MTR

I DISAGREE WITH EVERYTHING THIS HAS TO SAY. DIGITAL TELEVISON WILL ONLY IMPROVE MORE WHEN THE ANALOUGE SIGNAL IS SWITCHED OFF. AND ALL NEW TV'S HAVE TELETEX THAT IS USABLE ANYWAY. AND YOU DO NOT HAVE TO THROW OUT YOUR OLD TV HELLO ITS CALLED BUYING A SET TOP BOX. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE ANALOUGE SIGNAL THE DIGITAL TELEVISON ISNT AS GOOD NOW AND I BET THE PERSON WHO WROTE THIS HAS A NEW LCD,PLASMA, LED TELEVISION ANYWAY. AND WHEN THE ANALOUGE SIGNAL GETS TURNED OFF THERE WILL BE MORE ROOM IN THE BANDWITH TO CREATE MORE TELEVISION CHANNELS, MORE RADIO STATIONS AVAILABLE SO THIS TURNING OFF THE ANALOUGE SIGNAL IS A GOOD IDEA.

You also buy new video recorders if you want to record different stations without setting the set top box to the correct station first.

admin i also agree with you i have the same problem with my bedrooms set top box as soon as you turn on a light switch near by for example my toilet light switch or even a fan the tv signal drops and the image tears and the sound muting i think it could be the antenna too as i had found out from my local electronics shop and it also depends what area your in to for example my area gets moderate reception but elsewhere the reception is better.

Maybve you can create another 100 websites so so can complain about everything you don't like.

Or try cave living.

I'm sure you're saving TONNES of green house gases by setting up page after page of anti-technology rants.

No-one FORCES you to do anything. If you don't like what's offered there's plenty of alternatives. Read a book. Go for a walk .

Think about that .

I own a pocket transistor AM/FM radio that can pick up the FM audio signal of TV stations. By switching off analogue TV, they will be denying me the right to be able to listen to TV broadcasts on my portable radio!

Whilst I can see the points of e-waste and inconveniencing people who may not want a new TV/STB, I don't agree with the rest.
Digital TV is the only way to go;
You're getting
- Better picture (especially if your upgrading to a HDTV)
- More channels
- Freeing up precious frequency space to offer things like more channels/digital radio etc

You mention needing a strong antenna for digital?
Well of coure you do. Its digital? either on or off, with nothing in between. Once analogue is turned off we will see stronger signals as the transmitters will be able to dedicate full power to transmitting the digital signal.

As for the EMI problems, most people with existing outdoor antenna setups like yourself would most likely be running either single or dual shielded cable in the roof. With the switch to digital it is highly recommended to upgrade the cable over to quad shielded type. This would stop any EMI problems from adjacent power cables.

Nobody is forcing anyone to spend money on a STB/HDTV. Its just the way things are if you want to take a step forward into the future of digital.

As for;
"It is also a scam. A scam to force people to buy into Digital TVs and set top boxes. A scam to make perfectly functioning equipment obsolete"

All it is doing is making perfectly OBSOLETE equipment non functional. This is what is required for mass adoption of a new technology.

"It gives consumers an excuse to upgrade to power-hungry big-screen TVs"

Have you done any research on new TV's? Newer technologies such as LED lit LCD TV's have 5 star energy ratings.

"A typical 50 inch plasma panel can consume around 500 watts, compared to only 150 or 200 watts for a CRT TV."

Are you comparing to a 50" CRT? No.

A 32" LCD can use as little as 80w, a comparative sized CRT uses 220w

Let me know if you have any other myths I can disprove for you.

to be taken more seriously you might not want to have such a one-sided argument. You talk about the disadvantages only, showing ignorance on your side because you won't even look into the subject properly.

Things change, technology advances, it's a fact of life. If things weren't changing you'd be dead.

You have credibility, this "message to the government" is pointless

To make matters worse, the current digital TV system is MEPG2. This will be scrapped before the end of the decade and replaced by MEPG4 with no backwards compatability. This will make all current digital TV's instantly obsolete. Some years after that, MEPG5 will be introduced, causing the same effect again. The best option is buy a set top box with your analogue TV. It will be far less money waisted, when this current digital TV system goes the way of the dodo. The whole idea is to force people to keep buying TV's every six years or so, which will be be big profits to the businesses.

Ok, I accepted that digital tv was going to replace analogue sooner or later so I did the right thing and bought 3 Standard Definition set-top boxes for my 3 CRT's (no point getting the hd boxes as the resolution on a crt isn't going to get any better). I don't like to see waste and for free-to-air tv crt's are perfectly usable.
Where I slipped up is that I assumed anything transmitted digitally would be picked up by all SD or HD boxes with HD providing the better resolution. How wrong I was when ABC24 came online and started transmitting in HD only. I now have 3 SD boxes that are useless for any HD transmitted channels and will need to buy HD if I want to see these new channels...bugger!

is cool digital
is rubbish anlogue

This is the biggest scam ever and no one in Govt Talks about it, Analogue was supposed to be switched off in 2006, it started transmitting on 1 July 2009 and investment from the TV stations transmitting in multiple formats (with no extra advertising monies except from Government, by the way where is it stated in the budget just how much has gone into supporting the Digital format for the last 10 years and what is the forecast for the next 3 years of subsidized transmission), the manufacturers of digital equipment and the installers of cables and antennas was immense. Now In 2013 The Labor Government will have had 13 years to get this right, (sounds like the Ticketing system for buses, ferries and Trains eh) The BER and Solar and Roof Pink Bats etc etc etc. and I can see no end in sight, I see that Fox didn't waste any time Hi Jacking the Government campaign to their own purposes with an advertising campaign on free to air stating that Digital TV was supplied by them effectively hijacking the Government Advertising Campaign over to them. Every one I spoke to thought Digital TV was Fox-tel not Free to Air, very clever and not by any means illegal just smart targeting of advertising dollar. So now where are we? Still waiting, new target 2013! you don't have to be Einstein to figure out were on The Good Ship Kenneally with no rudder, drifting in the Great Barrier Reef and an Indonesian Fishing Boat Captain as Pilot. God Help us all, We the unwilling, led by the unqualified. Have been doing so much, with so little, for so long. We now attempt the impossible with nothing. The impossible being just plain living day to day, Thanks Ms Kenneally I know this is not of your doing but if you're not the Part of the Cure you're part of the problem, Leave us quietly with your Million dollar Pension completely un earned walk into the night like so many inept, incompetent self important Labor Premiers before you and bludge your life away at the tax payers expense. Homer
Simpson says DOH!

You really are a douchebag. You're mentality: It's new and it's change so I hate it.

Today there have been widespread thunderstorms in Victoria. My normally interference-free digital TV reception has turned into absolute mush this evening, to the state where it is near unwatchable.

Nearby thunderclouds and lightning has wreaked havoc with our digital reception. My picture is pixellating and tearing up and the sound is poping and muting quite badly with each lightning stroke.

I have resorted to watching analogue TV tonight. At least the audio is fine. And when there is a lightning strike, the picture becomes snowy for a split second, but is otherwise fine. The sound is OK. Thank goodness they haven't switched off the analogue transmission yet!

I would strongly advize that if anyone wants to buy digital equipment to purchase a cheap set top box and use it with your existing analogue TV. This saves money and avoids adding to landfill, espectially when in only a few years to come MEPG4 will be introduced, making most existing diigital TV's completely redundant. A set top box is cheaper to replace and all set top boxes should work with existing analogue TV's and VCR's.

What? Digital TV = BAD??

Hmmm, you can stay in your cave weirdo.

You make no sense and are irrelevant. If this conversation had a more organic evolutionary twist then you would have died. I would have eaten you.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I am one of the broadcast engineers who is currently working on the upgrading of digital television transmitters. They are quite affective and power outputs will be boosted when analogue is switched off (if done before it may interfere with analogue TV).

After reading the above posts I can see both sides have made some very relevant points. The first is the simple fact that there is little or no option for residents (who are struggling with high living expenses)to continue receiving analogue with equipment they already own. Yes they are being forced to change (they need news programs and entertainment like to rest of us).

Yes EMI interference will happen when the cables running through a home are not adequately shielded. Quad core sheilding would solve this issue in most circumstances. However, digital transmission is not perfect either. Electrical thunder storms does affect the signal and there is little than can be done about this (just like a black out - it happens).

There is no need to panic about MPEG2 broadcasts being phased out and MPEG4 taking its place. Almost all quality brand digital TV's and set top boxes have been MPEG2/4 capable for some time. Channel 9 ran old state of origin 3D test transmissions in MPEG4 for several months. Many existing TV's and set top boxes were able to receive this. It's only first generation equipment that were MPEG2 only and these were introduced in 1999-2002 around 10 years ago.

Power consumption has improved too. However the bigger the engine the more fuel your car uses. So the bigger the screen.... and CRT television were not generally available in the sizes that todays, LCD's, Plasma and LED televisions are. If you want big you pay for it.

The real scam is in the fact that only large regional centres and capital cities will have digital terrestrial television broadcasts. Rural and remote areas, that have relied on their own council operated self-help analogue transmitter sites, will lose all terrestrial services and will be forced to install a satellite dish and MPEG4 satellite decoder to get the digital channels. Yes that will work but if they have two, three or more TV's then they will have a significant expense just to add a satellite decoder on top of each TV (plus new 2500Mhz splitter/s installed in and the analogue 1000Mhz splitter removed).

In areas where TV is then delivered via satellite only there will be no service for travellers such as those towing caravans and many motels will not be able to afford an expensive satellite MATV head end upgrade. This is Senator Conroy's and the DBCDE solution outside of capital cities. Oh yeah and I forgot to say,rural viewers will also have to buy a digital TV with a HDMI interface if they want digital quality image and sound. Using the AV outputs will only deliver an analogue signal. The ACMA are not issuing licenses for these communities to retransmit digital television sourced from the VAST C1 platform. Now that is the real scam.

Maybe there is a conspiracy to get people to buy new equipment on a regular basis. The fashion industry tell us that we need new season clothes when those we already have keep us covered and warm or stylish but they don't switch off or ban your old clothes so you must buy new. Yes I think there are plenty of self intereted businesses and politicians making a ppretty penny as a result.

As for green house gases, my thoughts on this subject is that our Federal Government should be subsidising more solar power solutions (and wind and hydro alternatives) instead of making coal generated electricity more expensive via a carbon tax. The same could apply for new technology vehicles being subsidies again instead of penalising those who MUST use exisiting electricity and fuels....but what do I know.

John (www.stra.com.au)

Well after my last post above, and to my absolute surprise, only the next generation of 3D digital televisions will have MPEG4 tuners. Current model TV's are only MPEG2 compatible. However, even the cheap $50 set-top-boxes are both MPEG2 and MPEG4 compatible.

Imagine spending $5000.00 on the largest, latest and greatest digital TV only to find you need a $50 set top box for it to work. This is no accident. Anyway you look at it, rural communities get stung.

It’s been 8 years since most manufactures phased out analogue TV production, more for some and on the 17 June 2015, the world will go fully digital. Only a few countries will still transmit and for the most part analogue transmissions on all levels will become redundant and not protected. So whinging about it is a waste of time. It will not stop the change over.

No one can possibly bitch about the price of Digital TV equipment now. Pensioners will get it for free if they want and $20 set top boxes are about now if you look for them. Unless your antenna is so old it has flat ribbon and rusted parts (which means you have spent nothing in 20 years) you do not need to spend huge amounts to get it up and running, if anything at all. Once analogue is switched off digital signals will improve dramatically, just ask anyone from the US who lives in a small town that was also worried about reception when the US turned off analogue in 2009.

While recently travelling through an area of Victoria which has already turned off analogue TV, we stood in a takeaway shop late one Friday afternoon listening to the locals whinging like crazy about having to change to digital. The extra cost, the hassle etc etc. and then the conversation went around to – how good it was actually to have more ABC kids channels to watch and keep the young ones quiet. But oh the cost was so horrendous they all continued to moan. The loudest in the shop was a woman who was buying a big load of burgers, chips and odd looking things deep fried on sticks - for what appeared to be her 4 kids bouncing about in the back of the waiting car and a man sitting in the passenger seat drinking cans of rum and coke and chain smoking. She was on a rant about having to buy a set top box and spend $80 on some bloke to do something to the tv antenna. She was still whinging as she passed over two $50 bills for a box of bright coloured drinks, greasy takeaways and two packets of cigarettes. Friday night dinner and smokes = $92. She didn’t whinge about that though.

Just accept it. Most countries in the world are switching over to digital and turning off their analogue systems. Many TV programs are now being produced to give their best on digital. It is also very expensive for Television stations to transmit in analogue and requires a lot more power than digital let alone the cost of maintaining to separate technologies. I take on board the last comment from budgie about what people spend their money on. People complain about buying a set top box when I have seen a digital HD set top box in a discount store for as low as $29.99. Some people should get their priorities right and move to what is a better system

I'm all for analog tv getting turned off and there will be more room on the vhf for dab+ digital radio and the uhf for new stations and 4g mobile phones and modems. I have herd that am radio in the major cities in Australia is getting turned off in around 2013 fm radio that i haven't been a set date because of a lot of reagonal areas that mainly uses fm radio like uhf for tv.

I'm in the UK. Our old 28 inch 4:3 set used 128 watts of power. We upgraded to a Panasonic 37 inch set and it only uses 147 watts - not much more. I would use the full 147 watts if you had the brightness and contrast set at maximum level. We don't so that means it uses less than what it says and it has proper on/off switch so you don't leave it on standby.

I have the Samsung 3d tv and they come with a dvb -t2 ready tuner and i have herd that dvb-t2 will be broadcast on the uhf band in major cities and i have been told that is why in major cities the tv stations use vhf band 3 for digital tv and i remember that the 3d test transmission they use ch 50 uhf using dvb-t2 and i had a samsung 32". The 58" plasma that i use and it rearly goes over 1 amp of power at most times it uses 1/2 an amp of power depends of the 50" panasonic plasma tv before the samsung used 2 amps of power most of the time and i find plasma tv's cheaper to run then lcd because when watching a movie in a dark room and plasma is like a fluorescent light and more pixels that a lit up the more power used compare to a lcd with a fluro light or led lights behind the lcd crystals and the back light or side light stays on all the time

I'm surprised to see this because they've just turned off the analoge single in UK and the exact same things are happening. I had no idea they did this in other countries too. I also saw an American website talking about the same thing. My video recorder won't record one channel while watching another anymore, also our Teletext has been replaced by digital teletext which is actually slower than the old one. They even dispplay advertising while waiting for a page to download. It's crazy and I've seen televisions dumped at the roadside. Then the government claim that new TVs use less electricity so therefore it's better for the environment! It's all a scam.

The main problem that worries me is the fact that we are all being forced to change to digital TV or do without TV completely. We are supposed to live in a democratic country and I can definitely say that I have never voted in favour of closing analogue TV. Now, if that is the same situation as the general public, then why is it even happening? The government is supposed to represent the people, but it seems most governments these days only represent their own interests. I am sorry, but I can never accept this change, I can only grit my teeth and tolerate it.

I have done everything asked - digital aerial, digital tv - tried a set top box, tried a digital recorder - all still give me worse less reliable tv than analogue. With the wind here at the moment I get every third word. Last night I watched analogue - at least it kept a steady picture. They should have matched or received a better signal before turning it off. I can not afford pay tv so I guess I am stuck with it!!

I don't live in metropolitan Sydney, so I cannot pick up digital tv even with a set-top box. I was rather forced into an earlier than planned switchover to digital when my reliable old analogue tv blew up. It has so far cost me well over a thousand dollars I don't have to get the upgrade, and I am about to fork out more so that I will be able to record tv, as my less than two year old analogue vcr won't record digital I recently learned.

I am on a very very low income. God knows how old age pensioners and others will cope with this much enforced change and expense. Most will sit in the dark (can't afford power either) without the company of television, I suspect.

Well as everyone else has had their say I think I might chip in as well whilst I was excited too buy a new LCD digital tv I am not very happy with it. It almost cost me $300 the other day as the TV kept losing signal and pixalating, and we couldnt watch tv. Well oneday i was in the laundry perfect tv this day not a problem turned on the dryer and washing machine tv loses it signal and pixalating, turn power points off TV returns too normal happens everytime I use these electricals and I never had a problem with the analog TV I honestly think I was better off with the old tv and should have brought a set top box whilst the modern tv units are nice, slim and attractive and the Analog ones are big, bulky, heavy and ungly I think I would have prefer the ugly too the new. Im very dissapointed with my new LCD Digital Tv for sure.

Please do not switchover the analogue system. We love our old tv, very clear reception and beautiful tv. Our tv does not emit so much heat and rays as the digital ones. The screen of the digital ones are too glaring and emits so much radiation and heat and would not want to change our analogue tv with one that makes house hot. Why change something that is perfectly working, and we are so happy with our tv and its reception. Could you just make digital switchover optional? for those who prefer them. Why turn off the analogue and wasting all those perfectly working tv.

thanks Please see website below.


http://webdevsys.com/dontTurnOffAnalogueTVAust.htm

Old Age Pensioners and other full Centrelink payment recipients are contacted before the switchover period begins in each region and advised they're eligible for the Household Assistance Scheme: it provides a set top box; also an antenna if required, and its installation. If no reliable digital signal is available, it'll provide a full VAST installation. So there's systems in place for the most vulnerable.

As budgie advised up above, analog equipment hasn't been produced by any of the major manufacturers in years. Most countries in the world have either already switched to digital or are in the process of doing so. Australia doesn't have the manufacturing base to go it alone, so the change is unavoidable.

Re: John's comments about rural communities being left out. The commercial broadcasters negotiated with shire councils and community groups all over the country to upgrade their self-help sites to digital. Some they didn't, and those councils/community groups still had the option to upgrade themselves (the same way they did originally to get analog).

In cases where the broadcasters didn't take over a site, and the council/community couldn't upgrade, the government provides a satellite subsidy scheme for those specific communities at switchover time.

The commercial broadcasters have also installed dozens of new infill transmitters in each state in areas that didn't have transmitters before.

What a crock this digital tv rubbish is. We are being had. Trying to watch but there is a strong wind blowing outside and both picture and signal keep disappearing. I don't usually have a problem but bad weather makes tv watching a pain in the butt. Who ever it was that came up with this idea should have been sent out of the room to wash their mouth out with soap.

Pay TV companies are laughing all the way to the bank since DTV was introduced. Why not go back to the analog system with more work done on picture and sound quality.

It is a bit like when Video Tape machines came out. Beta was a much better picture but the powers to be went to VHS tape recording. As for that money grubbing up himself Federal politician Stephen Conroy and the crock of crap NBN it is costing the Tax payer billions and Conroy and Telstra are in cahoots to rip us all off.