Morning, all. I've just been looking at Ofcom's website and they seem to be suggesting at
www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/dttfuture/ that we're all going to need a new set top box in order to enjoy HD on Freeview. It's only a consultation but Ofcom's consultations seem to have a way of becoming fact. Does this mean that my new HD ready TV is anything but?
Yours perplexedly,
Chaliapin
Posted on: 16 January 2008 by chaliapin
Hello? Are we all happy to buy yet more kit just to make our tellies work?
Posted on: 18 January 2008 by Frank Abela
Your HD-Ready Telly has a standard Freeview tuner in it. That tuner would have to be capable of receiving and understanding High Definition streams in order to be able to receive HD signals. that's a bit like expecting a quart to fit into a pint pot.
Of course, if the BBC finally decides to do HD Freeview (not decided yet, and possibly may never happen) manufacturers will have to learn how to implement it and eventually will build it into their TVs.
Posted on: 19 January 2008 by chaliapin
Hi, Frank. I take your point about pint pots and so forth; it's just that (what seemed like) a week after I bought the telly in question, the world decided that HDMI leads were what was needed, and guess what mine doesn't have sockets for. Then there was the great Blu-ray/HD-DVD debacle. Now it seems that some HDMI leads are cleverer than others (leads, for Pete's sake). Lastly, having told the nation that they have to buy a set top box or a digital telly, Ofcom are now making sure that they exploit the so called digital dividend by making us buy yet more kit to enjoy the benefits of MPEG-4 and DBB-T2.
All this after decades when all we needed, or could get, was a cathode ray tube telly and a VCR. No wonder people aren't buying as much of this stuff as they might; many can't keep up and lots of those that can are put off buying by the prospect of next year's big thing. In this case, probably 3D TV.
