Is technology all its cracked up to be?

[starrymarkb]

Was the reason for the change from Analogue to Digital something that was an idea of the Treasury at the time, in order that the existing Analogue could then be offered to other users with the monies from the sale going into the coffers of the Government. If monies were involved, how much are we talking about ?

I think they were hoping for something like the 3G auction where the mobile networks paid about £5 billion each - problem was that bit them quite badly so it's unlikely bidding will be anywhere near as high!

 

[jon0844]

Labour was VERY lucky. It had one of the first auctions and raised far more money than anyone could have expected. I believe Germany followed soon after and also raised loads. Then the operators all wised up and subsequent auctions made far less.

We, the poor phone users, ended up paying the price for what the operators paid of course - from longer contracts and price rises (not just putting up line rental but introducing lots of new 'hidden' charges, minimum call charges and the huge increases in roaming fees before the EU began to clamp down).

I really doubt anyone will bid that much for 4G licences.

 

[Thumper Bill]

In answear to the original question, I think not.
In my experience if a tv/mobile phone/train/ or any other device one can think of has more tech about it than the previous model then it has a greater chance of failing.
eg my 12 year old nokia 3210 still works fine and has out lived the fancy new smart phones that my wife had issued at work by a long shot, I never get craked screen, virus, freezing or anything, also because it is simple the battery life is still three to four days with moderate use.

 

[Bungle73]

When they had the 3G auction, no one really knew what it was for. They tried pushing it for video calling, but that never really caught on. It wasn't until the emergence of the smart phone that we found a real use for it.

With 4G there is already a clearly defined use for it.

In answear to the original question, I think not.

eg my 12 year old nokia 3210 still works fine and has out lived the fancy new smart phones that my wife had issued at work by a long shot, I never get craked screen, virus, freezing or anything, also because it is simple the battery life is still three to four days with moderate use.

Yeah, but the technology adds functionally. All your phone does it make calls; a smart phone does so much more. Now I've had a smart phone for a few years I'd never want to go back to using a dumb phone......unless I really had to. It's so useful.

 

[Eagle]

Was the reason for the change from Analogue to Digital something that was an idea of the Treasury at the time, in order that the existing Analogue could then be offered to other users with the monies from the sale going into the coffers of the Government. If monies were involved, how much are we talking about ?

That can't be right, because Freeview uses the same band of frequencies as analogue TV did (UHF channels 21 to 69). All that's happened is we've packed more stuff into the same space.

 

[transmanche]

Granted HDTV is better quality than analogue BUT when the weather was bad outside analogue still worked, it didn’t freeze or come up with - NO SATELLITE SIGNAL IS BEEN DETECTED

But there you have changed two variables:

• The method of transmission (analogue to digital)
• The place of transmission (local mast to satellite)

When the weather was bad outside, HDTV from local masts still worked. So the point of failure there isn't the change from analogue to digital HDTV, but you changing from receiving broadcasts from local masts to receiving broadcasts by satellite.

 

[jon0844]

HD is transmitted via terrestrial transmitters, albeit only with five channels so far (but I believe E4 and Film4 HD is coming soon).

There will be more channels available when every analogue transmission has ended, the power levels are boosted up (by a considerable amount, thus ensuring people are unlikely to have problems with digital terrestrial reception even in bad weather) and the analogue channels are re-used for digital broadcasts.

The problem now is the decision on whether to pack in loads of channels within the space previously needed for just one analogue channel, or less channels but of a higher quality. And then there's the encoding, which can also help fit more in without compromising picture quality - and the fact that any new encoding techniques would render earlier digital receivers obsolete.

These are the issues of technology to overcome, not the method of transmission (I've also left out cable, and of course delivering TV via broadband or mobile data).

 

[SS4]

In answear to the original question, I think not.
In my experience if a tv/mobile phone/train/ or any other device one can think of has more tech about it than the previous model then it has a greater chance of failing.
eg my 12 year old nokia 3210 still works fine and has out lived the fancy new smart phones that my wife had issued at work by a long shot, I never get craked screen, virus, freezing or anything, also because it is simple the battery life is still three to four days with moderate use.

Resilience is only one factor that decides whether technology is getting better or worse, as long as it doesn't fail under everyday use it's fine. Of course it only applied to hardware too. Take a TV - technology means it can be a flat screen with very little back (anyone who remembers CRT tv will understand)

Computer Hard Drives - this one from 1981 cost $81,000. Now you can get terabyte drives for under £100.

On trains electric and diesel/electric is better than steam in almost all situations especially in operating and engine efficiency. There's a good reason very few countries use steam trains on mainlines.

The Nostalgia Filter is prevalent in technology.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

HD is transmitted via terrestrial transmitters, albeit only with five channels so far (but I believe E4 and Film4 HD is coming soon).

Gordon Bennett! Why pick those two, they're two of the worst possible channels to have chosen! Do viewer numbers back it up or did C4 choose their worst two channels?
Doesn't Film4 show mostly films from before the HD era anyway?
I'd have thought E4's demographic would suit internet only tbh

 

[jon0844]

In answear to the original question, I think not.
In my experience if a tv/mobile phone/train/ or any other device one can think of has more tech about it than the previous model then it has a greater chance of failing.
eg my 12 year old nokia 3210 still works fine and has out lived the fancy new smart phones that my wife had issued at work by a long shot, I never get craked screen, virus, freezing or anything, also because it is simple the battery life is still three to four days with moderate use.

I've got more phones than you'd care to imagine, because of my job. I've got smartphones that are ancient (a Sony Ericsson P800 that was released in 2002) and they still turn on. They're dog slow, low-resolution and had ropey battery life then that's impossible now (as the batteries are so old) but if I bought a new battery, I'm sure some of my 5-10 year old feature/smartphones would be just as good as a 10+ year old dumb phone.

There's no automatic reason that a smartphone will get a cracked screen and little evidence of any viruses for smartphone operating systems (but the usual suspects will happily sell you software to make you feel warm and fuzzy) except for when people knowingly install an application and give permission for it to access things it shouldn't.

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with having a basic phone. In fact, in my collection I have many - going right back to a Nokia 2140 on Orange from 1994. That doesn't turn on, simply because I've lost the charger and the battery is probably dead.. but I bet it would work if I got a battery/charger from eBay.

Gordon Bennett! Why pick those two, they're two of the worst possible channels to have chosen! Do viewer numbers back it up or did C4 choose their worst two channels?
Doesn't Film4 show mostly films from before the HD era anyway?
I'd have thought E4's demographic would suit internet only tbh

I have no idea how/why the decision was made to add them.. if they are coming at all. I saw it on another forum but didn't pay much attention, to see what other HD channels might also be coming.

 

[GB]

Doesn't Film4 show mostly films from before the HD era anyway?
I'd have thought E4's demographic would suit internet only tbh

Most older films from the last 15 years or so while not purposely filmed for the HD market are actually filmed at a higher resolution than commercial HD (by virtue of it being "film"). Its the post processing and post editing that cuts the resolution down to what we know as HD.

 

[Eagle]

Doesn't Film4 show mostly films from before the HD era anyway?

I believe any cinematic film can be run in HD (being as cinema's always used a higher resolution than TV anyway).

edit: beaten to it yet again...

 

[jon0844]

Yup, film is still of a higher resolution than HD - so even films going back 50 or 60 years are probably going to be easily converted to high-definition. I wonder if they might even be enough to convert to 4K HD in the future? (that's 4x HD quality, with 8K to follow after that).

Sadly, many films in the 90s were filmed with digital video cameras at resolutions that were far too low quality, so will never be in HD. They can be upscaled and digitally enhanced, but it will never be the same quality.

 

[Bungle73]

They are using different frequencies for digital TV from analogue. The vacated frequencies will be sold off for 4G networks. How else do you think they could broadcast both simultaneously.

Celluloid by its very nature is "HD", and a far higher "resolution" than current HDTVs. Anything intended to be screen in the cinema will be able to be viewed in HD. I have a bluray of Metropolis!

 

[Eagle]

They are using different frequencies for digital TV from analogue. The vacated frequencies will be sold off for 4G networks. How else do you think they could broadcast both simultaneously.

Hmm, maybe, but it's definitely the same band of frequencies.

And as I mentioned upthread, my local transmitter never broadcast both simultaneously, and it's using the same four frequencies for Freeview that it did for analogue (40-43-46-50, which happens to be quite a common set of frequencies used).

 

[jon0844]

They are using different frequencies for digital TV from analogue. The vacated frequencies will be sold off for 4G networks. How else do you think they could broadcast both simultaneously.

They will be allowing some former analogue spectrum to be reused for digital mobile phones, but the remaining analogue frequencies will be used for digital, whether SD or HD.

There are plenty of channels to allow for a lot of digital channels, and eventually we'll probably see a decrease of channels as many new channels go online or we see new companies entering the market that offer movies and TV shows (like Netflix, Lovefilm, Now TV) on demand.

Not everyone has a good broadband service, but when this improves, getting to watch something by simply clicking 'watch' is likely to be favoured by most people. It's much better than waiting for it to start on a broadcast channel.

These services will also likely kill off DVD and Blu-ray sales, although I think it will be a shame as people will no longer own a physical product to enjoy looking through on shelves/in drawers, or to sell/pass on to others. But, that's still the way it's going and most people seem quite happy.

I've not bought a film on a physical disc in over two years. I've even put the Blu-ray player in the loft to make things cleaner on the TV stand. I won't miss waiting for a film to 'load' and having to sit through trailers, but I do miss the extras (but not enough that I can see myself ever getting it out of the loft).

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I'll stick with my view that I'm not persuaded ("is technology all its cracked up to be?").

Many of the positive responses on this thread are concerned with consumer products rather than the technology, posted by people who might (and I can only guess) have been enthusiastic about the corresponding consumer products in previous decades - the very same products which, with hindsight, we now condemn with the same enthusiasm.
Isn't that a contradiction?
If technology is 'a good thing', then surely its products are also a good thing, even when it evolves and other products become a necessity; or else they're not, because ''good technology' is quite distinct from 'good consumer products'.

I think I've made my view on consumer products clear - I'm not impressed, because the marketing that makes one product this year's essential also makes it next year's junk, without the benefits of underlying technology being evaluated in terms of real human benefit.
That marketing of consumer 'technology' seems to use the same promotional arguments used to sell processed foods, branded foods, bottled rain, bundled products, service contracts, many financial products, cosmetics, holidays, etc.

By contrast, I am very impressed by techological innovation in supporting lives, well-being and the quality of life using technology. e.g. applications of smart drugs, CT scanners, neuroscience, etc.

But if I'm to be impressed by technology in consumer products then I'd be looking for a reliable weather forecast, a washing machine smart enough to notice that there are no clothes in it, crops that survive our climate, or almost anything that assists the millions of elderly, lonely and mobility-restricted in our nations beyond the primitive smoke alarm.

[Oh, and in case my earlier post wasn't asolutely clear, I cannot accept that there is anything worth watching on TV based on 'the technological answer'. I might be persuaded by a social, cultural, economic, spiritural, educational or welfare answer.]

No. Technology is not all its cracked up to be.

 

[jon0844]

Consumer electronics are designed to get you to buy something this year, and upgrade the next - whether it's obsolete or not.

And now we have products that have sealed batteries and are designed to effectively expire, as to fix/upgrade will probably cost too much to be practical - and if it looks 'old' then it's no longer cool anyway.

It's much like the car industry. Sure there are people who just buy a product and keep using it, just as they keep their car until it can't be repaired, but they're the minority.

However, I still love the industry (but do at least feel that I'm grounded enough to see the downsides, unlike some of the tech press that can see no wrong with the way things are going) and I do believe there's still plenty of innovation. And, for the record, you can now get some pretty smart washing machines!!