Originally Posted by entwisi (Post 511252)

The US has the widest spread of wealth in the world. Vast ghettos of extremely poor people and of course teh richest in the world.

Originally Posted by LancYorkYankee (Post 511277)

That may be true Ian. However, most of us ~80% are in the middle class range.

I believe there are many other countries around the world, especially in Africa/India, with excessively rich leaders/dictators and the rest of their populations ~90% extremely poor.

These 90% are also much poorer then the poorest American. We do not have people forced to starve in the streets, live in shanty towns, nor denied health care. Just to clarify, it is illegal for ANYBODY to be denied health care by any hospital.

Our "poor" for the most part have roofs over their heads, television sets, telephones, indoor plumbing, fresh water, electricity (heat in winter/air conditioning in summer), food, health care, education, etc., all available for them.

Originally Posted by blazey (Post 512258)

Can someone explain the digital switchover to me in English? (in other words please dont link a website to me)

Originally Posted by Busman747 (Post 511241)

Are you all ready for the digital switchover? Are you concerned that your equipment is not up to scratch? Can't afford to change from analogue?........Move to the U.S!:D

Interesting that the American government recognises that some Americans may not be able to afford the updating of equipment, What are the chances in the UK?:rofl38:

Originally Posted by entwisi (Post 512282)

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

Originally Posted by shillelagh (Post 512434)

I cant wait till it goes digital then i'll cancel the tv licence and sit back and enjoy my books and use the net more. Mainly because i dont even get channel 5 here so a freeview box is no good for me. And im not forking out for a new aerial, tv etc just so i can watch some crappy tv programmes. The ones i do watch i'll sweet talk my family to tape them for me.