First digital TV switch date set
First digital TV switch date set: “The digital TV switchover will begin in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in mid-October – paving the way for the rest of the UK.”
You know, in many regards the USA is far behind the UK, and this is one of them. Starting this year analog broadcasts are being phased out and replaced by digital transmissions only. I remember when I first moved over here, I called up AT&T to get a cable box, and was enticed into a 3 month for a digibox deal.
I was so dumbstruck by the the digibox AT&T sent. It was terrible, yes it had like 4823 channels, but it had no interactive features and it even displayed advertisements all over the UI cluttering it up to a point of being pretty unusable.
And I was paying $30 a month for this! In the UK I had paid $100 to own a over the air digibox of my own. I received 60 channels (more than anough thankyou), and had tons of interactive features. Watching sporting events was awesome. I remember watching Wimbledon and viewing different matches on different courts using a Picture in Picture setup – the BBC has this digital stuff down.
There is still a licence fee to pay (which is around $200) to even own a TV, but when you get so much good quality programming for
free, and provided to you in a very clever way….
Ah well, my current Comcast service is better, and comparable to what I left in the UK about 5 years ago, so we are making progress. The bill, however, is now about the same per month what my parents, and sister pay in a year. And, even tho I have like a million channels, I only ever really watch less than 10 channels.
