Analogue TV switch off starts

[Softus]

...or one tuner in each of two boxes.

 

[megawatt]

Sky does the same with either twin or quad LNB's on the dish.

With Sky though the signal strength is reduced slightly from that of a single LNB as, due to the positioning of the twin or quads, none of them is optimally positioned within the parabola.

Only really noticeable in very bad weather conditions though when the signal is weaker anyway and acceptable given the fact that you can use 2 or 4 digital channels simultaneously

 

[Steve]

freeview hard drive. Like sky+ but more basic.

 

[Space cat]

Once we go to digital, how can you record one program on a vcr (or a dvd for that matter) whilst watching another one?

You'll do it with two tuners just like you do now. Your TV has an analogue tuner. Your VCR has its own analogue tuner. You record from the one in the VCR while you watch something different using the one in the TV. In the not too distant future all TVs will have the digital tuner built in, for the simple reason that they won't work without one! DVD recorders will also have their own digital tuners (VCRs are a dying breed).

That's what Softus said in a lot fewer words - but there's more. Long, long ago, an advert for TVs suggested that the humble TV would some day turn into a computer. It's long overdue but, with the arrival of cheap(ish), large capacity disk drives, it's happening now. I think it began with RAMdisk, a variation on the recordable DVD where record and playback can take place simultaneously, then progressed naturally to hard disk. You can now have two tuners in one box recording onto the disk while you watch either of them, not only as they happen but also as they happened half an hour ago!

I'm tempted to get one of these but I'm waiting for the one that lets you watch what's going to happen in half an hour's time!