Quote:
Originally Posted by blazey
Can someone explain the digital switchover to me in English? (in other words please dont link a website to me)
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Blazey, in as simple a terms as I can probably manage.
From day 1 TV has been broadcast in whats called analogue. you don't need to know how this carries the picture but it does. It is very inefficient so in their wisdom some techie geeks came up with a way of sending more data (more channels or higher definition) down the same signal by converting it to 1 and 0's this is a digital signal.
The non digital TVs quite simply don't know how to convert this new fangled stream to a picture so you need some new wizzy kit to do it.
In real terms we get TV via one of the following
Aerial
Sky(Satellite)
Cable
Sky went digital years ago (about 7/8 IIRC). Cable also went digital years ago. If you get your TV from one of these you will be fine.
If you get it over an aerial you need a digi box ( usually referred as Freeview )
Basically these boxes take the new signal and convert it into something your TV can understand. Some new TVs have this magic already built in and will have the "Digital Tick" logo on.
Unfortunately people will forget that their Video/DVDrecorders also need the digital signal converting(unless they too are digital ready). You either need to feed the decoded signal through your Video etc first or have a second digi box so you can watch one channel whilst taping another.
There will be some slight generalistaions in the above but its pretty much all you need to consider. If you (or anyone else) wants to say what equipment they have I'm sure myself and others will be happy to recommend what you need to do. I'll start a seprate thread for this purpose
Hope that helps