[LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Howard Lowndes wrote:
> 
> 
> Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>> Craig Sanders wrote:
>> [snip]
>>>> So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, 
>>>> it's just that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I 
>>>> give money to someone for a product I don't want?
>>>>     
>>>
>>> because you want to be able to continue using the TV set you bought 
>>> after the
>>> analog signal is discontinued?
>>>   
>> ...Indeed. And that will be the sole reason for doing so.
>>
>> But get this: if the digitisation turns out to be an utter disaster, 
>> if it has to be delayed because not enough people care, then doesn't 
>> it cast the policy itself into doubt? The policy, it should be 
>> remembered, was not in any way a response to citizen demand. It's a 
>> "for your own good" policy.
> 
> No Richard, digitisation does have benefits, the main one being the 
> ability to deliver more content within a given bandwidth.  Just look at 
> ABC and SBS (the only services that are currently permitted to 
> multi-channel),  They each deliver one analogue service on each of the 
> channels that they use to broadcast analogue on, but currently each 
> deliver 6 digital services on each of the channels that they use to 
> broadcast digital on.
> 
> What we need is for the commercial stations to be permitted to 
> multi-channel, and for there to be more (or even any would be nice) 
> quality content.

I was going to respond when you brought up multichannelling before...this 
problem is the fault of the existing free to air stations who wanted to keep 
their comfortable little pentapoly. So, they argued for HDTV - despite the cost 
of production, transmission and reception not being justified.

> Free-to-air (FTA) television (TV) and radio broadcasts are sent unencrypted and may be received via any suitable receiver. Free-to-view (FTV) is, generally, available without subscription but is encoded and may be restricted geographically. Neither of these are pay-TV, which is an encrypted subscription (or pay-per-view) service. FTA is usually delivered by satellite television, but in various parts of the world with encrypted digital terrestrial television channels it is broadcast on UHF or VHF bands.
> 
> Although these channels are described as free; the viewer does in fact pay for them. Some are paid directly by payment of a licence fee (as in the case of the BBC) or voluntary donation (in the ca
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-air>
and
<http://www.freetv.com.au/>

You can probably check out the link archives and fine extensive discussion there 
from long ago.

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://www.ramin.com.au
Phone: 0414 869202