Wednesday 2nd December the freeview digital changeover will be complete in the Granada region. Also the power at the transmitter becomes 10 times stronger. Wow does that make our aerial glow? Probably not, I’ll add just in case someone thinks it does.
On that day all you’ll get is a crackly screen if you switch on without a digital tuner. All channels will only be watchable in digital format.
As if that wasn’t enough it was announced this week that Winter Hill transmitter will go to HD standard for Manchester in December 2009 and in March 2010 the rest of the Granada region will go HD. In addition to the non-HD that is.
Does that mean that if you bought a new set top box for the changeover you’ll need another? Also does that mean you will need an HD TV? You’ll need to check your box but it will need an HD compatible box and TV if you want to watch HD. Although you can buy TV’s with freeview or satellite tuners inside that don’t need a box.
What about my video recorder? Yes, it will only video at the standard it’s able to be tuned to. Digital standard or HD 920P etc.
I’ve never been sure exactly what HD TV is. You read 920P and 1080P TV’s are HD. I also read that Sky HD and FreeSat HD have better HD which is 1920P, that’s over twice as good definition as 920. Then there is framerate or the number of times the picture is refreshed. Also MPEG4 and DVD-T2. MPEG4 is a video format like MP3 is a sound format, and DVD-T2 is a new transmission format for HD.
The flat screen TV’s have plasma, lcd or led screens. LED are the latest. They have light emitting diodes, led, behind the lcd screen that give a smoother light coverage and can be switched off in sections to give total black. Apparently total black is difficult on TV’s. Just to make life a bit more complicated each manufacturer does it a bit differently.
3D is on its way. Will that need red and green spectacles? I don’t know although it’s hard to imagine how it can be done without some kind of eye vision adjuster.
If you look too deep it’s hellish. We have a cathode ray tube TV which seems pretty good to me and is too heavy to move.
I could go on about radio as well. The government wants us to throw away our FM radios and go DAB by 2015 even though DAB is an inferior sound quality.