Gripe- TV licensing & digital changeover

System

Technology moves on and things become obsolete, its annoying but thats life. If you think this is bad news I would suggest you don't visit blockbusters to try and rent a VHS.....

Naf

Techhead wrote: »

But we would have to pay for the maintenance of two transmission systems.

Just charge the analogue users twice as much for holding the rest of us back

Techhead wrote: »

Anyway, the time to have made views known was in the early 1990s when the politicians were deciding to do a switchover. Obviously no one made a sufficiently compelling case against.

Doesn't bother me; I'm digital already. Hopefully the switchover will improve signal enough that my DTV-USB will pick up more channels.

vyle

It always amuses me when people act like they're being forced to switch to digital without any warning, as if it was dumped on them last week.

We have all known about the DSO since at least 2003... well I got sky digital in 2001 actually, and the DSO was set for 2005... so it's not like people haven't had a chance to get cheap TVs/set top boxes/aerial upgrades.

It seems everybody is waiting until the last minute, then are shocked to find out that if you try to get things done at the last minute, supply and demand means that it works out more expensive. I've heard of some people being charged £500 for an aerial upgrade close to DSO.

Or they could just an SD freesat box and a satellite dish for about £110 all in.

paddyrg

And this isn't a UK-only phenomenon, this is going on *everywhere*, pretty much.

Yes, this will free up some wavebands, and that is a good thing - we all want wireless everythings now, CCTV, mobile hones, garage doors, wifi, radio mics for West End musicals, GPS, in-ear monitoring for musicians, all use slices of the radio spectrum, and those slices add up. Unless we want to stop inventing things, then the stuff that can be squeezed needs to be squeezed.

Naf

vyle wrote: »

I've heard of some people being charged £500 for an aerial upgrade close to DSO.

Worse considering you don't need a different aerial for digital than for analogue.

patty65

At least all you need to watch digital TV is a freeview digital box and if you have a video recorder why can't you use that to feed into the TV as they usually have RF out.

When they switched off 405 line VHF TV I had no choice but to buy a new TV and aerial as the new system transmitted on UHF. Totally incompatible.

And as for colour TV that was another new TV.

derrick

Naf wrote: »

With your broadband connection you could even watch BBC iPlayer, 4OD, ITV player etc. But you'd still need a TV License for this.

You don,t if you only use them as "catch up".


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DCFC79

The switch over has been known for a long time so you could have pre pared yourself for it by buying a freeview box and a new ariel if 1 was needed.

Amanita_2

Techhead wrote: »

You would just have tuned the TV into the signal from the Freeview box. You could then change channel with the Freeview remote. No need to have changed your TV.

No scart remember - the video recorder was using the RF feed. The DVD recorder wouldn't attach to the TV so it was fed via the vhs recorder. Really not practical to add a freeview box to that set up. I suppose I could have bought a new DVD player with an inbuilt freeview tuner but a new TV was cheaper.

Naf wrote: »

Worse considering you don't need a different aerial for digital than for analogue.

Well we did. Some of the older analogue aerials are just not up to the job. We lost all the BBC channels with the digital switchover and most of the promised new ones didn't work either. I think we had all the ITV channels and Channel 4 and that was about it. I wasn't going to replace the aerial until I knew it wasn't going to work. Around here though most people have had to upgrade.

vyle wrote: »

It always amuses me when people act like they're being forced to switch to digital without any warning, as if it was dumped on them last week.

We have all known about the DSO since at least 2003... well I got sky digital in 2001 actually, and the DSO was set for 2005... so it's not like people haven't had a chance to get cheap TVs/set top boxes/aerial upgrades.

It seems everybody is waiting until the last minute, then are shocked to find out that if you try to get things done at the last minute, supply and demand means that it works out more expensive. I've heard of some people being charged £500 for an aerial upgrade close to DSO.

But why should I have to replace perfectly good appliances before I actually have to ? The DSO was actually known about prior to 2000 which was when I replaced the VHS recorder as I remember discussing it with the Curry's salesman.

There were no digital one available then though - at least not affordable and if I' d bought a digital flat screen in plenty of time it would have cost me an awful lot more than now given how they have come down in price.

nobodyspecial

Interesting as the discussion on the pros and cons of digital TV is, how does it in any way justify the refusal to refund the two months remaining on Katiehound's licence? Car tax is refundable for each complete month left to run, I see no reason why the TV licence should be different.