Ten years ago on this day, Jan 1 2001, digital television launched in Australia. I recall buying my first digital STB for the princely sum of $799 a couple of months after the launch. There was little benefit to digital TV at the time of the launch, but I was sold on it after seeing how good Dawsons Creek (of all shows) looked in digital 16:9.
The excellent TV blog Talking Television has taken a look at digital television over the past ten years. Be sure to take a read as Andrew has done a great job on this retrospective.
With digital TV penetration having passed 3/4 of the population and a number of regional areas now exclusively digital, it’s a safe assumption that anyone passionate about their telly has converted. How long did it take you to make the switch and what was the selling point?
8 Comments
Many thanks for the link and kind words!
I switched to digital in May 2002, I’d just bought a widescreen CRT TV and bought a Zinwell STB (SD only) for about $650 IIRC which I think was a ‘sale’ price. I was hoping to plug it in and see the Eurovision Song Contest that night in widescreen, until I saw that SBS were not showing a widescreen version of it. These days we take widescreen programs for granted but in those early days it was always a bit touch and go.
I don’t understand why some TV broadcasters are hogging digital channels. SBS has 5 but only shows 2 separate programme streams. ABC sometimes has children’s shows on 3 channels at the same time!
I’d rather see reruns of decent old programms that ‘wibbly pig’ in high definition on 3 channels.
It is great, except when it rains and then the signal cuts out and we have to switch back to analogue if we want to continue watching. The digital picture quality is better but the service availability is worse. The location is the Northern Rivers of NSW.
I’m still wondering when we’re actually going to get HD programming. You know, like, the thing a lot of us bought a HD set and hoped to see?
I got a cheap SD box, and then, with the help of Mr Rudd, bought a Toshiba HD tv. My big complaint is the amount of children’s tv on the ABC (see commenter above).
10 years? wow…
High definition was all about a spectrum grab by the big commercial players, as is the current furphy about 3D. Now they’ve all realised that multi-channel actually works for them, expect to see less HD (and 3D).
Everytime there’s a mild south wind the signal is lost.
And there’s no analogue alternative where I live.
I wonder how long it will be before the advertisers realise they’re losing 95% of the audience at random times ?
(8 months ago, $89 HD STB).
Haven;t yet as I only get out my TV for cricket. Eh.
Everything else is on the interwebs/DVDs