BBC 4 HD, & Cbeebies HD to move to PSB3

[Aplus1]

Of course these TVs don't have to be e-waste, they can just be augmented with a suitable receiver.

Of course, but I'll reiterate what I said - that doesn't work if the equipment in question already IS a set top box or PVR. My (otherwise very capable) Humax DVB-T PVR would do precisely nothing at all if T2 became the default. My view is that there needs to be a very compelling reason to justify that kind of waste.

It'd be a bit like some bright spark in the Government deciding that from August all cars on UK roads will have to be automatics, and any cars with manual gearboxes will have to be scrapped. There might be a reason to support that if there was a good reason for it - one beyond "automatics have existed for at least 80 years and people have to get with the times" and "I like automatics because I have one and they are better and so everyone should have one too so that I feel better about my decision"... But until then... well, as I say, it seems hard to justify.

[Markymark]

A friend of mine ended up with a refurbished BT Home Hub, as their rather hamfisted (and futile) attempt to fix an intermittent service. I can’t remember why, but from the day it replaced his router, Google Maps on his desktop PC insisted for quite some while that his 'home' location was 400 miles away in Greenock.

Anyway, back to telly, even in areas where DSO was in 2008, the OnD boxes would have been at least 7 years old. Not brilliant, but about 5 times longer than a teenager owned mobile phone!

You'll be glad to know my Pace OnD box was in regular use from March 1999, until my DSO day (Feb 22nd 2012) The last thing it ever decoded was Sky News at 00:34hrs on that day. Felt odd and sickening smashing it (I didn’t want any chance of it getting sold as a working box) and dropping the remains into the local recycle skip

[London Lite]

If I recall, France still uses DVB-T for their HD broadcasts and they still managed to convert most channels to 1080i bar a couple of SD channels.

[Markymark]

If I recall, France still uses DVB-T for their HD broadcasts and they still managed to convert most channels to 1080i bar a couple of SD channels.

Yes. However DTT in France didn't launch unil 2005, 7 years after the UK, so they were using MPEG4 for SD (and later HD) from the outset.

[Brekkie]

Yes, I'm guessing an overnight switch here would not be possible and like when the 2nd BBC mux was converted to DVB-T2 there would be some downtime - which makes the lack of planning and closures of COM7/8 all the more ridiculous as they would have provided the space for a transition period as any work required was done.

[Pete]

MPEG2 transmission is more processor intensive than MPEG4 and takes up far more bandwidth and disk space.

E waste is a problem, but its not a zero sum game and you need to consider how many carbon emissions are being caused by endlessly supporting an out of date duplicate infrastructure vs an increasingly small number of devices that may become either useless or need a minor update.

[Markymark]

Well, everyone can stop worrying about where Forces TV will move to when COM 7 closes in two weeks from now, the whole channel is closing

https://twitter.com/forces_tv/status/153...5573499904