Future of Analogue TV and radio?

[Stephen Coates]

I do buy films on DVD. Only exception to that is old films, which are either much cheaper or harder to get on DVD.

The lack of media in PVRs does prevent me from taking the recording to another place to watch it though (e.g. I could not watch it on another TV in the house without moving the whole PVR)

[AlexJ]

Well if you wanted to do that, you could just burn it onto a DVD.

[Harrison]

Exactly. Pretty much every PVR allows you to run off copies of programs to DVD or any device connected to it.

[Stephen Coates]

Would any of you people with Sky Digital say that the picure quality of it is better than that of Freeview?

[Harrison]

Yes. I've had Sky Digital since it came out and would say the image quality is generally very good and much better than Freeview. You do sometimes notice some artefacts during films with smoke and explosions, but other than that it is good quality.

I've also owned a freeview box since they came out (which I use in the dinning room) and the quality is definitely better than normal analogue TV, but I have noticed more artefacts and pixelization than Sky. Also Freeview suffers from signal degradation quite badly when the weather is bad, and even signal lose sometimes. Something that doesn't normally happen with Sky Digital these days.

Also Sky Digital has a lot more bandwidth compared to Freeview so can broadcast higher bandwidth video with less compression on the key channels that are given more bandwidth such as the movie channels.

Plus if you include Sky HD then there is no comparison as Freeview doesn't support HD.

One other interesting thing I discovered recently when looking to upgrade to Sky multiroom is that a single Sky satellite dish has enough bandwidth to feed 4 Sky boxes, or 2 Sky+ or Sky HD boxes (as they are basically two boxes each).

[AlexJ]

One other interesting thing I discovered recently when looking to upgrade to Sky multiroom is that a single Sky satellite dish has enough bandwidth to feed 4 Sky boxes, or 2 Sky+ or Sky HD boxes (as they are basically two boxes each).

Technically speaking it's the LNB at the end of the dish that feeds the boxes. The newer installs will use quad-LNB's which allow up to 4 boxes (Sky+ and HD as you say take up 2 each in order to provide the record one while watch another service). Older install will use either Dual or Single LNB's so it would need replacing if you wanted more services. Sky would probably do that for free if you were upgrading your package to give them more money!

[Harrison]

Yep, I used to use a dual LNB with an analogue dish to feed two boxes. But I'm not sure regarding Sky Digital if it quite works in the same way. For example a Sky+ box uses two feeds (one to record and another to watch) but only uses a single line from the LNB, so it is sending the two signals through the same cable at the same time, something that didn't used to be the case with a dual LNB. Or is it just internal to the single LNB now and can feed the four signals through a single cable?

[Buleste]

All i know is that BT gave me a new BT Vision box for free. Which would be good but where i live ther is little to no Freeview signal and you have to pay for all on demand programmes including the free ones. At the moment in my area there are 5 different transmitters we could try 3 in the Central region, 1 Granada and 1 Wales. Of the 3 in the Central region we will only get 22 channels by 2011 but nothing now and no Channel 5 even then, the Granada transmitter will give us 56 channels now with an ariel upgrade and 56 by 2011 and the Wales one will be in a made up language so it doesn't matter. VCR's will only be able to record on the channel that is being used by the digital box so once the anaolgue signal has been turned off they are basically useless. We can't have cable where we are and i refuse to give Rupert Murdoch any money so Sky's out. Having said that when the Digital switchover is complete we will have lots of Channels showing crap so it doesn't matter that much anyway.

[Harrison]

Personally I think the only good option is Sky Digital, especially once anyone upgrades to an HD TV. Yes it is owned my Murdoch, but I'm not that bothered. Sky has offered the best, if slightly expensive, service for many years now.

[AlexJ]

Freesat HD will be launching early next year if you want to go down the Satellite without Sky route.