Adelaide switches to digital TV
The analogue television signal was officially switched off yesterday morning in Adelaide at 9am. Did you notice? No!? We thought you wouldn’t… that’s probably because you already have a digital flatscreen TV, or a digital set top box which is already receiving the digital signal.
Other areas in Australia will be following the move soon – Tasmania on 9th April and Perth on 16th April.
Why switch?
There are a few reasons why Australia is making the switch to digital TV. Firstly, digital TV gives you the ability to watch TV in high definition quality, which looks great on the latest LCD and flat screen TVs. There are also more free-to-air channel available on digital (such at 7Mate, Go, GEM and ONE HD, and ABC 2), as well as an electronic program guide which gives up to date programming information.
If you still have an older analogue television, you will require a digital set top box to receive the digital television picture. The Government has a great website on the switch from analogue to digital, and you can find out more at digitalready.gov.au
What the difference between Analogue and Digital?
With analogue video or audio, signal information is translated into electric pulses of varying size. With digital video and audio, information is stored and transmitted using numbers (ones and zeros…. that geeky binary computer stuff!).
Analogue is less accurate in reproduction, and is easily affected by noise in the circuit or signal. Some examples of analogue formats include vinyl LP records, VHS video tapes and older camcorder tapes.
Digital video is better for your health! 😉
The great advantage of digital video and audio is that it does not degrade over time. As long as the binary numbers can be read in sequence, you will always get the exact same quality of footage or audio, even after 1000 playbacks or 100 years. This saves you from pulling out your hair when you can’t view your previous family memories on video because they’ve got so fuzzy or the tape has snapped!
Recently, Australians have begun transferring their family video tapes and memories to digital. Videos can either be converted to DVD or transferred to a digital video file, which you can view and edit on your Mac or PC computer. Once transferred to digital format, a video will hold it’s quality and not degrade even further. You can even improve the quality of a video tape by using professional equipment that can stabilise a shaky picture and boost the colour & brightness.
Once transferred to digital, extra DVD copies can also easily be produced, or video files easily shared with family & friends over the internet.
So say goodbye to that fuzzy old analogue TV signal, and hello to Digital TV. There’s never been a better time to switch to digital!
