When does old stuff become obsolete.

[Blue Hills]

And terrestrial...

The idea of people all sitting down at the same time throughout the country and watching the same programmes as each other seems quaint now.

For sure it does.
But something has been lost.

And have we become more "individual"?
I fear not - at least not in a good way.
Lots of folk slumping in their sofas to become part of a mass twitterstorm.
That will have passed in two days max anyway.

 

[classic33]

Mate of mine is a Sky TV fitter who said there are jobs at risk at the moment due to a rollout of Sky Glass, televisions with the software built in I believe and run similar to Netfix/Amazon/Disney etc.
New technology but boxes and dishes will become obsolete eventually.
Before the current stuff becomes obsolete for whatever comes in the next 20 years.

The cost of Sky Glass is a bit more than the £39 advertised. To get the same package as I have now, on a similar sized TV(not smaller) is just over £200 a month. Want the second TV, would be over £100.

 

[slowmotion]

I should stress that I know NOTHING about the things, but isn't this the sort of thing those Raspberry Pi Flan things are supposed to be great for?

You could probably pay someone* on those freelance websites to write the code for £8.
*probably from a Korean high-school

How's the Customer Service Department over there when the spotty teenager **cks up?

 

[matticus]

How's the Customer Service Department over there when the spotty teenager **cks up?

I'd have thought that's pretty obvious?

 

[rogerzilla]

I quite like satellite, notwithstanding the crapness of Freesat boxes (Freesat have a manufacturing monopoly now). Freeview reception is poor in Swindon, being about 40 miles from the nearest transmitters. The big downside used to be the absence of Ch4 in HD, but they have resolved that spat now.

Satellite is also good for radio, as Internet radio is becoming fragmented into a series of annoying apps, one for each provider. Bitrates are vastly higher than DAB, which is appalling in the UK.

 

[GuyBoden]

I quite like satellite, notwithstanding the crapness of Freesat boxes (Freesat have a manufacturing monopoly now). Freeview reception is poor in Swindon, being about 40 miles from the nearest transmitters. The big downside used to be the absence of Ch4 in HD, but they have resolved that spat now.

Satellite is also good for radio, as Internet radio is becoming fragmented into a series of annoying apps, one for each provider. Bitrates are vastly higher than DAB, which is appalling in the UK.

I agree, as you probably know, you don't need Freesat to watch satellite, in fact Freesat restricts the amount of channels you can view. There are plenty of non Freesat Satellite boxes and cheaper. Freesat is only a channel program info system, an electronic programme guide (EPG), that makes scheduling recordings easier, there are others.

 

[rogerzilla]

The cheapest way to get satellite is probably to get hold of an unwanted Sky box. The only problem there is that the PVR functionality is disabled unless you pay $ky a subscription to enable it, I think £10/month.

I also have an extremely nasty Ross receiver for the non-Freesat channels and for radio, because the Freesat box doesn't have a line out for the stereo.

 

[matticus]

Satellite is also good for radio, as Internet radio is becoming fragmented into a series of annoying apps, one for each provider. Bitrates are vastly higher than DAB, which is appalling in the UK.

I assume it's no use if I want to listen to radio in my garage?! (Unless I put a satellite receiver/decoder/thingummy in my garage)

etc etc ... I'd still need a dumb DAB to sit on the lawn, while I drink Pimms to Test Match Special?


(Our house came with a dish on the side, and it's always seemed a waste not to use it. And we're very appy with the channel selection from Freeview.)

 

[Profpointy]

The cost of Sky Glass is a bit more than the £39 advertised. To get the same package as I have now, on a similar sized TV(not smaller) is just over £200 a month. Want the second TV, would be over £100.

£200 a MONTH ! Is that a misprint?

as my father in law says " 'ow much?" and I'd likely add another word in there too

 

[classic33]

£200 a MONTH ! Is that a misprint?

as my father in law says " 'ow much?" and I'd likely add another word in there too

The TV is £40 a month(The smallest*), then you have the separate packages. Add what you want from whats available, sport, movies, HD channels. The ones mentioned as coming with the TV are all separate. They are built into the telly, rather than requiring anything to be plugged into it.

Then you've the modem, phone line(Which has to be fibre).

*The one shown in the advert is £59 a month.

 

[Oldhippy]

Remember the days when you just bought one thing, it did what it said on the with no 'extras' it lasted for years, you repaired it a couple of times before finally buying another.

 

[ColinJ]

Remember the days when you just bought one thing, it did what it said on the with no 'extras' it lasted for years...

Black and white 20" 4:3 ratio valve TVs, with just 2 channels (BBC and ITV), 405 fuzzy lines, no programmes until about 5 pm and shut down by midnight!

... you repaired it a couple of times before finally buying another.

A couple of times A YEAR - they were always going wrong! Remember the vertical hold controls? Picture scrolling down, pausing, then scrolling up. Picture dissolving into a mass of lines and dots every time a car or motorbike with inadequate interference suppression went by your house...

The good old days, eh!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Mate of mine is a Sky TV fitter who said there are jobs at risk at the moment due to a rollout of Sky Glass, televisions with the software built in I believe and run similar to Netfix/Amazon/Disney etc.
New technology but boxes and dishes will become obsolete eventually.
Before the current stuff becomes obsolete for whatever comes in the next 20 years.

And yet we have Skylink by Elon Musk that is putting the Internet into satellites, needing a dish…

 

[Dogtrousers]

A couple of times A YEAR - they were always going wrong! Remember the vertical hold controls? Picture scrolling down, pausing, then scrolling up. Picture dissolving into a mass of lines and dots every time a car or motorbike with inadequate interference suppression went by your house...

The good old days, eh!

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, nothing in our house worked, without my dad having to fiddle endlessly with it and bodge it. The TV, the car, the central heating, the oven, washing machine, vacuum cleaner ... you name it, it was crap and kept breaking.

 

[markemark]

Remember the days when you just bought one thing, it did what it said on the with no 'extras' it lasted for years, you repaired it a couple of times before finally buying another.

That was presumably the time when you bought something and didn’t utilise ongoing services nor require any purchases on credit (remember radio rentals?)