Yes my friends, the day is finally upon us. Analog TV is about to become history, at least in one part of the UK anyway. Copeland, in the North West of England will become the first region in the UK to terminate all analog broadcasting from the 17 October to the end on 14 November 2007. After this date if you want to watch TV of any description you will need a digital decoder. Looks like if you live in Copeland you getting Digital TV weither you want it or not.
So first things first, what will you actually need. Well the essential is the good old digital set top box. Its been with us for a few years now and was a nice novelty, without which you simple will not be able to watch TV.
Analog CRT or LCD HDTV it will not matter (unless of course you have a HDTV with a built in tuner), without a Digital receiver there will literally no other way to receive a TV broadcast signal.
In a sexy super techno lusty way this is great stuff, but in a practical sense there are a few little nasties lucking out there which it is good to be aware of.
Fristly, out goes the video recorder. Remember them? Well if you still have one, you probably used it only for recording TV programs. Yes thats right, after the digital changeover in Copeland next month they are totally useless. Well not exactly. You will still be able to record the broadcast (in analog) but only the channel.
Want to record, get a digital recorder. End of story.
More TVs equals more digital set top boxes which means you will have to fork out more £££. Another reason why HDTV sales, especially those with integrated Digital Tuners are, this year in the UK, going to go through the roof. The Roll out will be going on for 4 years (till 2012) but I think once entire regions go digital you will see the pickup in HDTV sets accelerate. Remember when broadband was something someone else had?
Thats HDTV, digital everything really, in about 2 years time.
