As regular readers of the Illarterate blog (yes, I know some of you do exist, even if only in my deluded mind) might have noted before now, one particular subject I’ve been particularly outspoken about is the analogue-digital television switchover currently in operation in the United Kingdom.
For the past few years, I’ve made it pretty clear that I am not in favour of this change, though mostly this has been for comedic effect and in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Nevertheless, I am going to miss analogue with its snowy reception and (relatively) lo-def resolution.
Seems I’m not the only one, either. For the benefit of those finding it difficult to cope with all this new fangled digital television thing, I present to you a series of mildly humorous articles — written by the very same person sat typing this post right now — which you may or may not find interesting.
- How to retune your set top box: Having problems rescanning Freeview? Struggling to find the menu button because the label rubbed off in the first week? You’ll probably find this guide useful.
- More tips for retuning your set top box: Still struggling? Here are some more tips, released just in time for the November retune. Many are still applicable, so act now before the BBC blow your box up without your permission!
- The Great Digital Switchover Scam: How this whole thing is a conspiracy set up by the BBC to make us buy brand spanking new, state-of-the-art equipment we don’t necessarily need, just so they can fund more episodes of Strictly Come Prancing.
- September 30th Freeview retune – thousands lose channels: How the BBC are not only ripping us off, but also making us take time out of our day to execute a complicated series of button presses just so we can watch the News at Ten.
- Surviving the Digital Switchover: more general tips covering High Definition televisions and DVD cassette players.
- Teletext to meet early demise: Opinions on the news that Teletext will cease as of January next year. It should be noted that BBCi will still keep going, however, at least until they too deem their interactive text service no longer profitable.
the switch has been a tremendous ripoff forcing the viewer to buy television viewing that once was free.
I like your blog.
I hear you. Since the switchover here in the US I still have some channels I cannot get at all and others I’ve never seen before. It’s a pain and only implemented so that we will all get so frustrated we’ll switch to cable and they’ll make more money off of us. I just don’t even watch that much anymore.
We don’t have cable, and we have to use an antenna with converter box. “Fortunately” the wind blew our antenna down, so now we have a new digital antenna for only the cost of the insurance deductible. So we get a lot more than the 5 channels we used to get… when we can get them, when they aren’t breaking up, when the box doesn’t want to be re-scanned at a crucial point in a show. In short. I had to reprogram my mind to not care about TV so much since it’s never a sure thing that I’ll get to watch a whole show. So I suppose that’s good. It might just wean me off of TV.
We don’t have such switch-over in the Land of the Free, but I was in London when all the talk began. And you have to pay telly tax on top of it!
I am so glad I found your blog! it’s great. I am subscribing to your RSS feed.
Cheers,
Arlene