onDigital Pace Box

[sirwiggum]

Any broadcast gurus?

I use an old onDigital pace box for freeview in the computer/exercise bike room.

I have heard though that when the analogue is turned off, the freeview signal will be changed? Such that old freeview boxes like this wont receive it?

Its a nice box and gives an RF output to my monitor/TV such that the PS2 can use the AV input.

Should I just bite the bullet and upgrade it?

[CalamityJames]

Techie post alert:

The main problem with the onDigital boxes is that they don't support the new methods of receiving Freeview. Not that much of a problem currently, but when digital switchover happens there will be much more bandwidth available for Freeview, so we will switch from "2k coding" (which is quite low power I think to prevent clashing with existing analogue signals) to 8k coding, which is much more powerful, will provide a more robust signal and is the international standard for Digital Terrestrial Television (we're the only country to use 2k)

So, the short answer is: yes, in 2012 at least you'll have to bite the bullet and upgrade as the old box won't receive any channels.

James.

[sirwiggum]

Thanks Calamity James

Is there much of a market for old Pace onDigital boxes?

Can they be used for other uses such as d2mac receivers?

[CalamityJames]

I'm not sure about other uses, but on eBay the Philips ones at least won't even sell for a fiver any more

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OLD-ITV-DIGIT ... 4cf8b12415

[FarmerPug]

thats typical car boot sale stuff, you buy it and are assured it works perfectly, get it home and its no good.
If you want outdated and unsupported technology i have two amstrad emailers, the amserve that made them work is closing down and they will just become useless, although 20p per email made them pretty well useless when brand new

What about freesat, is it any good, because freeview at the moment isnt really that good just a lot of shopping and repeats

[highlander]

If you want outdated and unsupported technology i have two amstrad emailers, the amserve that made them work is closing down and they will just become useless

We bought a BT Easicom 1000 screen phone:


All its e-mail functionality was defunct by the time I bought it, and none of the useless fuckers at the BT Shop bothered to tell me. Useless before I bought it. The BT Shop was in Inverness, and I lived in Thurso at the time - it's a 4 hour train journey, and I wasn't driving at that point. I called them and they basically said "tough, the T&C said they had the right to withdraw the service at any time, and besides, it works as a phone". No refund. I gave up and just used it as a massive phone with speakerphone and caller display.

[FarmerPug]

i bet you were fuming at that i got the emailer because i have an aunt who lives in italy and we thought it would be good the first phone bill to come through soon meant the amstrad went in the attic. the second one came i dont know why but it spontanously played advertisments on its colour screen so our hall was the place to learn about the mazda 6.

[sirwiggum]

The second email phone was subsidised by adverts. Your own phone displaying adverts at you.
Amstrad had some decent kit in it's time - the CPC, PCW, set top boxes (now owned by sky), but the emailer was a disaster.

I'm not surprised at the BT decision having worked with them previously.

The firm I used to work for would ramp up a project for them to their specifications, some obscure abstraction of data in a particular telecoms format, the project would be ready, installed in BTs test systems, then a new manager would come along and scrap the whole project!
Seemed to be the way management in BT liked to be seen to be pro-active - scrap the previous guy's pet project and start your own!

As one BT insider commented, it was like the Channel 4 ident. All the pieces start to line up, it looks like it's there, then bam - they move apart again!

[FarmerPug]

bt does seem to be a bit like that, look at these home hubs theres a new one every year and as soon as it comes out the old one breaks and you have to get the new one.

about bt, i see something new called bt mobile, but im confused, because my phone number is so old it used to be called bt cellnet, then i thought they just changed their name to 02, or did they?

[highlander]

Cellnet was a co-operative effort between BT and Securicor (60:40 ownership). BT then bought out Securicor's 40% and renamed the company BT Cellnet.

In 2002, BT owned a number of mobile phone companies (Cellnet, Esat Digifone, Viag Interkom, and Telfort Mobiel), and wanted to have just one brand - so they merged them all together and renamed them as O2.

They then sold O2 to Telefonica in 2005.

[CalamityJames]

BT Mobile is now run off the back of the Vodafone network ironically!

[FarmerPug]

thats suprising i bet they are ripping to have got rid of it all and 02 going as good as it is now

[sirwiggum]

They don't have a clue beyond the current revolving management's plans and the shareholders meeting.

[FarmerPug]

i get that sort of feeling about bt, are they a private company or does the government have most of the control.
Im confused about bt, they also own all the lines, and junction boxes its them who does any work involving adding or fixing telephone lines but if they own the wires that take the telephone to out homes why or how does other telephone companies work if they don't own the infrastructure.

[CalamityJames]

i get that sort of feeling about bt, are they a private company or does the government have most of the control.
Im confused about bt, they also own all the lines, and junction boxes its them who does any work involving adding or fixing telephone lines but if they own the wires that take the telephone to out homes why or how does other telephone companies work if they don't own the infrastructure.

It's really odd now, I don't know exactly how it works, but I know Openreach was created for some anti-competition reason to maintain the lines etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openreach