Digital Switchover Phase 1 NOW LIVE ...
BBC2 Analogue signal now dead ...
and 28 days to go until the remaining analogue signals are switched off.
Well, after all the anticipation the big switchover has finally begun: the BBC2 analogue signal has been switched off in the Whitehaven TV area (including most of Copeland) and a whole range of digital offerings have gone live. All the remaining analogue signals for terrestial TV channels will go in four weeks on 14th November
I have just taken a few minutes to see if everything works. As expected, on those of our Televisions which have not yet had a set-top box added, Border TV had moved and BBC2 was not working.
Took me a few minutes to reconfigure the set-top box on our main TV. When I had done so the new digital BBC2 was available, and several new digital channels including BBC News 24 and cBBC have also come online.
I then took a new digital television out of the box and plugged it in: the new set promptly found a range of digital services including all the BBC channels.
Have not yet tested our new digital recorder.
It has been a bit of a time-consuming business, and far from cheap for many people. The support scheme aimed at a pensioner with one TV assumes a cost of around £40. This is paid for for pensioners aged over 75 on pensions credit and disabled or parlially sighted people on disability benefit.
£40 would be enough to cover switchover costs for a home with one TV and no recording facilities if the aerial does not need replacing. But it will not be enough for most people.
A family with four televisions who want to be able to record one channel while watching another would need to spend at the very least £200 on four of the cheapest set-top-boxes and a bottom of the range digital recorder.
A family of arch telly addicts who can afford it could easily spend more than a thousand pounds on new digital TV kit. If you are not a complete TV fanatic but want to spend a bit more than just bottom of the range kit, you could easily spend perhaps £500 to £600.
Let me justify that last statement. Suppose you have three TVs. Let's assume you phase out the oldest one and replace it with a small HDD and digital ready TV set, get one middle of the range set top box for your main family TV, and a bottom of the range box for your third TV, and finally buy a mid range digital recorder. That will cost you between £500 and £600.
There will also be an added annual cost for viewers in a number of properties with s shared aerials: when I raised this at the last meeting of Copeland council I was told that this had not been finalised.
While I was writing this blog entry I was watching BBC News 24 on the new TV, and a news report Whitehaven featuring Ford Ennals (the CEO of Digital UK) on Whitehaven harbour went dead half way through the interview. Let's just hope this proves to be an isolated problem ...
and 28 days to go until the remaining analogue signals are switched off.
Well, after all the anticipation the big switchover has finally begun: the BBC2 analogue signal has been switched off in the Whitehaven TV area (including most of Copeland) and a whole range of digital offerings have gone live. All the remaining analogue signals for terrestial TV channels will go in four weeks on 14th November
I have just taken a few minutes to see if everything works. As expected, on those of our Televisions which have not yet had a set-top box added, Border TV had moved and BBC2 was not working.
Took me a few minutes to reconfigure the set-top box on our main TV. When I had done so the new digital BBC2 was available, and several new digital channels including BBC News 24 and cBBC have also come online.
I then took a new digital television out of the box and plugged it in: the new set promptly found a range of digital services including all the BBC channels.
Have not yet tested our new digital recorder.
It has been a bit of a time-consuming business, and far from cheap for many people. The support scheme aimed at a pensioner with one TV assumes a cost of around £40. This is paid for for pensioners aged over 75 on pensions credit and disabled or parlially sighted people on disability benefit.
£40 would be enough to cover switchover costs for a home with one TV and no recording facilities if the aerial does not need replacing. But it will not be enough for most people.
A family with four televisions who want to be able to record one channel while watching another would need to spend at the very least £200 on four of the cheapest set-top-boxes and a bottom of the range digital recorder.
A family of arch telly addicts who can afford it could easily spend more than a thousand pounds on new digital TV kit. If you are not a complete TV fanatic but want to spend a bit more than just bottom of the range kit, you could easily spend perhaps £500 to £600.
Let me justify that last statement. Suppose you have three TVs. Let's assume you phase out the oldest one and replace it with a small HDD and digital ready TV set, get one middle of the range set top box for your main family TV, and a bottom of the range box for your third TV, and finally buy a mid range digital recorder. That will cost you between £500 and £600.
There will also be an added annual cost for viewers in a number of properties with s shared aerials: when I raised this at the last meeting of Copeland council I was told that this had not been finalised.
While I was writing this blog entry I was watching BBC News 24 on the new TV, and a news report Whitehaven featuring Ford Ennals (the CEO of Digital UK) on Whitehaven harbour went dead half way through the interview. Let's just hope this proves to be an isolated problem ...
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