Digital TV migration: should you buy new equipment now?

[Tinuva]

Don't think it was just switched off. I believe it was converted from DVB-T to DVB-T2. Now my TV for example has a built-in DVB-T tuner, so it can pick up DVB-T signals, but not DVB-T2 signals. The case of Valis is probably the same.

You will need a much newer TV to have a DVB-T2 tuner built-in.

 

[UnUnOctium]

Current technology is analog, signal quality will vary due to fading, interference and antenna bandwidth ( needs to cover whole VHF/UHF spectrum - in dbn SABC2 on Sentech is 175MHz/ Channel 7; SABC3 is 217MHz / Channel 13 - about 42Mhz bandwidth) among other reasons. Digital tv will be compressed, contain error correction, and transmit on a small spectrum eg 655MHZ with a 8Mhz bandwidth. The antennae can be optimised for just that frequency and is better able to withstand interference.

With analog you don't receive the precise signal sent out by the tower, with digital you should, baring loss of signal.

The major reasons are really the error correction affordable by digital modulation & transmission. The main reason TV is grainy (other than the error correction missing) is the fact that video is modulated on AM. Have you noticed how the video will look really bad but the audio will be fine on analogue terrestrial, that's because the audio is FM modulated. Antenna bandwidth has a small part to play (heck, DVB-T is designed to work on current terrestrial antennae).

 

[Vis1/0N]

...The main reason TV is grainy (...) is the fact that video is modulated on AM... Antenna bandwidth has a small part to play (heck, DVB-T is designed to work on current terrestrial antennae).

I know, but grainy picture is mostly due to poor reception, with good reception I can get a decent picture on that same AM. The video bandwidth is about 5.5MHz, and the audio is less than 100KHz, which is also why (with FM modulation) you get great audio with the grainy picture.

My main point regarding bandwidth is that current antennae have to cover a larger bandwidth (say channel 4-13 175MHz-253 - I got it wrong in my earlier post). 10 analog channels occupy 80MHz. 20-24SD channels on DVB-T2 could occupy that same 8MHz bandwidth at 554MHz (a single analog channel). If you are in a good reception area it means little difference. If you are in a fringe area, new antennae could be set to peak at that frequency and offer higher gain and better reception.