According to some posts in Dec 2005, analogue TV would stop in 2007!!
Is that true?
What happened?
When's it's next schedule for termination, which'll probably be postponed, again ?!

_______
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy will release the switch off timetable this week. It will be reported in Whats happening in Australia Strand
It will be a staged switchoff rather than a blanket switchoff. All but 8 high power transmitters have digital brothers. However there are many lower powered analog transmitters which are yet to get a digital brother.
SD STBs have all but disappeared from the stores because of the supplementary HD programming on the commercial stations. These can be used on standard analog PAL sets in the same detail as they always have.

AlanH

Thanks Alan!
So what happened to the 2007 date?

Delayed,

based on slow digital takeup thanks partly to disinterest, cost & Howard's failure to adequately fund digital blackspots.

Do you mind if I call you '____' ?

Hi

There was never a date of 2007 despite the ill-informed posts referred to in 2005!

The facts are:

- The legislation for the conversion from analog to digital was enacted in about 1998.
- The legislation defined a minimum simulcast period of 8 years subject to review.
- The legislation defined a simulcast start date of 1/1/2001 for the five metro markets (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth).
- The legislation required the ABA to define a simulcast start date for the regional and remote markets before 1/1/2004.
- The ACMA defined a simulcast date for most regional markets of 1/4/2003 with some solus markets being 31/12/2003.
- So, the end of the metro simulcast period was 31/12/2008 and most metro markets was mid to end of 2011.

- Late last year the minister extended the simulcast period by 1 year to allow the timetable to be created. This changes is what confused AlanH and others into thinking the minister had actually decreed a switchoff date for metro markets of the end of 2009!

- Legislation has recently gone through parliament to enable the timetable announced yesterday. Effectively the metro markets have been delayed an extra 5 years from end of 2008 to end of 2013. Some markets such as Mildura and the SA markets have effectively had their simulcast period bought forward.


Ray

So what will happen? Will people with analogue TVs no longer be able to view anything?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/poor-m...9189446259.html

December 2013 is the end of analogue.

TV's with analogue-only tuners can still be used to receive digital TV, by connecting a digital set top box.

If people do not have some form of digital tuner when analogue TV signals are turned off, they will have no FTA reception, other than via some pay tv services, eg: Foxtel.

Foxtel is digital too.

In spite of advertising, too many people do not know that there are other chanels on digital; I lent a stb to someone reasonably with it who did not realise there was an ABC2.
Outisde the big smoke there is not much on HD at the moment. I was looking forward to seeing the advertised cricket on HD. It's not there, just promo loops.
JB

Do people with analogue TVs who want to view the HD stations (of course they wont be in HD) will they need a HD STB or a SD STB?

You need an HD box to watch HD channels.

I have a spare TV, its a CRT and is analogue. If I want digital should I put on a SD STB or a HD STB? Are SD STB's still for sale?

whether you use an SD STB or a HD STB, you'll still only get SD Quality, however, if you use a HD STB, it will give you access to the HD Exclusive programming, an SD STB won't.

Yes, but they have become less popular with buyers and sellers.

I don't bother stocking them any more as the cost of HD boxes is now very reasonable and customers want all the available (and future) channels that only an HD box can receive.

according to the last industry figures i can find on the web (Oct 08) the SD STB was still 60% of the market compared to 40% for HD. Even if this has been reduced to 50% or lower now thats still a lot of business you are not getting and someone else is?

So, people are ignorant. SD boxes are utterly pointless and should be thrown in the bin. Retailers that continue to stock them are also 'dumb', further feeding public ignorance, and lessening the impact of digital TV by reducing what the customer could enjoy/see, - IF they simply bought an HD box instead.

Noted that to Coles recently.

Mr Throw In the Bin... (or was it really give it to the neighbour as revealed on another forum).

Given the number of postponements of the switchoff I think even 2013 is a bit dubious.

Especially when they could do it in 6 months if they wanted. If they can run an election then there should be no problem issuing every household with a STB and switching the analogue off.

The savings from being able to reallocate/rent the now unused spectrum and the reduction of costs of having two systems would pay for the changeover.

Not only that but the digital towers could finally go to full strength and most people then wouldn't even need an outdoor antenna to get TV. That's the big payoff for us who have switched over already.

I imagine that most of the digital TXs are at 'full strength' right now.

Most digital transmitters are currently operating at full power.

The majority of the population will always require an external antenna for reliable digital reception.