OT - period TV channels

[Penners]

Just in case any of you in the Central and Anglia TV regions haven't heard about this, your analogue TV channels will be the next to be consigned to the pages of history, in the coming months.

If you haven't yet equipped yourself with a Freeview or other digital set-top box, you might want to start thinking about it.

You can check your actual switchover date on this web page: http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch

Here's the official region-by-region guide: http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/

If you live in a listed building, you will of course need LBC to remove your analogue channels and fit new, digital ones. I'm not sure whether you can avoid the VAT, though.

 

[MdB]

Wots this "analog TV"? We ave none of that posh stuff down ere. Aven't for ages...

 

[Penners]

Wots this "analog TV"...?

Good gracious - ladies and gentlemen I think we have one of those American persons in our midst.

You will, I'm sure, be familiar with a structural analogue, MdB. Also known as chemical analogue, it is a compound having a structure similar to that of another one, but differing from it in respect of a certain component. It can differ in one or more atoms, functional groups, or substructures, which are replaced with other atoms, groups, or substructures. A structural analogue can be imagined to be formed, at least theoretically, from the other compound.

Despite a high chemical similarity, structural analogues are not necessarily functional analogues and can have very different physical, chemical, biochemical, or pharmacological properties.

As any fule no.

 

[Feltwell]

We switch on 6 April - I've got to give the changeover bods their due, you'd have to be blind, deaf and daft to not know it was happening! We've had flyers through the door, lots and lots of adverts in the local free papers, TV adverts, plus banners flying from about half the lamp posts in the area telling us about it. Pretty much every road junction has a sign of some sort near it.

The publicity seems to be overkill to be honest and must be costing a fortune - especially in these times when we've being told it's cuts, cuts and more cuts.

The switchover clearly involves quite a bit of work - there have been technical-type bods going up and down the Wrekin (local big hill with TV transmitter on top) in their 4x4's for months now.

 

[robgil]

Great , maybe they will now turn the power up and we can actually see more than huge pixels on our screen, not that it will ever be as good quality picture as a decent analogue signal.
Another travesty is the proposed redundancy of FM radio in favour for the poorer mp3 quality digital radio, its like listening to the radio with cushions strapped to the front of your speakers.
I blame the invention of the CD player for the complete loss of quality in sound and picture reproduction.
Damn you CD player ,GOD DAMN YOU CD PLAYER TO HELL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbYx6hevoQ

 

[Feltwell]

Signal strength isn't so much of a problem here though - seeing as how you can see the transmitter from the house, it's only about a mile away!

What I did find though was how much a brick wall reduces the signal strength. When we moved in the existing TV aerial was hanging off the chimney, only held on by the co-ax cable (which, after being cable clipped to the chimney, just ran down the roof and was hanging freely down in front of the dining room window, entering via a hole drilled through the frame. What a professional installation! :roll: )

I thought I'd install the new aerial in a void in the roof space rather than outside. I had a spare cheapo aerial, tested it and reception was fine - but once installed, reception was very poor. The void is directly behind a gable end wall that faces the transmitter so the signal has to penetrate, or get around, a solid 9" brick wall. The cure was fitting a high gain aerial, designed for weak reception areas.

 

[Moo]

We have all our tv, internet and 'phone via cable. The telly is fed via a thing we call a digi-box.
Will the switch-over affect us at all?

 

[Feltwell]

Nope - only us luddites who still use an aerial! Cable customers it makes no difference to.

 

[MdB]

A word of warning about dodgy TV aerial fitters...

If you haven't switched yet and can get both analogue and digital transmissions but the digital transmission is poor then don't be persuaded that you need a new aerial. Once the analogue transmissions are switched off, the digital transmissions will be boosted (in our case by a factor of x22!) so will be fine after the switch over.

Our neighbour had a new aerial fitted before the changeover, completely unneeded in my opinion.

 

[Feltwell]

Hmm - I wonder if too strong a signal can be a problem then? I can't see why but the vague vague depths of my mind I seem to recall that with analogue signals they can be. However it's a subject that I know nothing about so if anyone who is more techie than me (MdB, Flyfisher..... :wink: ) would care to comment.........

 

[MdB]

Too strong a signal can be a problem if you are too close to a strong transmitter with a high gain antenna. There is a limit in the receivers to what they can accept. However, the auto gain adjust in the receivers is able to cope with a large range of signal sizes and would be designed to cope with the majority of situations it is likely to be placed in. I doubt it is something that occurs very often. If you live right next door to a transmitter with a direct line of sight then you don't go putting mast head amplifiers into your system.

 

[Feltwell]

No amplifier here, so hopefully all will be well. Worst case I guess is I have to go out on April 6th and get a low gain aerial, but they're fairly cheap. As my aerial is fitted internally in a roof void, it's not much of a problem to change it - apart from the hassle of having to crawl right round the eaves of the house and past all our stored junk to get to it.

 

[Lime]

Just in case any of you in the Central and Anglia TV regions haven't heard about this, your analogue TV channels will be the next to be consigned to the pages of history, in the coming months.

And Yorkshire TV.

I'm quite spoilt where I am.
I can receive all three digital transmissions from Belmont, Sandy Heath and Sutton Coldfield.

 

[MdB]

No amplifier here, so hopefully all will be well. Worst case I guess is I have to go out on April 6th and get a low gain aerial, but they're fairly cheap. As my aerial is fitted internally in a roof void, it's not much of a problem to change it - apart from the hassle of having to crawl right round the eaves of the house and past all our stored junk to get to it.

You already have an attenuator built in (your wall) so you won't have any issues. Your receiver will be able to cope with signal strength changes of at least x1000 (and probably at lot more) so I wouldn't worry at all.

 

[skier-hughes]

We have either wrekin or sutton coldfield here, so some start switching on 6th April, some not until September.

The reason for the overkill is that there are a very few people who totaly rely on tv, and these often do not engage with other members of the community, so reaching these is a must.
They are often the most vulnerable members of our society, they may be disadvantaged, older or disabled.

If you have someone in your street that you think may be vulnerable, not as techy as yourself, pop in and ask if they've had a letter.

Two people are dealing with the switchover, digitaluk and http://www.helpscheme.co.uk/

Helpscheme are the ones who are working on ensuring that the message reaches the people and are offering deals to help those in need to switch. It is a government and bbc funded body, and you can get a digi box, fitted, new aerial if required, as much in home support as is required to get you use to the equipment, so this may be 5 mins or 2 hours, plus 12 months free phone/call out support for 12 months for only £40 if you are elligble or free if you reach further qualifying points. There is no reason not to fit your own digi box bought from any retailer, but those most vulnerable may need extra help.

All elligble people will receive 3 letters asking them if they want any help whatsoever, but if they don't reply they won't get any help, it is not forced upon them, so ensuring anyone in your street who has had a letter replies to it if they require help will be helping the 5%ish who are most at risk of ending up with a blank screen at switchover time.

As for new aerials, some people will need them to receive the full array of channels, as they are broadcast at a wide range of bandwidths and some very old aerials may not be able to pick up some of the channels, or do so only poorly. Of course, as has been said, wait until the full switchover before making a decision as the uppining of the signal power may just sort out any problems.

 

[Penners]

Once the analogue transmissions are switched off, the digital transmissions will be boosted (in our case by a factor of x22!) so will be fine after the switch over.

MdB - will the BBC also be increasing the bitrate of its HD transmissions? I seem to remember a controversy a couple of years ago when they reportedly reduced it, in order to release more bandwidth on Freeview.

 

[MdB]

Not that I've heard. Low bitrates on DAB has been the main talking point that I've seen discussed.

 

[Penners]

I was sure I'd heard something about this a couple of years ago, so I've just Googled it. Here's one page that I found (dated 2009):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8415636.stm

 

[AMc]

Lower bitrates don't necessarily equal a worse picture - even with the same compression/decompression (codec) scheme depending on the quality of the processing at the point of compression you can do better in less space - if they do or not is debatable. The bitrate for broadcasting is always going to be a balance between an acceptable picture/sound and the number of channels that OFCOM want to squash into the available space.

Squeezing more channels in is the main reason DAB radio is criticized as in the early days (with fewer channels) the bit rates were higher and it was genuinely better than FM - now a good FM signal will easily outperform the best DAB broadcast - if they're broadcasting what you want. I prefer being able to receive Xfm and 6Music in lower quality to being forced to listen to Radio1 or {shudders} local radio YMMV. There were discussions about using better codecs for DAB radio (DAB+) but I haven't heard much about them and they would render all our expensive DAB radios obsolete so I don't think it will be a vote winner to suggest it.
There is also a weird set of circumstances that if your favourite radio station is available on Freeview or via satellite it will probably be of higher quality than either FM or DAB.

If your TV signal is too strong you can fit cheap attenuators that will lower the signal strength by a greater/lesser/variable amount until it's within the parameters the tuner is expecting. I've used these in the past and they're a lot cheaper/easier than messing about on the roof.

http://www.maxview.co.uk/products/TV_AND_FM_INSTALLTIONS_FAQ.html have some good information.
I used Antiferrence equipment for my TV & DAB installation bought from http://www.cpc.co.uk at considerably less cost than buying in Maplin/Homebase etc.

I'm looking forward to them turning off our completely unwatchable analogue signal. I installed my own aerials to get Freeview when we moved in and then had them professionally moved up to the chimney boosting the output but analogue is still unwatchable.

 

[Penners]

There were discussions about using better codecs for DAB radio (DAB+) but I haven't heard much about them and they would render all our expensive DAB radios obsolete

So can a new codec/firmware not be installed in the DAB radio, as it can in a computer?