Speed of moving technology

[RedDevil_UK]

When we hear about new technology we have a habit of talking about it for a long time, then we get the hardware.... but nothing to use it on, then slowly get drip fed the service to back it up.

Take HD for instance, talked about in the 90s.... hands on the hardware early 2000s and finally we got something delivered in 2006 and its been very slow.
Even now there are still more channels in SD than HD and they are talking about 4k and even 8k.

Apart from the fact i want all HD TV channels, we have HD and SD duplicates cluttering our guides.... soon we will have SD, HD, 4K and 8K versions of all the channels!!!

Surely we should be worrying about 8k once we get the 1k we have been promised for so long.

The same can be said of DAB and Broadband.

The only fast technology that has slowed down is Smartphones.
The need for a new phone before your contract ended has gone, you can now have a 5 year old smartphone that still works fine.
At one time you realised your phone got a lot slower with each update of firmware and apps, now its no longer as obvious

 

[rolfw]

I would guess that the hold up on terrestrial HD channels is the lack of equipment in homes capable of receiving it, Freeview equipment only capable of SD reception, is still probably in the majority.

 

[PaulR]

That might be true for quite a time yet and will only change when (if) terrestrial TV moves to DVB T2 for the SD channels. There are a few there already where you need an HD receiver in order to get an SD channel.

 

[Archive7]

There are many countries in the world who don't have the luxuries that European countries have now.
To change the channels from SD to HD would require more bandwidth from the satellites and will cost more to the providers which means more money from end users.
The French TNT (Terrestrial) have recently changed all channels to HD and after few weeks changed all the TNT SAT channels to HD (deleting all the SD channels in the process). The government will subsidize poor people who can't afford buying a new TNT receiver.
Millions of SD receivers have gone/will go to recycling at best or to rubbish dumps.
I dread the thought of buying a new 4K TV.

 

[RedDevil_UK]

The French seem to embrace HD.
Ive noticed that Canal+ HD seems a lot clearer than Sky HD
probably down to the compression rates BSkyB use.

And then there is people like my own parents.

I bought them a new Samsung TV for my dads birthday last year.
Everytime i go round dads watching BBC/ITV in SD... channels 1,2,3,4 etc
I keep saying to him, watch channels 101,102,103,104 cos its in HD.

His reply..... "why..... do they show better TV shows"
To be fair, im not sure he can see the difference in quality to be honest.

Does make you wonder, how many people who do have HD equipment don't even bother using HD channels.

 

[Archive7]

The French seem to embrace HD.
Ive noticed that Canal+ HD seems a lot clearer than Sky HD
probably down to the compression rates BSkyB use.

And then there is people like my own parents.

I bought them a new Samsung TV for my dads birthday last year.
Everytime i go round dads watching BBC/ITV in SD... channels 1,2,3,4 etc
I keep saying to him, watch channels 101,102,103,104 cos its in HD.

His reply..... "why..... do they show better TV shows"
To be fair, im not sure he can see the difference in quality to be honest.

Does make you wonder, how many people who do have HD equipment don't even bother using HD channels.

Actually the French TNT recent move to HD was to vacate the frequency slot between 694-790 MHz called the 700 MHz band and sell it to mobile companies. I guess they got a lot of money for that.
if you are interested to read this fascinating article, just do a Google translation on each paragraph.
INFORMATION: LE PASSAGE À LA NORME MPEG 4 OPÉRATIONS DU 5 AVRIL 2016

I think people here must have eye defects. They can't see how bad the quality of our two very popular channels called Channel 2 and Channel 10 who transmit with a terrible aspect ratio 544 x 576 and yet they seem to be content with the rubbish they show them. They get lots of money from too frequent adverts, and yet they wouldn't consider changing the quality to make it more pleasing to watch.