A digital world

[DaBees-Knees]

After years of being told that everything digital is wonderful a moment of reflection is possibly in order. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I can reflect on Britain.

Television

The promise of having an ever better definition picture and sound, plus lots and lots of extra channels, has lulled people in to thinking that digital television is perfection.

What have we got? Extra stations alright, but what are they providing. Even more repeats, late night porn and shopping channels.

Terrestrial digital television is seeing overloaded transponders that are causing poor reception problems already. I have no doubt that as high definition is added this problem may become even worse. You can of course pay through the nose and get your signal via satellite or cable.

Radio

I very much doubt if 99.9% of the British public are aware that FM radio transmissions will be switched off soon. This will mean that if you don't have a Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB, also known as Eureka) radio you will be left with the few remaining long wave and medium wave transmissions to listen to. This will make the vast majority of existing car radios more or less useless.

Why are governments so keen on the changes?

Initially it means more money for them. As the old transmission frequencies are released they can be re-licensed, but this time to digital companies. More stations/channels can be squeezed in to a given bandwidth. Hence a lot more money can be earned by a government.

Also in many respects digital gives more control over the population. The public at large haven't fully woken up to that fact yet, but unless they do they are in for a big surprise.

Manufacturers

The developed world (where the money is) is getting saturated with electronic equipment. So how do manufacturers find new customers? You change the system and make existing equipment become prematurely obsolete.

The future

Digital information of any type comes at a cost. Some are only just beginning to realise how big that cost can be. We have already seen throttling of internet use and just recently a mobile phone operator has started using it. All the time and money that is being spent so far on attacking all aspects of p2p by the cartels and governments could be far better spent on providing better communications for those that need them. People need to wake up.

There's something for you to mull over. I'll be interested in your comments.  

[Lagerlout666]

Yes well i cant wait for the radio channels to go digital. Will give more space to the Liverpool Pirate Radio stations you hear fire up every Friday night playing the very latest dance music. Will just make more people want to do it. I hope

[Stevi]

We have that here, it is called HD Radio. You have to buy a separate radio to be able to listen. FM still works just fine, so until that stops working, I'm not moving.