Digital Television - the switchover

[guyjin]

I hear that BBC2 in the UK finally switched off its analog signal last night.

Also, Best Buy here in the states is no longer carrying analog televisions.

I suspect that, as the UK and US get closer to analoglessness*, prices for the required equipment will rise. Others have argued it will fall. Or we could both be wrong.

Your thoughts?

_{*:say that 3 times fast.}

[Necromancer]

I guess that they'll basically stay the same.  Best Buy no longer carrying analog sets is a bit of a misnomer, as they still carry cheap, analog, tube type sets with digital tuners.  Many of the sets sold recently had NTSC and ATSC tuners built in, and now that they're getting rid of analog, manufacturers will save a few bucks by not installing a NTSC tuner.  To make a long story short: the only thing that has to change is the type of tuner, and the cost difference between the two is negligible.

[Turbo D]

I voted rise. You can imagine the Television companies sticking it to the consumer once the consumer is at their mercy 

[SignOfZeta]

The prices will drop like a rock. Thinking otherwise doesn't indicate a very good understanding of economics, or the history of electronics. The price of just about any electronic doo-dad in history has done nothing but fall in real dollars as time passes.

The corporations are far more interested in moving 200 million $99 sets than they are in holding the public ransom just to be dicks. All they want is money.

[TR0N]

Rise beside the cable companys are greedy bastards and the fcc doesn't care.

[Keranu]

I'm going to miss analog television . There is a special feeling when there is signal fuzz on the TV and having to adjust your antenna, not to mention that terrestrial stations are the best.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Analog television??  Are you talking about TV's that have rabbit ears, or tv's that use dials to switch channels?  Either way, I didn't know analog tv's still existed.  I've lived on having my tv plugged into cable my whole life.

[Joe Redifer]

They're talking about analog tuners... NTSC... or put simply; the RF connection.  That's going away.  FOREVAR!   The new ATSC digital tuners still use ANALog transmission over UHF frequencies, but it's a digitally encoded data stream.  MPEG2, in fact.  Oh, and it looks like ass when things start moving.  MPEG2 is one of the worst codecs EVAR and you'll see lots of blockiness and stuff when a TV how has flashing lights or quick pans.  Not only that, but there is about 19.2 megabits per second in the MPEG2 stream, and a lot of stations devote some of that bandwidth to subchannels.  For example we have channel 9.1 here in Denver which is the NBC HD feed coming from the local affiliate.  There is also channel 9.2 which is the NBC 24 hour weather channel presented in standard definition.  This eats into the HD bitrate making it look even worse!  As bad as it is, though, it's still better than cable and satellite digital video and HD.

It's a damn good thing I don't care about watching TV.

[Keranu]

Arrr, not MPEG2!!!

[Joe Redifer]

Yup, now we're stuck with it for the next 60 years until we do the next switchover!

[Kitsunexus]

I don't watch TV. 

[Turbo D]

I just watch dvds anyways. T.V. sucks these days.

[Kitsunexus]

I just watch dvds anyways. T.V. sucks these days.

Exactly. TV to me now means "monitor for games and DVD player".

[guyjin]

The prices will drop like a rock. Thinking otherwise doesn't indicate a very good understanding of economics, or the history of electronics. The price of just about any electronic doo-dad in history has done nothing but fall in real dollars as time passes.

but there's never been a mass forced obsolecence on this scale before.

The corporations are far more interested in moving 200 million $99 sets than they are in holding the public ransom just to be dicks. All they want is money.

so what's their incentive to not increase prices on a device that will soon be required*? The prices of Microsoft software (OSes especially) have done nothing but go up. with the exception of IE. a similar forced* upgrade scenario.

*:yeah, you could just go without TV/an OS that runs games. but most eventually (will) cave.

[Turbo D]

I'm with guyjin. I don't see tv companies leaving prices the way they are when the have you at their mercy.