The great analogue switch-off
Discussion
I turned on the TV with external aerial at about ten past midnight last night (this morning?) and all analogue channels I looked for had gone. There was no change at that time to the digital multiplexes. When I got up this morning and rescanned the set, I had gained the multiplex with ITV1, Chnnel 4 and 5.
There are still some multiplexes I can't get due to my location (just north of Ipswich). The final change happens sometime in June next year.
I now have lots of channels to ignore on Freeview that I already ignore on Freesat.
There are still some multiplexes I can't get due to my location (just north of Ipswich). The final change happens sometime in June next year.
I now have lots of channels to ignore on Freeview that I already ignore on Freesat.
FlossyThePig said:
I now have lots of channels to ignore on Freeview that I already ignore on Freesat.
Yeah, but you've also got the channels for free that you'd have to pay for on FreeSat...Dave etc...I had FreeSat because the area I live in in a badspot for freeview - hated it as other than garbage like the BBCs and movies4men (?!) there was f
kall on it. Got Sky soon after!
I set the thing to 'record' and went to bed.
When I analysed at the recording today the signal had been switched off just after midnight, so I got the last 35minutes of analogue transmission. Disappointlingly the last programme was a rather tedious 'documentary' about a dead musician. Then a few seconds of Alexander Armstrong introducing something and then it just cut to snow and static.
I thought they might have made more of what is really quite a momentous occasion; the end of a service that began in Alexandra Palace back in the (I think) 1920's. Could we not have had at least a continuity announcer saying: 'And this brings to an end 84 years of analogue television transmissions by the BBC; good night'?
Anyway, I fired up the (HD) TV this evening expecting to find the main channels in HD.
Except they weren't.
A quick retune failed to make them HD, but it did find the following:
50: BBC 1 HD
51: ITV1 HD
52: Channel 4 HD
54: BBC HD
BBC1 HD is the same programme as BBC1 but in position 50 not 1 (bloody inconvenient)
ITV1 HD was showing '8 out of 10 cats'; most worthy of HD...
And '54: BBC HD' is a new channel altogether!
So after all the hullabaloo over 'Digital/HD' and the billions spent on new tellies, set-top boxes and advertising, we have:
FOUR CHANNELS.
In other words, back to 1982, except a bit sharper.
When I analysed at the recording today the signal had been switched off just after midnight, so I got the last 35minutes of analogue transmission. Disappointlingly the last programme was a rather tedious 'documentary' about a dead musician. Then a few seconds of Alexander Armstrong introducing something and then it just cut to snow and static.
I thought they might have made more of what is really quite a momentous occasion; the end of a service that began in Alexandra Palace back in the (I think) 1920's. Could we not have had at least a continuity announcer saying: 'And this brings to an end 84 years of analogue television transmissions by the BBC; good night'?
Anyway, I fired up the (HD) TV this evening expecting to find the main channels in HD.
Except they weren't.
A quick retune failed to make them HD, but it did find the following:
50: BBC 1 HD
51: ITV1 HD
52: Channel 4 HD
54: BBC HD
BBC1 HD is the same programme as BBC1 but in position 50 not 1 (bloody inconvenient)
ITV1 HD was showing '8 out of 10 cats'; most worthy of HD...
And '54: BBC HD' is a new channel altogether!
So after all the hullabaloo over 'Digital/HD' and the billions spent on new tellies, set-top boxes and advertising, we have:
FOUR CHANNELS.
In other words, back to 1982, except a bit sharper.
Pondered Scrotum said:
So there's still an analogue TV signal then..? With BBC1, 2, ITV and Ch4?
Haven't checked. Whether it gets to my TV by analogue, digital or fruitbat isn't important; the disappointment is that so few channels are transmitting in HD. I was (naively) expecting all channels from BBC and ITV to become HD overnight (though I appreciate some of the programming would still be SD as shot). So it was a bit odd to tune into BBC1 news last night expecting it to be in Super Eyepiercing Crispomatic and find it still in SD.Not being taken with the drama about Charles Darwin I ended up watching Extreme Engineering on Quest instead - shot in SD and 4:3...
HD obviously needs twice as much bandwidth as SD, and now analogue has gone, there is all that lovely spare bandwidth to do it, no?
Simpo Two said:
HD obviously needs twice as much bandwidth as SD, and now analogue has gone, there is all that lovely spare bandwidth to do it, no?
I guess it depends on compression they can use on the HD digital signal vs the analog one in SD...I'm not sure if it's just TV's getting better so you notice it, but the ghosting on lots of TV these days on normal Sky channels is annoying. Sky Movies watching a dark movie the other night was rather horrible in places.
I assume that Sky can now compress some channels more, making them worse, and use more bandwidth on the HD channels!? Ergo they are just making normal stuff worse to make you need to pay for HD to get a good quality again!?
All very annoying.
Virgin cable seems lots better.
Dave
Pondered Scrotum said:
FlossyThePig said:
I now have lots of channels to ignore on Freeview that I already ignore on Freesat.
Yeah, but you've also got the channels for free that you'd have to pay for on FreeSat...DaveGassing Station | Home Cinema & Hi-Fi | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff