The switchoff begins ...

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:45:53 GMT, "harrogate2"
wrote:

|
| "Jonathan Bell"
| wrote in message news[email protected]

| From the article:
|
| While up to 75% of households can currently receive digital
| terrestrial signals, coverage cannot be extended until the analogue
| service is switched off.
|
| How on earth does that work?
|
| Channel re-usage - no channels available on which to put new muxes, so
| the only possibility is to switch off one or more of the existing
| analogue transmitters (three of four in this case) and use those
| frequencies for DTTV.

They will also be able to use more power on the re-used channels without
causing interference elsewhere.

--
Dave F

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:36:51 +0100, Ad wrote:

| harrogate2 wrote:
|
|
| Channel re-usage - no channels available on which to put new muxes, so
| the only possibility is to switch off one or more of the existing
| analogue transmitters (three of four in this case) and use those
| frequencies for DTTV.
|
| Interesting to note that nothing is said in the article about
| provision of STBs. What about those people who did not want to change
| to DTTV or could not afford to? Have Auntie - at our expense -
| provided them with a box + fitting + a new aerial and feeder if
| required? What about any communal systems, like nursing homes or
| warden controlled housing? Who has paid for their upgrades?
|
| The flats where I lived a few years back, have a communal system, I know
| someone who still lives there and they want Freeview, but the housing
| association who owns the flats will not pay for the upgrade.
| so what is the government going to do about that, they can not force any
| housing association to pay for a new system./

Must be a crap Landlord. My sister' lives in a sheltered housing place
and the aerial system has been improved for DTT. I just plugged in a STB
and it worked fine.

--
Dave F

"John Porcella" wrote in message
...

"Ad" wrote in message
...
Jim wrote:
Article @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4390579.stm

2 small towns (Ferryside and Llanstephan) in Carmarthenshire go
completely digital from 0400 on Wednesday.


And go back to analogue in a months time.

Until they sort out a decent teletext

With BBC, Sky and ITV text services on DTT what is your beef?


Unfortunately, the "digital text" services offered aren't a patch on the old
Ceefax/Teletext offered on the analogue platform.

and sort out the picture problem,

None in my place.


As I've said in other posts, I do suffer from problems with digital. I put
it down to poorly made STBs rather than the actual platform. At the end of
the day, I've gone from 4 channels to about 16 so I'm quite happy.

"Ad" wrote in message
...
Ben wrote:



The government can't force housing associations to pay for an analogue
system now, but most of them seem to pay for it anyway. When analogue is
switched off they'll pay for a digital system.


But most systems was put in when the flats was built, unless it was an old
building converted. These flats I lived in was only 3 years old, they are
now about 8 years old.

The people in the flats have been told, that the housing ascotiation will
not pay for the system to be converted.

The cost of conversion would be over the budget.


Truth be told I seriously doubt people living in such associations will
accept not having television in the future.

No matter what they say now when people start to move out and others won't
move in The Association will soon change their minds and find the necessary
money.

"Matti Lamprhey" wrote in message
...


I
wonder what they did about people's VCRs, though

I'm sure the house featured on News24 had a Pace recorder. Pretty neat
trail if they were each given one of those for their VCR.

"JB" wrote in message
...

"Matti Lamprhey" wrote in message
...


I
wonder what they did about people's VCRs, though

I'm sure the house featured on News24 had a Pace recorder. Pretty neat
trail if they were each given one of those for their VCR.


Actually, just watching Breakfast now, the guy in charge of the equipment
was saying how the old folks found it easier to use PVRs to VCRs because
they don't have to bend down to insert the tape.

Ad wrote:
Ben wrote:



Its going to work the other way round. The improvements can only be
made once analogue is switched off. Having analogue and digital
sharing the same spectrum is less than ideal. By 2008 (the proposed
start of


Most of us knows that, but i doubt things will get any better even when
analogue is switched off. Bandwidth will stay the same, the only thing
that will happen is higher power.



analogue switchoff) digital terrestrial will have been with us for 10
years. Countries that rolled out DTT much later than us have a timetable


Twice it have been put back, we was suppose to be fully converted by
2008, then it was 2010, now 2012. I thin it will be pushed back again.

Its never been announced publicly like this before though, and in the
summer the government are due to make public a detailed plan. I think
once this happens they'll stick to it nomatter what. Governments have
this idea that it looks weak to go back on a plan, so doing something
unpopular when they said they would do it is better than not doing it.

I do not want to see analogue go, digital is not a patch on analogue and
it never will be.

Personally, my digital reception is much better than anything I've ever
achieved with analogue.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Just because it got
digital in its name, it do not mean it is any good.
People have this idea, that anything digital is better.

In a newsgroup like this its easy to forget that 99% of people don't
even know what digital means. But then, they don't know how the old
analogue systems work either.

for switching off analogue before we do. Its time to pull our
collective fingers out and get on with it.


Why? Do not give me the same old rubbish that it cost broadcasters more
to transmit in digital and analogue.

OK, I'll admit I have an agenda here (apart from never having had a
decent analogue picture anywhere I've lived). Ofcom has already said
which parts of the old TV band they'll shove all the existing channels
into when analogue is switched off, and which parts they'll sell off.
The frequencies they're selling off fall into two separate bands. Its my
hope that one of those bands will be sold to mobile phone companies for
DVB-H and the other will be sold off for HDTV. Well, actually its my
hope that the whole lot is used for HDTV, but we have to be realistic.

Dave Fawthrop wrote:


Must be a crap Landlord. My sister' lives in a sheltered housing place
and the aerial system has been improved for DTT. I just plugged in a STB
and it worked fine.


Thay are not that good, I was happy there, the flat was nice, even if it
was a little small. but if anything goes wrong, they sent some cowboy
that owned a bsiness across the road to fix it. I chucked him out once
where he was trying to get the loo to flush, I told him to leave the
parts and I will do it.

I fixed it in 10 mins, he took 10 to get the lid of the tank.

Anyway, this girl I know that still lives there is going to have another
go at them, but since there is only 2 people out of 40 that have said
anything about digital T.v, she do not give much hope.

JB wrote:


Truth be told I seriously doubt people living in such associations will
accept not having television in the future.

Maybe if/when the analogue is switched off, something may be done.


No matter what they say now when people start to move out and others won't
move in The Association will soon change their minds and find the necessary
money.


Where will these people live? finding rented accomdation around here at
a decent price is not easy and since the housing association gets there
tenants from the housing list now, I do not see them being short of takers.

JB wrote:

With BBC, Sky and ITV text services on DTT what is your beef?



Unfortunately, the "digital text" services offered aren't a patch on the old
Ceefax/Teletext offered on the analogue platform.

This is the problem, the BBC I service is alwful now, far worse than
before. It is also so slow, and on Sky, I could almost make a cup of
coffee by the time the page changes.



and sort out the picture problem,

None in my place.



As I've said in other posts, I do suffer from problems with digital. I put
it down to poorly made STBs rather than the actual platform. At the end of
the day, I've gone from 4 channels to about 16 so I'm quite happy.


It is not the platform, it is the crap bitrates.