Brit TV Won't Go Digital Till 2012

judgecorp writes "While the US switches off analog(ue) TV in 2009, it stays on in the UK till 2012, according to a timetable, the Digital Dividend Review released by the UK regulator Ofcom. And while the US taxpayer will fork out $3 billion, there's no mention of government subsidising the switchover in the UK - apart from the licence fee which Brits pay for the BBC, or course. The good news is that the 112 prime MHz of spectrum freed up will be used for wireless broadband, rural coverage for wireless services, and unlicensed spectrum for data. All things that will keep us so busy, we won't bother to watch TV, anyway."

Inaccurate headline

[Bogtha]

I've got digital TV now. Millions have. The headline should read "Brits will keep analogue TV around until 2012". This isn't about getting digital telly, it's about how long we keep analogue around for the people who don't upgrade.

Re:Cheeky government

[Anonymous Coward]

A freeview box can be bought for £29.99 [amazon.co.uk] or a fair bit less with a bit of searching, there's no need to subsidise.

We have Digital

[Anonymous Coward]

Brit TV Won't Go Digital Till 2012? Erm. No. We've had digital TV for years. According to a recent BBC News artice (which I can't find) over 60% of the population has some form of digital TV reciever. 2012 is when the last region will loose it's analogue signal. The big switch off of analogue starts in 2008. One area of Wales has already had it's analogue singles turned off.

Re:damn it

[Derling Whirvish]

Can we stop the "brits" thing. We don't go around calling the French, Germans or Polish "Europeans" yet we still get that crappy label (which very few support) from Americans. We have nationalities, we're not from Britianland.

English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish are out because they don't refer to the whole country, just small parts of it. What do you want us to use -- UK-ers? Ukes? Yobbos? You name it, I'll be happy to oblige.

Re:damn it

[raptorjb007]

Your British, and Brit is just a shortened version of british. Its like calling Americans "Yanks", or "Yankies". Damn Brits

Re:There's probably no mention of subsidizing

[taskforce]

Actually no, the UK government doesn't own TV any more than the US Governemnt does. The BBC (by no means the only broadcaster in the UK) recieves a liscence fee from the public who have a TV. This fee is only charged if you have a television (In theory, although they often have a hard time believing you don't have one if you actually don't) and the money is never seen by the governemnt. It is not paid for with taxes.

In addition, the BBC wouldn't actually be the ones paying for the switchover, so the liscence fee is in fact a mute point here.

The subsidisation in the US is supposed to be on Digital enabled TV sets for consumers; which the governemnt certainly don't "own" in the UK.

Re:damn it

[taskforce]

We have nationalities, we're not from Britianland. Yah... we're from Britain, which also includes the letters "Brit". Personally I've never minded being called a Brit and have always thought of it as a semi-affectionate term... I could be wrong on that but nevermind.

Re:Hmm

[Golias]

What exactly are the benefits of digital TV anyway? I don't understand this HD TV and digital TV stuff, to me TV is good enough as is.

Sir, I believe what you are enjoying is a family radio. If you are wondering why you can't seen to tune in Gunsmoke and Little Orphan Anne these days, it's because TV has made radio plays somewhat obsolete.

TV is like radio, except with moving pictures, kind of like the "talkies" you might have seen demonstrated at a World's Fair.

Digital HDTV displays these pictures with even more detail and clarity. A lot of those confounded durn-blasted whippersnappers you see hustling about are actually rather happy about it.

Several things

[jfengel]

Partly, it's about resolution; HDTV has more pixels, which makes for a nicer picture. And screen shape: the new digital TV supports wide-screen, which will make for better movie-viewing without having to compromise on full-screen vs. widescreen.

It's also a lot about bandwidth. The new digital signals are more efficient than the analog ones, so you can cram more channels into the spectrum. (Which means you don't always get higher resolution; they can cram 4 old-resolution channels into the space for one high-def signal. And a station can choose.)

And there's even more flexibility: a digital signal makes it easier to encode other kinds of signal: foreign languages, hypertext, etc.

But mostly it's about freeing up a certain set of frequencies so that they can be sold off for cell phones, wifi, etc. That's very valuable bandwidth at a frequency which can be better taken advantage of by small, hand-held devices. Some of it is allocated to emergency channels.

Re:What Does Brit TV Have to Do With Politics?!!

[Golias]

The Slashdot FAQ states that the Politics section was for stories related the US government. Nowadays, we get stories in there about Canada, Britain, and everywhere else that have nothing to do with US politics. In fact, there are hardly any stories dealing with real politics in here.

Well, they could have run with the YRO story I submitted about Congress recently reaching a compromise deal to scale back some of the spookier elements of the PATRIOT Act, but I guess what kind of TV format the brits will be using to tune in their crap reality shows is far more important to discuss.

Also, what I neglected to observe is that only bad news about PATRIOT is ever newsworthy. Moderation of the bill, and stories of cool heads prevailing, don't really do much to help with EFF fund-raising, or provoke long threads of tirades about the current President which consistantly trigger Godwin's Law.

Re:Inaccurate headline

[ratbag]

... unless you live in the South East, but out of sight of Crystal Palace. No prospect of a digital transmitter able to reach my neck of the woods until Dover and Tunbridge Wells get upgraded in 2012. I'm one of the "people who can't upgrade" rather than a "who don't"

Switchover Map

[jdtanner]

Actually, the switchover will start in 2008 (http://www.dvb.org/index.php?id=229 [dvb.org]) and will finish in 2012. Have a look the the map of the switchover times at http://www.dtg.org.uk/consumer/switchover_map.html [dtg.org.uk]

BTW, I've already got digital television, as have about 66% of the rest of us Brits :-)

Cheers,
JohnT

Re:How about..

[TheSync]

This is totally BS. Spectrum is wasted in analog TV because analog NTSC TV has tremendous problems with interference between adjancent channels and same channels in neighboring markets. Digital ATSC is less vulnerable to these kinds of interference, and more channels can be packed tighter, reducing overall spectrum needs.

Also there is absolutely no shortage of spectrum for "first responders." There were communications problems on 9/11, but they had to do with systems that were not tested properly, not interoperational between police and fire, not operational (like a repeater that wasn't turned on), and human error during a trying time. RF bandwidth was not an issue.

Digital ATSC takes up the same bandwidth as analog NTSC, 6 MHz, although channels can be packed tighter on the dial. The 6 MHz provides about 19 Mbps using 8-VSB modulation, and those 19 Mbps can deliver a single-program MPEG2 transport stream, or a multi-program one, including mixes of high definition and standard definition resolution programs, or even multicast IP encapsulated in MPEG2 transport packets.

For example, one school system uses their ATSC transmission to provide 4 SD program channels and deliver IP video-on-demand to classrooms.

Now I won't argue that people are not making money on the digital transition, but they sure are not broadcasters. Right now, digital is a money hole for broadcasters, with their money going to transmitter manufacturers, MPEG transport stream server and multiplexer companies, HD camera and master control switching companies, HD editing software companies, and the consumer money is flowing to HD set manufacturers.