Who Wants HD/Digital?

Who Wants HD & Digital TV?

. I could hardly be called a Luddite as I truly love my gadgets (Except when they all seem to conspire to screw up my life, that is), so to find myself actually being against advances is something of a novelty for me.

Last night’s Gadget Show on Channel Five really got me thinking about the so-called digital revolution. I mean, who really wants it? You see, they did a group test of some HD-ready tellies and the best comment that the presenters could come up with when talking about the winner was that they ‘…could live with…’ its picture. Hardly a glowing recommendation, really. It seems that, although only plasma and LCD screens are going to be HD-TV compatible neither is actually up to the job.

As for the programming we’re going to get do we actually want it? Yes, it’s nice to have access to sport if you’re into it, or movies on demand. I could possibly be persuaded to watch the Sci-Fi channel, but experience has shown that more channels simply generate more crap. And cheap crap at that. I have this pet theory that, as society has become more insular, many have switched to soaps as being their actual contact with other people. As we have progressively less contact with our neighbours and our families many of us adopt the soaps as a sort of surrogate. They’re who we gossip about, worry about and relate to, to the extent that many viewers seem to be unable to distinguish actors from characters. The stories some of my friends tell about having to deal with idiots who take them to task about their character’s behaviour are legion, and many of them are in ways and at times which most decent people wouldn’t even think of doing to their real families! So there’s no advantage to us in that, really. Plus, previously what kept many of us in conversation were shared events on TV. Look at how many tuned in to Dallas to see JR get shot and ho big an event that was. There’s nothing – and I include the execrable Big Brother in this –that compares. Telly was, believe it or not, one of the few remaining social glues in Western society. Multi-channel TV viewing patterns make the likes of that impossible already. Why would we want even more?

Speaking of digital, the analogue switch-off is being forced on us with no apparent consultation, at huge cost and is, in the UK being extensively funded by the TV licence. It doesn’t even work particularly well yet and the signal coverage is pants with no extra transmitters being planned. So, again; why? Who really wants all these things?

They’re even putting TV onto phones now. Or beginning to. I think that once they start pursuing people for a TV Licence for their phone that route will be killed stone dead. Who in their right mind is going to pay for another licence – because your home licence doesn’t seem to cover you – just to watch slowly-loaded clips on a 2” screen?