In less than 2 days, Thursday 5th May, large parts of Victoria will transition to digital TV. This means the old analog TV signal in regional Victoria will be turned off forever. Cue the dancing ants. If your still holding onto that big tube TV, its time to convert it to a fish tank and upgrade to something made this century. There is another option available for those on a tight budget, that is to buy a digital set top box.
A digital set top box comes in two varieties, standard or high definition, so which one should you choose ? What you need to understand is there are two things at play, the first is the quality of the picture your TV can display, the second is the quality of the broadcast.
A lot of free-to-air TV channels are still SD and your old TV is only capable of displaying SD, so you’d think an SD set top box would be your best option right ? Wrong. While buying a HD set top box won’t score you a better picture, the extra expense may be warranted if you want to see the new HD-only channels like OneHD, GEM, 7mate, SBSHD and ABCNews24.
Below is a map indicating the areas that will be turned off Thursday morning. Other parts of the country will be switched off progressively with the 700Mhz spectrum completely free by the end of 2013. This valuable spectrum that travels long distances and penetrates walls will be sold off and used for 4th generation mobile networks, also known as 4G.
If you, or your parents need help, you can visit the website – http://digitalready.gov.au or call 1800 2010 13.
