Analogue, am I the mourner at its funeral?

[David Challinor]

So my upstairs telly has just three months left to 'live' before it goes on the tip...i'm not here to repeat and think of how our landfills are
full of televisions dumped post-Tessa Jowell decision to turn off analogue.
No, I'm here to seriously, and perhaps innocently, to rail against the better picture quality of analogue compared to my pixelled experience of digital. i realise 'digital' is one of the key buzz words of our age, and perhaps all must move aside to accommodate it, especially the rush for more channels/more ££££s, but as far as my experience goes the analogue picture is superior to the new screens
hung on the wall.
Readers here may disagree. But before the leader writers down south in the final area to have their analogue signals turned off sharpen their pencils to write: Analogue tv , 'send no flowers' I for one will remember its passing.

[Moor Larkin]

It used to be possible to watch a poor analogue signal, and your brain could fillter out the fuzziness and any hissing, but interference on the digibox means all you can do is turn the darn thing off.... or over............ The world becomes more perfect every day I suppose and there is no room anymore for compromise.

The first freeview box I ever bought no longer seems to work for a number of the channels either.... already......... so that'll be on the tip soon too.

[CaptainWaggett]

I have an internal aerial and my analogue picture was terrible - I often found I'd taped a snowstorm . That's a rarity with Freeview (and anyway, thanks to repeats /iplayer, it doesn't really matter anyway). I won't miss the analogue signal (though I haven't bothered to replace my analogue tv)

[ShirlGirl]

It's all working well down under. I get excellent pictures on my old TV + set top box, as well as on the LCD screen.

[didi-5]

There was never a problem with my analogue TV up north, less so since I moved to London. Although we have Freeview and Sky I will still miss the old five channels. Or as we call it 'proper TV'.

[narabdela]

I'm in my seventh decade, yet I never fail to be amazed at some of the "fuddy duddiness" on this site.

I haven't climbed aboard the high-def bandwagon yet, but the standard definition Freeview picture on my Panasonic is far superior to any analogue picture.

Anyone who can't see the difference needs to contact a television engineer or Specsavers.

[Moor Larkin]

Anyone who can't see the difference needs to contact a television engineer or Specsavers.

I found watching football more jerky/hazy (like the ball in flight would sort of disappear) [even worse watching tennis] since freeview, but I rarely bother watching the wretched game anymore so it bothers me not a jot. I have noticed that football on my son's skybox is much better than the freeview version. I have no idea why this should be so, but it is mine eyes that have seen the ball.

I once read a treatise on why analogue recordings on vinyl, on decent old sound systems, have a different quality than the same CD remastered. The article claimed it was something to do with how the brain samples noise - and the way vinyls make waves and the CD's make pulses, but I've no idea if I just made that last bit up.

[Heinrich]

Children growing up today will take technological perfection for granted and will never know the sense of wonder at getting a signal on an old 405 lines Ekco which could be good enough to see the make-up on an actors face if the weather was foggy.

Time was when an older brother could get a better picture with his fiddling skill. Now granddad has to ask for help to get any station once someone has been watching a DVD thing.

[Mr Sloane]

I must admit I was worried before the change over, the viewing via the set top box could be hit and miss and in very bad weather we had to unplug and watch directly via telly. But since the changeover and the signal being boosted we have had no trouble.

[Steve Crook]

I'm in my seventh decade, yet I never fail to be amazed at some of the "fuddy duddiness" on this site.

I haven't climbed aboard the high-def bandwagon yet, but the standard definition Freeview picture on my Panasonic is far superior to any analogue picture.

Anyone who can't see the difference needs to contact a television engineer or Specsavers.

But has an analogue channel ever frozen on you or broken down into chunky pixels?
When it works, a digital picture is OK, sometimes it's as good as a good analogue picture
The biggest problem is when you're not getting a very good picture. It's still watchable on analogue, but not on digital

Steve

[Freddy]

Now granddad has to ask for help to get any station once someone has been watching a DVD thing.

Analogue or digital I'm sure it still doesn't stop the grandmother of the household walking in front of the tv screen when a goal is about go be scored.

[julian_craster]

If an analogue screen was 40"+ it might not look as good as the same size LCD/plasma screen....


There is no need to throw any analogue TV away - practically all can take some sort of Freeview box, even if there is no SCART connection......

[narabdela]

sometimes it's as good as a good analogue picture

Specsavers have a 2for1 offer on designer frames at the moment.

[Steve Crook]

Specsavers have a 2for1 offer on designer frames at the moment.

But you haven't answered my question yet. Has an analogue signal ever frozen on you or pixelated into large chunks like digital pictures sometimes do?

Steve

[Harbottle]

I don't see the issue as "fuddy duddiness" at all, the fact is digital is either perfect or nothing, where one could muddle through and actually watch a prog in grainy analogue.

I finally just did something about my awful reception with a loft aerial that gave me analogue channels in varying degrees of fuzziness or about three freeview channels (if the wind was blowing in the right direction!). Analogue gets the chop here in February so my solution is Freesat, quite straightforward to tackle oneself the only thing that vexed me was that the dish is supposed to be angled at 25.5 degrees, when in practice I have to point it virtually horizontally to lock onto the satellite

The telly picture is admittedly now super-duper, plus dozens of new rubbish channels not to record on the splendid Humax HDR thingy, but I shall miss analogue Teletext the digital version is terrible

[smudge]

but I shall miss analogue Teletext the digital version is terrible

Hear, hear - I already do (we converted in September). Digital text is hopeless first thing in the morning when I need a quick news fix and far less detailed in the reporting of stories...

Smudge

[batman]

If an analogue screen was 40"+ it might not look as good as the same size LCD/plasma screen....
There is no need to throw any analogue TV away - practically all can take some sort of Freeview box, even if there is no SCART connection......

We use a Humax Freeview box through our big ol' analogue TV. The analogue picture quality on that TV was superb. However, when we first switched to Freeview we bought a Phillips box and it wasn't able to produce as good a picture through the big TV. We had a smaller TV in the spare room and so used it on that one and it was fine. For the big TV we got a Humax Freeview box and the picture is fine, but not significantly better than the analogue picture was. We never ever had a problem with the analogue signal etc, but the bloody Freeview box regularly used to freeze and pixilate. Since the recent Humax upgrade it's much less troublesome but every time we record something we still cross our fingers hoping that it won't freeze during the recording.

[jaycad]

In bad weather,my upstairs TV (indoor aerial) sometimes freezes/pixelates and loudly 'squeaks' on BBC channels but the downstairs TV is fine at all times. I never had any problems with analogue channels apart from occasional 'ghosting' on S4C.

[julian_craster]

If a Freeview box 'freezes' it could be a fault with the box, or you may need to obtain a more powerful external ariel, with masthead booster

[jaycad]

If a Freeview box 'freezes' it could be a fault with the box, or you may need to obtain a more powerful external ariel, with masthead booster

It's a problem that I had with both an analogue TV with set top digibox and a digital TV with built in freeview with two different indoor aerials so I guess the signal upstairs isn't the best.