Digital TV and the abuse of state power
Robert Henderson | 26.09.2005 09:14
The move to digital TV only (and eventually digital radio) is an exercise in state greed and is profoundly undemocratic. The democratic way would be to maintain both analogue and digital signals.
Digital TV and the abuse of state power
Robert Henderson
The real reason why we are being forced to go to digital TV is
government greed. The decision to turn off the analogue TV signal was
made in the hope that the analogue waveband freed up would provide a
bonanza similar to that which arose when the G3 wavelengths were sold
off to the mobile phone companies - those licences produced £24
billion
and mobile phone users are paying very high prices because of the
amount
leeched out of them by the government.
Digital TV is going to be a costly pain in the neck. Every non-digital
TV will have to be fitted with a digital box or replaced with a
digital
TV. A decent box which will also allow full function recording of
programmes is currently around £200. All current recording equipment
which is not digital will become defunct.
Unlike analogue TVs it is unlikely that an internal aerial will pick
up
the digital signal adequately. This will mean the fitting of an
expensive aerial to the roof and aerial sockets in every room where a
TV
is to be used. Portable TVs will become next to impossible to use
outside the home and difficult to use within the home because of the
external aerial problem which will mean that a set cannot be carried
around.
How good the digital signal will be is debatable. I have a digital
radio
and even in London where the signal is strong, getting a constant and
clear signal is problematic. It is also believed that a small
proportion
of the UK will not be able to receive a digital signal at all - the
current estimate is 1% of UK homes.
Doubtless in time radio will also go digital and bring further
disruption and expense.
The other great problem will be people, especially the old, coming to
terms with both fitting the new technology and operating it.
This change is a classic example of a government simply ignoring the
wishes and convenience of the public. The democratic way would be to
maintain the present situation with both analogue and digital signals
until there is no market for the analogue system.
The final question to ask is by what right do governments sell that
which belongs to the country as a whole?
--
Robert Henderson
The real reason why we are being forced to go to digital TV is
government greed. The decision to turn off the analogue TV signal was
made in the hope that the analogue waveband freed up would provide a
bonanza similar to that which arose when the G3 wavelengths were sold
off to the mobile phone companies - those licences produced £24
billion
and mobile phone users are paying very high prices because of the
amount
leeched out of them by the government.
Digital TV is going to be a costly pain in the neck. Every non-digital
TV will have to be fitted with a digital box or replaced with a
digital
TV. A decent box which will also allow full function recording of
programmes is currently around £200. All current recording equipment
which is not digital will become defunct.
Unlike analogue TVs it is unlikely that an internal aerial will pick
up
the digital signal adequately. This will mean the fitting of an
expensive aerial to the roof and aerial sockets in every room where a
TV
is to be used. Portable TVs will become next to impossible to use
outside the home and difficult to use within the home because of the
external aerial problem which will mean that a set cannot be carried
around.
How good the digital signal will be is debatable. I have a digital
radio
and even in London where the signal is strong, getting a constant and
clear signal is problematic. It is also believed that a small
proportion
of the UK will not be able to receive a digital signal at all - the
current estimate is 1% of UK homes.
Doubtless in time radio will also go digital and bring further
disruption and expense.
The other great problem will be people, especially the old, coming to
terms with both fitting the new technology and operating it.
This change is a classic example of a government simply ignoring the
wishes and convenience of the public. The democratic way would be to
maintain the present situation with both analogue and digital signals
until there is no market for the analogue system.
The final question to ask is by what right do governments sell that
which belongs to the country as a whole?
--
Robert Henderson
e-mail:
philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Request for information
26.09.2005 12:31
not a techie
a more accurate view
26.09.2005 15:56
"A decent box which will also allow full function recording of
programmes is currently around £200. All current recording equipment
which is not digital will become defunct. "
Digital TV refers, of course, to the means by which the signal is broadcast and reconstructed. The 'broadcast' part is the business of those that transmit the signal, and the 'reconstruction' is the business of the electronics belonging to the person who is going to receive the signal. The 'digital receiver' is compatible will ALL EXISTING RECORDING AND VIEWING DEVICES, because it produces a standard PAL signal as output (and ALWAYS will, even into the future).
Cost of these receivers, by the time analogue broadcasts are switched off??? Probably <£20 (which you can pay even today, if you are careful).
NO RECORDING EQUIPMENT USED TODAY BECOMES OBSOLETE!!!!. Grow up, Mr Henderson, and learn how to read, think, and understand. Some recorder FUNCTIONS will no longer do anything useful, because existing recorders will only 'see' one (or two with some digiboxes) channels, and will NOT usually be able to change these channels automatically. So people who require the sophistication of automatic channel changing and recording will upgrade. However, even the oldest BETAMAX recorder will still happily record the analogue PAL signal coming from a 'digibox'. In this case, only the digibox remote is used to 'select' a channel.
(BTW PAL output will never go away, because modern digital electronics can convert one format to another at near zero cost in realtime. In the future, the resolution and refresh of the broadcast picture could change, but a compatible digibox would still output PAL as an option).
It is true that digital TV has different coverage issues from analogue broadcasts, but in both cases there are people that cannot receive a good signal!!! It is also true that 'digiboxes' may require a 'better' aerial, but then this is to receive many many more channels than 5!!!!
If the original author had NOT been so clueness, he would have focused on the crappy picture quality that digital TV has over first class analogue, due to greed broadcasters over compressing the picture to fit too many channels in. Or he would have complained about the pay channels, or Blair giving free-to-air channels to his business friends for all the stupid sell-o-vision services.
The real irony is that the author admitted to being stupid enough to use DAB over the digital radio provided by a 'digibox'. DAB is totally crap, with simple audio channels so over-compressed, that FM is usually better. The radio broadcast over 'digital TV' actually has MUCH better quality, due to lower compression rates being used!!!
DAB is also crap, because of the gross sensitivity of digital radios over normal ones (and the portable nature of radio is vastly more important than the portable nature of TV).
I would like to point of that in the immediate future, very large numbers of people will (in the home) stream ALL their TV and radio from their internet connection wirelessly to audio and visual receivers around their homes, changing the debate again!
So to summarise:
- there is NO problem with the analogue switch-off beyond a one-time cost per TV. Use is enhanced (beyond the issue of multi-channel recording at the same time, but future digiboxes will have multiple tuners, and those people who want to juggle with really clever multiple timeshifting are always happy to invest in new gizmos), and backward-compatibilty in signal output maintained. Here's an irony...digiboxes could EVEN have been cheaply designed to be compatiple with TV's from the 50's and 60's that receive long dead formats of broadcast if there had been significant demand!!!
-The government will have to provide and set up digiboxes for many disadvantaged people.
-DAB is crap, and analogue radio will have to continue LONG into the future. Again, ironically, the big future advantage for digital radio is that it will offer very sophisticated auto-record options.
-The government DID make a fortune selling off radio frequencies, but then SOMETHING has to pay for Blair's plans to destroy the Earth.
twilight
A few points
26.09.2005 17:10
The freed up tv bandwidth can be used for a multitude of things - including tv, as it can be multiplexed (allowing multiple channels to be used on the same signal).
fredrico
e-mail:
musteatvegan@yahoo.co.uk
What a terrible article!
26.09.2005 18:16
Boab
Who pays for the retention of both systems?
30.09.2005 09:32
"What a terrible article!
26.09.2005 19:16
"Okay, Mr. Henderson - lets assume we keep both systems going. Who pays for the cost of 2 sets of infrastructure? And is it good for the environment to do so?
Boab "
For the time being the same people who do today, the customer and the taxpayer. Eventually it may be necessary for the taxpayer to take more of the cost. It's called social democracy.
Robert Henderson
Robert Henderson
e-mail:
philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk