Future of Analogue TV and radio?

[Stephen Coates]

OK, so the digital switchover has started with one of the first regions loosing BBC2 on Analogue.

This will be a shame as it is very convenient having both Analogue and Digital. Luckily I still have until 2011. I know I'm not the only person who will miss it (I know one other person who loves his analogue cable and 4:3 CRT).

However, I am getting a bit confused. I recently went on holiday to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. There, the only digital TV is via Satellite. Terrestrial broadcasts are only in Analogue (This a was a little bit annoying as the people I were staying with had a widescreen TV, but the analogue picture is only 4:3 with little black bars).
I have read about them having to wait until 2013 or even later, but there is currently no fixed date as far as I'm aware. It's just that they have the same channels as us, with the exception of Channel 5, but they don't have anything to do with the UK, so our digital switchover won't nesseceraly affect them. Also, Channel TV (their local ITV), isn't owned by ITV plc. There is also the issue of interference with France apparently. I was just wondering if anyone could shed any light as to when they are likely to at least start getting digital TV (and when their analogue will be switched off)?

Secondly, there is cable. I recently read somewhere that some cables still don't get digital and are likely to remain analogue for quite some time, and possibly after the switchover. Does anyone know about this, and what sort of areas it is likely to affect?

And I really don't know why everyone is getting so obsessed over HD.

And when will the BBC realise that the 'Press Red' icon at the top of the digital news broadcasts is very annoying?!

Also, on the subject of digital switchover, what about radio? DAB is really quite bad. It is quite conveniant sometimes, and the bad sound quality won't make much difference on some radios, but I would expect that if you had a good audio system, then you would be able to hear compression artifacts all the time. I can hear them even on little DAB radios. I can usually spot compression artifacts a mile off.I expect a digital switchover for radio would be alot harder than TV as we have many more radios than TVs (or at least I do), and it would make lots of radios useless, as it is impossible (and sometimes impractical) to connect extra DAB tuners to them, unlike with TVs which normally have SCART sockets.

I just did a quick count and we have about 7 FM/AM radios that me/my mum use regulaly.

What's your opinion on DAB? And do you have a DAB tuner? (I don't - my favourite radio station is only on FM).

[Harrison]

What's your opinion on DAB? And do you have a DAB tuner?

I don't really listen to the radio much. Sometimes I have Radio 4 or Radio 2 on, but that is about it, and even then it's probably twice a month! I used to listen to a lot more radio when I was younger, listening to the latest music, but as we can get that from the internet and music TV I've given up. I never did like listening to DJs droning on.

But I did buy a DAB radio about a year ago and took it back to the shop the next day. Where I live it couldn't pick up any BBC radio channels, but the quality of the other stations was very nice and didn't contain any digital artefacts as far as I remember. But as I wanted it for the BBC channels it as useless.

Regarding a digital radio switchover, I don't think that is likely to happen any time soon for broadcasts over the air waves. The main reason is coverage. I still hardly know anyone with a DAB radio and not many people are that bothered. Also how many current cars come with a DAB radio and not an analogue radio fitted? Do any as standard come with one?

And I really don't know why everyone is getting so obsessed over HD.

Picture quality, 4 to 5 times the resolution, higher less flicker refresh rate (or with progressive scan no flicker at all) richer colours... need I say more?

If you are only interested in watching the news and soap operas then a cheap CRT from Tesco is going to do the job... but if you are more serious about what you watch then a larger screen, with more resolution, higher fidelity, better colour reproduction etc.. is going to be a big factor. Any film or sports fan will want the best quality they can get and HD is the format to deliver it.

Also regarding video games. Playing the 360 or PS3 on anything other than an HDTV means you are not viewing the games at their full resolution so are not getting the most from the games.

Luckily I still have until 2011. I know I'm not the only person who will miss it.

Our analogue signal doesn't get switched off until 2012 so quite some time still to go. But I don't get why people are so against digital TV. Most new TVs now have a freeview receiver built in, so for owners of newer TVs it's not going to make any difference. And Sky viewers have been watching digital TV for years now, and with Sky+ and SkyHD boxes you can watch one channel while recording another on the built in HD, so there is another problem solved.

Personally I wouldn't bother with Freeview. It's too limiting compared to Sky Digital. Low bandwidth means it won't see HD broadcasts any time soon, so all you are gaining from freeview is digital audio and video at the same resolution as analogue. This does mean many more channels which is a bonus, and it's free other than the purchase of the freeview box, but if you are serious about watching more than the basic set of standard TV channels you would pay for Sky or Cable anyway.

I recently read somewhere that some cables still don't get digital and are likely to remain analogue for quite some time, and possibly after the switchover. Does anyone know about this, and what sort of areas it is likely to affect?

Cable TV is a limited service anyway, regardless of analogue or digital. Only those mainly living in larger cities have access to it. Everyone else is left out in the cold. The reason Analogue cable is still the only type available in many areas is due to the network infrastructure. They had to originally lay the cables and in order to receive digital cable they need to replace all of these cables with new fibre cables for digital. This is only cost effective in areas with a lot of customers. Anyone in areas with less customers are not as high priority so their cable won't be upgraded to digital as quickly, if at all.

I recently went on holiday to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. There, the only digital TV is via Satellite.

Well they are small islands so cable isn't viable as you would need a downlink satellite on the island to receive the broadcasts to then transmit via the cables. Too expensive and not very practical.

Satellite is the main method of receiving TV in a lot of European countries, and especially on islands. With Satellite the broadcasters don't need to install any ground equipment, just give the viewers a dish to pick up the signal. Much easier, as long as you are in the satellites footprint.

I would be very surprised if the channel islands ever got freeview digital TV. It would be too expensive to upgrade the transmitter for the size of the population.

[Stephen Coates]

Regarding a digital radio switchover, I don't think that is likely to happen any time soon for broadcasts over the air waves. The main reason is coverage. I still hardly know anyone with a DAB radio and not many people are that bothered. Also how many current cars come with a DAB radio and not an analogue radio fitted? Do any as standard come with one?

I don't know about car radios, but I expect that DAB isn't very popular in cars. It would probably have problems with the signal, due to the car moving. I have such problems when listening to my Walkman. I can listen to RotherFM (my local station) in one place, then move a metre, and I will hear BBC Humberside (I think), dependin on exactly where I am.

Our analogue signal doesn't get switched off until 2012 so quite some time still to go. But I don't get why people are so against digital TV. Most new TVs now have a freeview receiver built in, so for owners of newer TVs it's not going to make any difference. And Sky viewers have been watching digital TV for years now, and with Sky+ and SkyHD boxes you can watch one channel while recording another on the built in HD, so there is another problem solved.

I think people would be against Digital TV, because we have all purchased television and video recorders which all have analogue tuners over the last 10, 20 or more years, and whilst this might not apply to some people, who prefer HDD and DVD recorders, some people (probably quite a lot), prefer to stick with what they are used to. I have been using VHS for recording TV programmes since the early 90s and have stuck with it ever since. The quality might not be perfect, but it is fine for mine (and alot of other peoples) use. And it has an analogue tuner. Also, the TV which someone bought a long time ago might also have an analogue tuner, which means that you would have to get two digital tuners and then set both the tuner AND the video recorder up to record things, and it can get a bit confusing.

Then there's the issue of portable TVs, and having to get a new tuner for each TV. Just because new TVs have digital tuners, alot that were made over the last 30 years and still work perfectly, won't. I think these are the main reasons why people might be against digital TV.

Freeview is indeed limited when compared to Sky, but the only channels that i watch regulaly are BBC1 and ITV, so it doesn;t really make any difference what other channels are avaliable.

[Harrison]

Yes, it is true that many have perfectly good older TVs that only have an analogue tuner, but if everyone thought in this way (that the current old technology should still continue to be used) then technology would never progress. There has to come a point where you have to make the decision to cut ties with the old technology and move forward with the new.

At least there is an easy solution to allow older TVs to still be usable with the addition of an inexpensive digital tuner (under £20). This way no one is being forced to upgrade their actual TVs.

If we all continued to think in terms of electronics we already had and refused to ever upgrade then the CD would never have replaced the tape and we would still be listening to horribly muffled and distorted audio that degraded with each play, and we would still be watching 9" mechanical Baird TV receivers displaying low-definition 30 line transmissions as used in the 1930s!

[AlexJ]

Digital TV can be overcompressed, which I find is the only downside of it. You can (usually during sport) get compression artifacts which are annoying but that's primarily down to using an antique codec. HD uses a more modern codec so combined with the higher bandwidth (a 4:1 ratio I think of SD:HD channels) the picture is no noticably different from the source analogue signal. The industry is quite lucky in the sense it will get a second chance to get the codec right having originally jumped in too soon.

Both HD and SD digital have several advantages over analogue. For starters, I live some 40 miles as the crow flies from my transmitter. This means with analogue there is a little inteference on the picture (occasionally it looks a little noisy). However it's more than strong enough for digital to work fine and I get as good a picture as if I was right next to the transmitter. The second is that I get the option of a 16:9 widescreen picture, handy with a widescreen TV, and no difference with a 4:3 set. Thirdly, even on Freeview, there are more channels. Living in Wales one of the big draws of digital is that we get Channel 4, which is only available near the English border on analogue. They aren't great, but having a news channel, music channel and a few extra entertainment channels is surely better than not having them even if you only watch them occasionally.

The main reason behind the analogue shutdown is the lack of space in the radio spectrum. When there's a limited amount of something, it's value is driven up as more services compete for that space. Today, we have mobile phones, radio, TV, emergency services radio and many other services wanting a piece of the spectrum. Being able to have 6 channels in the space of one analogue channel means that the government can make 6 times as much cash for that space (well not quite, but more than for 1 channel anyway). Eventually I'd imagine they'd be interested in getting everyone recieving satellite television, hence we have the BBC and ITV launching Freesat next year. The governments reluctance to reserve any space for HD broadcasting on Freeview suggests that HD will be their vehicle for encouraging people to switch.

Satellite went digital years ago, when Sky realised they could fit more channels on a transponder with digital allowing (for example) more box office screens and more chances to make money. Cable upgraded most of it's infrastructure to support digital some time ago. It doesn't really concern the government when they finish this, as the cables are owned by the cable company and there's no competition for the space on them.

At the end of the day, it costs as little as £20 per set to convert to digital, considering most people pay over six times this amount every year for the right to watch their TV this is a pretty small outlay.

DAB on the other hand is pretty stuffed. They also jumped in too early with their codec (MP2) and the bandwidth used is usually a maximum of 128Kb/s. Now, I find that too low for my MP3s so for a less efficient codec to be using that bitrate is going to sound terrible. Realising the problem, they've come up with a new version DAB+ which uses the AAC codec. Now the problem is, how do you get people to buy this having already bought a DAB radio. With TV, the promise of HD does the trick. With DAB, it's a case of "You know that DAB radio you bought because we told you it's CD quality? Well we lied. We've made a better one which is almost CD quality, but you'll have to buy a new receiver". It'll just piss a load of people off, who will just go back to analogue.

[Stephen Coates]

Saying that it is near CD quality is silly.

I don't really see how you can get much better than the current FM system for radio.

At the end of the day, it costs as little as £20 per set to convert to digital, considering most people pay over six times this amount every year for the right to watch their TV this is a pretty small outlay.

There is still the issue of video recorders as I mentioned earlier. You still need an aditional one for each VCR that will be recording digital (having just one is OK now but won't be in a few years). And ones that have things like SmartLink are even more expensive (useful for those that don't seem to have a clue about how to record off the digital reciever, and useful for those that do but can't always be bothered).

The 16:9 picture is useful, as it can be adjusted to fit a 4:3 screen as well.

However it's more than strong enough for digital to work fine and I get as good a picture as if I was right next to the transmitter.

That is great when the digital signal is strong enough. If it isn't strong enough, it wouldn't work. A good example of this is when I was listenig to HallamFM in Edale where I couldn't get a very good signal. I could however easily lsten to HallamFM with alot of noise on top. I bet it wouldn't have worked at all if it was digital (and the same should apply to television)

[Harrison]

The problem with any technology like this is that a lot of people won't understand how it works, so talking about codecs, compression ratios, bandwidth etc means nothing to them. Therefore the only way they could try and sell the original DAB radios was to say the quality would be "close to CD quality" as they knew everyone could relate to that. But as you pointed out they have no come unstuck with that original analogy and it is going to be hard to find a way to explain how it wasn't quite as good as they originally were making out.

[Harrison]

At the end of the day, it costs as little as £20 per set to convert to digital, considering most people pay over six times this amount every year for the right to watch their TV this is a pretty small outlay.

There is still the issue of video recorders as I mentioned earlier. You still need an aditional one for each VCR that will be recording digital (having just one is OK now but won't be in a few years).

But, VCRs are now a dead technology just like audio tapes. Yes some people still use them, but they are not supported any longer. Therefore people are going to just have to upgrade to a new recording technology with freeview receiver built in once the time comes. It is true that many people will complain, but as I said before, technology has to move on and ditch the out of date technology as it goes.

[Stephen Coates]

That's funny. Everyone seemed to be using VCRs up until about two years ago.

With the exception of Data VHS and PVRs, which arn't really that good due to price and in the case of PVRs, lack of removable media, there isn't really any replacement for the VCR.

I will have to continue using VCRs anyway as I do still know other people who have them and occaisionally have the need to swap tapes, or watch old videos.

I would be quite tempted by Data VHS in the future for HD stuff though if it is still possible to get DVHS tapes then (unless there is some better magnetic solution avaliable then).

Is it actually still called Data VHS? Or did they change it to Digital VHS?

[Harrison]

D-VHS??? That was dead before it even got started. Based on SVHS technology and recording onto the tapes in MPEG2 format (same as is used by DVD and broadcasters such as Sky Digital), it never really took off properly as a mainstream format because blank DVDs are so cheap and D-VHS was never properly marketed. It also has the big advantage of being tape based. While the recorded information is digital, tape still stretches with repeat use and the data eventually become corrupted or degraded.

HD recorders are the perfect solution for general home TV recording. No more media to store away and you have to admit that for most programs everyone records they watch it once then delete it/record over it. For this PVRs such as Sky+ and Tivo are perfect. And if you do want to keep something there is recordable DVD.

And for films, to get good quality, buying original copies on DVD or one of the two HD formats is the best solution, or storing them on HD in DivX format.