Digital TV: The way forwards.

The analogue TV signal is to be turned off sometime over the next few years and then we are all to be a part of the digital revolution which is meant to mean better TV and sound quality for all.


Now if digital is meant to be so good can anyone explain why during the last 20mins of SG-1 and the first 30mins of BSG last night I had to endure no sound and constant picture freeze.


This was caused by the rain and wind battering hell out of my house.


Shirley/surely the digital revolution is meant to be over all this garbage. (I know you are if your on cable, but if you have cable you have to put up with NTL so HA!)


at times I feel analogue > Digital

 

Analogue suffers the same problems.

 

Not as much as Digital Richie. Most of the time I can't watch freeview for an hour without at least one break up in picture. It's worse on some channels than others, for example ITV and C4 seem bad. I can watch analogue downstairs for hours and don't get any break ups.

Overall digital is better because of the sharper pircture, widescreen broadcasting on most channels, choice of channels, interactivity etc. But they really do need to sort out these teething problems before the whole country is forced into digital.

 

If you have a satellite dish it will get affected by bad weather or high winds unless it is in a very sheltered location. Back when Sky was analog the picture would degenerate with 'sparklies' but it would take a real beating to make it go all black. Digital isn't as forgiving - usually it is either there or it isn't. I have an 80cm motorized dish atop a pole and I get some interruption when it is very windy. The normal Sky dishes are smaller than that - 60 cm in Scotland and 45 cm everywhere else, I believe. However most Sky dishes are more sheltered than my setup since they are usually against a wall of the house. My dish has to peek over a roof to see the satellites.

 

I have to agree on this one, for now I think Analogue > Digital.

Yes, with digital the sound is better, picture sharper, colours more vivid, but it isn't as reliable or solid as analogue and teletext on analogue is far superior. Teletext on digital takes ages to get going and if you make one mistake, you've had it! Of cause digital has more channels too, but I don't have much confidence when I'm watching it as I feel that at any given minute something will go wrong.

I'm the same with HD stuff too. Sometimes I think better quality images isn't better at all. I love the soft focus films from the 70s and 80s have, for example, which gets lost somewhat with all this HD mumbo-jumbo.

EDIT: I'm also refering to just the freeview set-top boxes, which don't suffer from bad weather but do suffer from gremlins in general.

 

I got a settop box for xmas and I can't get a signal on it, but then again the analogue signal is no better for me