burns wrote:
Making subtitles available is also a necessity under DDA, so without it
the device wouldn't be any use to hotels and communal aerials etc using it
as a head end to an existing analogue installation, which is where I think
the main market would be to be honest. Retuning dozens or hundreds of
tellies in a building is costly, so a plug-and-play solution would be
financially attractive.


The German hotels I have recently been staying in offered only satellite
channels. Germany no longer has analog terrestrial transmissions, but the
hotel tv was analog. Kit to process multiple sat channels has been around a
long time and I cant see
a pressing need for terrestrial channels for hotels.

buddenbrooks wrote:

Germany no longer has analog terrestrial transmissions,

Germany does, though DSO has started there. I think it's just the Berlin and
Cologne regions that have no analogue at present.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

"Mark Carver" wrote in message
...
buddenbrooks wrote:

Germany no longer has analog terrestrial transmissions,

Germany does, though DSO has started there. I think it's just the Berlin
and Cologne regions that have no analogue at present.



OK you may be correct, I was reading material in "Saturn" in Cologne which
stated that analog was no longer available.

buddenbrooks wrote:
"Mark Carver" wrote in message
...
buddenbrooks wrote:

Germany no longer has analog terrestrial transmissions,
Germany does, though DSO has started there. I think it's just the Berlin
and Cologne regions that have no analogue at present.



OK you may be correct, I was reading material in "Saturn" in Cologne which
stated that analog was no longer available.

Ah, what a store, spent a wet Saturday morning browsing in there once :-)

http://www.saturn.de/frontend/html/outlet/301/home.html?CFID=3649561&CFTOKEN=52341159

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.