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Message: <blockquote data-quote="londonkiwi" data-source="post: 61221" data-attributes="member: 16718">DVBGood news on the digital front then. Still currently in England but will be back in Welly by end of July so will be hanging onto my DVB-T card and STB to bring home.Why both DVB-T and S? Having worked previously for DSE and Noel Lemmings one of the biggest problems for TV installs was recepition of signal - having both options allows people to choose the cheap DVB-T option (only requires line of sight to local transmiter and UHF aerial) or better coverage of signal with DVB-S (requires that you can "see" satelite and a sat. dish). To be honest I'm not sure why NZ doesn't give up on terrestrial distribution and go with sat. as there always seems to be a hill between you and the transmitter - esp. in Wgtn LOL!If DVB goes off like it has in the UK it will open up a whole new world of TV - lets hope the likes of TVNZ and 3 does as good a job as the BBC and co have done (to be fair the UK still has a TV licence fee of about Â£100 per household per year which when added up is a fair amount - but at least they don't have ads!!). Freeview here has gone from about 10 channels to about 40 plus (incl. digital radio stations) in the last 18 months. And all free! There are also a number of pay as you go channels that require a card to view. To answer a previous question I think almost all DVB TV/STB units have a card slot incorporated in them to support payTV and encrypted channels. Lets hope NZ goes non-encrypted at least for the current crop of free to air stuff.What do you need for DVB? Well for DVB-T (T= terrestrial, broadcast from a land based transmitter) you'll need a DVB-T STB (set-top box - about the size of a slimline DVD player if not smaller) to tune and convert the signal for your TV (any TV that can accept a video or DVD player will work) and a UHF aerial. For DVB-S (satelite transmission) you'll need a DVB-S STB and a satelite dish (the same as used for SKY). If you are wanting DVB on your PC you'll need a DVB-T or DVB-S card - the big advantage here is no (or very little) encoding required to store the data - so very low overhead for recording and timeshift and EPG (electronic program guide - think the Listener on screen)!! Disadvantage is that changing channel on DVB cards and STBs seems to take ages (couple of seconds anyway) and if the signal is not very strong the picture either freezes or breaks up rather than just a lose in quality.Hope that helps!  <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big Grin    :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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