We are most firmly in the interactive digital age now. How do I know? A couple of days ago my digital Freeview tv insisted on telling me via a black box on my screen that there were to be two steps to the digital changeover. To learn more select the blue button, to remove the message select the yellow button. I’m not sure whether this counts as pedantry, but I think it should have said to temporarily remove the message select yellow. As soon as I changed channels the message was back. So I selected blue in the hope that it would register that I was interested in what the tv was trying to tell me and would therefore stop trying to gain my attention.
One lives in hope. If my tv had its own voice it would probably have said ‘I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that’. Funny how one always expects electronic goods of any sort to start channeling HAL when things go wrong. Blue or Yellow made no odds. Change channel, turn off, turn back on, message in black box. So I thought maybe it’s imminent and therefore necessary that I do something right now. So I Googled when the digital switchover was due putting in my postcode and noticed that my house name or number was also requested. A little strange, so I made use of the ‘Why do you need this?’ link only to be told that the results would be a lot more accurate if I input this detail.
Now I’m no expert on public transmitters, digital or otherwise, but I have the sneaking suspicion that, unless you live on a road the length of the M3 the number of your house isn’t going to make that much difference to which transmitter you are getting your signal from. This suspicion was born out when the results came back saying ‘The Rowridge transmitter in the Meridian TV region is your most likely transmitter.’ So much for accuracy.
Expecting the changeover date to be that night because of the insistence of my tv, I was a little surprised to see that it was in March 2012. A horrible thought then dawned on me, what if this was going to happen every time I changed channel or switched on until Spring next year? Fortunately it seemed that there was to be no repeat the following day, or the day after. One cannot help but have the sneaking suspicion that the black box may be appearing again before we are launched into the digital wonderland next March. One last little point to give us all the feeling this will all go fine and dandy is a note on the Digital UK website which says “You won’t see these messages if you already watching digital TV (e.g Sky TV, Freview or another) or if your aerial is pointing at another transmitter that will switch at a different time.” That worked then and nice to know they can spell ‘Freeview’. Details such as they are below.
