Switch to Digital Television Picking up Steam

Alioth writes "The long-anticipated switchover to purely digital TV began last night in Britain. Although digital broadcasts have been available for a while in most parts of the UK, they have been running alongside the old analogue frequencies. Last night, in the small hours, the analogue signal for BBC2 was switched off forever in the town of Whitehaven in Cumbria. Analog signals are expected to have been switched off over the whole of the UK by 2012. Meanwhile in the states Best Buy has stopped selling analog televisions. 'Best Buy is the first consumer-electronics retailer to report an exit from the analog-TV business. More than 60 million U.S. households currently rely on an antennas or analog cable, and cable operators are required to guarantee their customers will receive broadcast channels until February 2012.'"

Comments

errr

[LiquidCoooled]

Why does analog cable have to change?

Its not like it interferes with the broadcast spectrum.

Re:errr

[david.given]

They want to know what you watch and when you watch it.

Not with DVB-T, they don't. It's a broadcast signal with no return path.

They want to be able to cut off your signal when they feel like it.

...hardly different from analogue.

They want to prevent you from recording what you watch.

DVB-T digital recorders are ubiquitous here. Alternatively, buy a cheapo DVB card for you PC, and you can capture an entire multiplex in real time --- record thirty-odd channels at once. If your hard disc is hard enough.

They want you to buy new TVs.

Or you could just buy one of the incredibly cheap set-top-boxes that plug into your existing analogue TV, for practically no money, that have been advertised here intensively by everyone including the BBC, for years.

A couple weeks ago I wanted to watch a DVD. And I became slightly enraged at how I couldn't skip those damn publisher logo and copyright crap. It's all because of the digital age.

That is correct. However, they only have that control over you because you're buying into the whole idea that they have control over you --- you're a willing participant to make it work. If your DVD player won't skip the unskippable stuff, get another DVD player. Practically all decent (i.e. non-name-brand) players will start playing the movie immediately, bypassing all the menus, if you insert the disk into the drive, start it playing, and then press STOP, STOP, PLAY. It's a similar 'hack' to the ubiquitous macrovision disables and region code bypasses. The people who make the DVD players know their customers, and they know who pays them. Alternatively, just plonk the thing in your PC and do whatever the hell you feel like with the digital stream.

Don't get enraged. Get smart. Digital data gives the content providers lots of control, true. But it also gives you exactly the same amount of control. All you have to do is decide to use it.

Re:errr

[solitas]

The cable companies want to stop supporting analog signals now - they can fit eight digital signals in the 6mhz space of one analog channel. They can also fit 7 HD channels in the space of two analog channels. (disclaimer: this info comes from a technerd friend who works for Charter) And, of course, the more channels they can push on you the more they can charge you.

BUT they don't have to stop supporting analog sets - there'll still have to be a box (theirs) between your set and the head-end no matter what, and the box can output analog channels 3/4 or digital channel [whatever] or NTSC-composite or s-video, or SDI, VGA, or whatever to connect to your TV or monitor & speakers.

The digital/analog boxes in the field now will last looong past 2012 and the cables would be idiots to replace them as long as they're functioning. Consider: "we're recalling your box, you can either upgrade your set or cancel your account" - consumer ill-will and corporate suicide in the same sentence.

2012 now in the US?

[Red Flayer]

They keep pushing back the date of conversion to all-digital in the US... don't be surprised if 2012 becomes 2014 down the road.

It's funny, I'm holding out on buying a huge-display HDTV until prices drop due to the increased production/sales volume from the forced conversion to digital.

Every time the year gets pushed back, I spend the money on something else instead... and my understanding is that the deadline is partly due to low penetration of digital sets in the US. Seems like a negative feedback mechanism to me... if they made a deadline and stuck to it, maybe people like me would actually buy a new TV set like the electronics companies want.

Another thing, pretty tangential, that occurs to me is that forced conversion to digital TV will probably cause more civic unrest than anything else the US government has done lately. Taxes (as always) and TV reception could be the biggest campaign issues of the 2014 midterm elections...

Underwhelmed by digital

[Experiment 626]

I'm one of those people still on analog cable, and don't see any reason to switch in the foreseeable future. The cable company charges more for digital, and paying more money to have the same shows broadcast to me via protocol X instead of Y just doesn't appeal to me. Then there are the complications digital brings to using a DVR. CableCard brings more fees and DRM, or you can record the output from a cable box and have to use an IR blaster and all that.

As someone whose TV is non-HD, digital seems to have all downside and no benefit.