Govt wasting 13 more million on analog switchoff.

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Govt wasting 13 more million on analog switchoff.

richms

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#72651 30-Nov-2010 15:21

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10691085

Sigh, no matter how much education they do, there will still be holdouts.

Can someone explain why the govt is spending _anything_ on educating people about the switchoff? Surely it is up to the broadcasters to get the message across, as they are the ones that still need to have viewers to sell to their customers.

Was no surprise that it was coming since the existing analog licenses all expired in 2012 in anycase so they should have budgeted something towards the changeover.

I am dreading when its revealed that the govt is starting to hand out new TVs to people which will be the inevitable conclusion when all the whiners complain that they cant afford a new one.

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johnr

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#411240 30-Nov-2010 15:23

Think what the mobile carriers will pay for this band

Will get that money back easy

ockel

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#411244 30-Nov-2010 15:38

Most Governments have spent money on educating the public of analog switchoff.
Governments recognise (or perceive) that television is an effective way of getting across political messages (either election, reporting policy or public service initiatives - LTSA).

Governments would rather fund people to upgrade to digital (UK and US gave handouts towards the end for lower socioeconomic groups I think) than have them rely on an uncontrolled media source (like paytv - anyone watch Fox News Network?).

And depriving people of television is also a whole vote killer come election.

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scuwp

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#411250 30-Nov-2010 15:48

ockel: Most Governments have spent money on educating the public of analog switchoff.
Governments recognise (or perceive) that television is an effective way of getting across political messages (either election, reporting policy or public service initiatives - LTSA).

Governments would rather fund people to upgrade to digital (UK and US gave handouts towards the end for lower socioeconomic groups I think) than have them rely on an uncontrolled media source (like paytv - anyone watch Fox News Network?).

And depriving people of television is also a whole vote killer come election.

Sad but true. They wil be handing out new TV's and Freeview decoders all courtesy of the taxpayer...just wait and see.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

robjg63

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#411278 30-Nov-2010 16:44

Overseas they have pretty much handed out DTV STBs - But they have old done a partial rollout of Terrestrial here so if you arent in one of those areas that do have terrestrial you would have to shell out for a dish and an STB - that isnt that cheap

In the states they even handed out vouchers for cheap decoders.

That $13 million would fill in quite a bit more of the country with HD - though I understood that the terrestrial areas are being expanded 'soon'. Why dont they get the infrastructure sorted first then start pushing people to move?

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richms

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#411285 30-Nov-2010 17:04

What is stopping the broadcasters from handing out branded boxes? Other than them wanting to be like ISPs and have the govt arrange for them to get something for nothing?

Richard rich.ms

merve0o0

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#411363 30-Nov-2010 20:36

I have been holding out purely because I live in Nelson and I don't see the point in getting a dish installed for freeview when it's only going to be sd. We get perfect signal so if hd does get released in Nelson I'm confident I will get it.

Does anyone know if there is a list somewhere that says when each town will get switched off

wmoore

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#411407 30-Nov-2010 21:54

richms: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10691085

Sigh, no matter how much education they do, there will still be holdouts.

Can someone explain why the govt is spending _anything_ on educating people about the switchoff? Surely it is up to the broadcasters to get the message across, as they are the ones that still need to have viewers to sell to their customers.

Was no surprise that it was coming since the existing analog licenses all expired in 2012 in anycase so they should have budgeted something towards the changeover.

I am dreading when its revealed that the govt is starting to hand out new TVs to people which will be the inevitable conclusion when all the whiners complain that they cant afford a new one.

It's not just about educating people, things like 0800 support lines will need to be set up as well
and the staff to run it .

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richms

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#411455 1-Dec-2010 01:00

the site at http://goingdigital.co.nz/ seems to say you need a UHF antenna nomatter where you live. I dont need one here, and a friends address under 1km from waiatarua who gets it with nothing plugged into the tv at all also says they need one. Might put too many people on bunny airs skys direction IMO.

Richard rich.ms

Dunnersfella

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#411741 1-Dec-2010 19:57

Just wait until the government has to start explaining why people can't 'just use their old VCR like they used to' with their new Freeview TV...

JimmyH

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#412297 2-Dec-2010 22:51

Explaining why they can't use their VCR will indeed be a challenge - I have already faced that upgrading a slightly ... ahem .. older family member to the satellite feed, due to poor reception. Completely failed to convince them to go the PVR or DVD recorder route and abandon their beloved antique video recorder. In the end I put in the a set-top box for them, split the AV cables and ran one set to the VCR and the other to the TV.

Ye Olde VCR now works and happiness has been restored - tho' they are still a bit confused.

As for "wasting" the $13 million, I am not sure they have. Politically they need to get digital uptake up before they can switch off analogue. From what I read they stand to make $400-600 million from auctioning the freed spectrum for new services.

Getting out the back of my trusty envelope I did a quick calculation. At, say an interest rate of 5% and assuming they can get $500 million for the spectrum, that works out to more than a $2 million gain for each month they can bring the switchover forward. If spending the spending $13 million speeds uptake up, if they can bring switchover forward by more than just a few months it isn't a cost - the profit for taxpayers is substantial!

richms

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#412304 2-Dec-2010 23:04

Why does the government have to have a certain uptake before declining to renew the analog licenses?

The dates are set, IMO leave it to the broadcasters to drag people over. the 13 mil would be better spent by the govt on more coverage. I dont know why they cant convert all UHF sites over to digital, they obvioulsy have links to the sites and antennas up already, and many of them would have unused links and antennas now with the closure of skys UHF network.

Really there is no gain in freqs from the switchoff of VHF analog, since all the cool new stuff is in 700MHz, which they could clear out easy as right away since sky have gone just by moving all the analog stuff up there like prime and juice down to the old sky UHF allocations.

Richard rich.ms