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."

There's probably no mention of subsidizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the government owns it all anyways.

Hmm

[pHatidic]

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.

I don't care

[dorkygeek]

I don't care if the signal is delivered in analog or digital form. I am only interested in getting more fscking pixels than with the old PAL standard!

No "hard" date required...

[Anita Coney]

I agree with the Masked Engineer. Don't have a hard date, merely print "a label on every single device with an analog TV tuner explaining to consumers that there will come a day when that tuner will cease to function and an 'adapter' will be needed at extra cost."

That puts the consumer on notice and allows broadcasters to make the switch when they're ready. If they're ready sooner, the consumers were warned. If it's later, it's later.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Engine er/f_mario_orazio-09.21.05.shtml [tvtechnology.com]

Re:Hmm

[ThosLives]

I agree. Besides, I don't watch broadcast or cable TV any more; my TV is simply a monitor for my DVD player and video game console. Of course, once they switch over to BR-DVD or HD-DVD, I'm probably not even going to buy any more versions of my movies. Too bad for the entertainment and advertising industries, but that's probably about $50/month back in my pocket instead of some others'.

But, back to the original post - aside from the "more efficient use of the spectrum" what does going digital do? For that matter, what does cramming more information onto the spectrum do? Well, better phrased: I know that there is the potential for nice things with having more bandwidth; what will it take to actually realize those benefits rather than just fill it with more advertising, propaganda, and sensational* entertainment? In other words, can I maintain my current quality of life and pay less for things because of this technology, or will I be forced to increase my standard of living (even though I am quite comfortable with my current level of luxury) and pay the same or more (because the things I currently have will no longer be supported and, if I just gave them up, that would be a reduction in quality of life, which should not be a result of new technology)? I'd rather new technologies made the things I currently want cost less rather than give me more things to want.

*as opposed to stimulating or intellectual or engaging or other progressive-type adjectives

What happens in 2009

[CastrTroy]

What happens in 2009 when everything is supposed to be digital, and Canada still hasn't gone digital. Will it cause interference in places close to the border? I haven't heard of any plans for canada making the switch.

It's about time all new UK TV sets were digital!

[rklrkl]

With the UK analogue TV switch-off coming in 2008-2012 (very poor that the Slashdot story doesn't make it clear that it's a 4-year phased switch-off starting *before* the US switch off their analogue TV!), I find it quite amazing that:

1. UK electrical retailers are still selling analogue-only TV sets - these will require a separate set-top box to be usable beyond the analogue switch-off and even then, you'll be playing the horrible "2-remote control juggle" that you currently have to (heck, neither of my 2 different digital terrestrial set-top boxes let me change the volume level using the boxes remote control !! Madness !).

2. TV sets with built-in terrestrial digital tuners (known as "IDTV"s here in the UK) still seem to be fairly scarce (and far more expensive than buying an analogue TV set and a separate set-top box instead).

And don't forget that the UK still hasn't introduced HDTV yet - it'll be coming to Sky Digital satellite next year, but there's been no announcement about it for terrestrial digital at all. The horrible thing is that we could be talking about a repeat performance a few years down the road after analogue is switched-off - people start replacing their TV sets and recorders with digital versions, only to find out that they won't work fully when HDTV is introduced.

On a slightly different vein, I think the BBC have been very clever at promoting the "buy a cheap digital set-top box for under 50 pounds" adverts (yes, they're ads really) they've been running for the past 2 years or so. It effectively enforces the licence fee because those cheap boxes do *not* have a smart card capability, so the only effective non-ad/sponsorship alternative to the licence fee (encrypted subscription, which is how I think the BBC should be funded, since you can't dodge the subs assuming the encryption isn't broken) is now virtually dead in the water thanks to the millions of non-smart card Freeview boxes in UK homes now.