According to the Guardian, of 26.8 million TV homes in the UK, 23.8 already have digital via Freeview boxes, satellite and cable (figures from TV ratings body Barb). If, like me, you live in a region that has already seen the switchover, then you’ll know that, for the most part, the operation has been a very smooth one (despite what the initial naysayers predicted).
via tvscoop.tv
From 1994-2001 I worked on bleeding edge digital TV technology. We developed the low level software for both Philip’s and Toshiba’s first/second generation MPEG2 decoders.
In 1998, in Integral Design, we had our first meeting with RTE about building a Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) STB.
It is now 2010.
Not much more needs to be said really.
I realised things were bad but not as bad as the picture you’ve painted there. We really are lagging in so many areas for a country that was so awash with prosperity in recent years.
In our innocence we thought we’d see product on the market in 2000. It symbolises the lost decade that was the noughties in Ireland. All that wealth pissed away on future tenements rather than infrastructure (both physical and electronic).