Snow Picture, Better than No Picture

I may sound crazy, but I preferred 'analogue TV' to 'digital.

OK, so some of the pictures were not great and there were fewer channels, but at least it was reliable. The programmes on offer were enough to satisfy my viewing needs, I had the ability to record a programme while watching another and Heaven forbid, it was even possible to watch local TV stations.

Admittedly, at times the picture was not perfect. Rugby Union on S4C was always played in snowy conditions whatever the time of year. However, did not really matter. I did not crave perfection. The reality was that the commentary was in Welsh, the players were caked in mud, thus practically unrecognisable and the games not necessarily that remarkable. The important thing was that there was enough to maintain an interest.

Now, everything has gone digital. My first gripe is that we, the viewer had to pay for the initial, compulsory costs of upgrades and installation, which is also in many ways a direct cause of my further complaints. I am well aware that I could purchase a whole variety of fancy pieces of equipment to ensure wall-to-wall coverage of 'shopping channels,' 'sitcom re-runs' and various forms of 'adult entertainment.' Frankly, we are in a recession, I have no money and I have no desire for all that.

Digital means I have a Freeview box which provides a whole host of channels (101 by the last count, approximately 90 of which are junk), I can only record what I am watching, various things cause mild interference (hedge-trimmers, road traffic, police sirens etc) and my local news is provided by a different county in a different country.

Above and beyond all that, it is totally unreliable. “Sunday Night Football” is a highlight of the week for me for four months of the year. I set to record it overnight and enjoy the footage during the week. Last night, firstly the DVD recorder failed to recognise the digi-box as a source, so it did not start recording as set. Past experience caused me to wake during the night and check it, so I discovered the fault and reset it. Digital even enabled me find the “Channel +1” so I thought I could recoup the lost hour. Instead, at 3 am, the digi-box decided to “search for upgrades,” abandoning the game and turning the screen blue. This obviously caused all-round confusion: the digi-box froze, the DVD recorder panicked as it no longer had a source, so stopped. The result being that the only solution required human input. Given, the human in question was asleep, blissfully dreaming of the hard-hitting drama of the Cowboys against the Eagles, I will not be getting my NFL-fix this week.

Maybe I am not crazy, just plain annoyed. Give me analogue any day. The East coast of the USA has just been hit by unseasonably early winter storms.   Analogue or digital, there would have been snow on my screen anyway.