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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 21 2015, @03:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the digital-killed-the-fm-star dept.

The Government of Norway announces

[April 16], the Ministry of Culture announced a national FM-switch off, to complete the transition to digital radio. Norway is making [a] historical move into a new radio era, being the first country in the world to decide upon an analogue switch-off for all major radio channels. With DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and digital radio, listeners will be provided with more radio channels and greater diversity in content.

[...]The DAB-coverage in Norway now exceeds FM-coverage. DAB provides Norway with 22 national channels, as opposed to five channels transmitting nationwide on FM.

[...]Switch-off starts in Nordland county 11th January 2017 and ends with the northernmost counties Troms and Finnmark [13th December] 2017.

Official announcement in Norwegian. Also covered at Ars Technica.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:26PM

    by francois.barbier (651) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:26PM (#173924)

    Same here. Digital TV has been a downgrade here.

    1) analog TV just turn on. No wait for that stupid decoder to load all its crap.
    II) digital TV decoders eat a lot of energy, even when the TV is off... You can shut it down but see point 4.
    C) digital TV is slow when zapping. Analog TV just zaps.
    Four) digital TV decoders can crash. Then you have to wait about 10 minutes for it to cold boot.
    V) Signal quality. Yeah they advertise HD but reduce quality so much (to cram more channels on the line) that it's worse than SD.

    Overall, a waste of time, money and energy.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:53PM

    by Alfred (4006) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:53PM (#173964) Journal
    1) Yup
    2) Really? Though not much concern to me.
    3) Please expound on "zapping" I am not sure what you mean.
    4) Not an issue for me. yet.
    5) Lower quality-> more channels -> more ads -> more money. That is all.

    I suspect that you like myself are not addicted to the tube so much that you will put up with that crap just to get your fix. My tv turns on faster than the computer hooked to it and that signal doesn't have artifacts, so I'm good ~95% of the time.
    • (Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:32PM

      by francois.barbier (651) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:32PM (#174009)

      2) Yup, a digital TV decoder can record shows when the TV is off. Basically, it's a computer that is powered on all the time. You can unplug it, but next time you want to watch TV, you have to wait for the bloody thing to cold boot.
      3) Sorry, "zapping" is French for changing channels quickly.
      4) You're lucky!
      5) Exactly. So why should I pay more for equivalent or lesser service? Don't forget the decoder is rental too!

      I've had the decoder crash multiple times in the middle of a movie, and having to wait for it to cold boot again. At one point, I got bored and resorted to "illegally" downloading the same movie. The download literally finished before the decoder rebooted. After complaining several times to the company unsuccessfully, I just sent them their crap back and never got to watch normal TV again at home.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:55PM (#174064)

        3) Sorry, "zapping" is French for changing channels quickly.

        It's also used in Germany with that meaning.

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday April 23 2015, @01:50PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday April 23 2015, @01:50PM (#174290) Journal

        2) Yup, a digital TV decoder can record shows when the TV is off. Basically, it's a computer that is powered on all the time. You can unplug it, but next time you want to watch TV, you have to wait for the bloody thing to cold boot.
        3) Sorry, "zapping" is French for changing channels quickly.
        4) You're lucky!
        5) Exactly. So why should I pay more for equivalent or lesser service? Don't forget the decoder is rental too!

        I've had the decoder crash multiple times in the middle of a movie, and having to wait for it to cold boot again. At one point, I got bored and resorted to "illegally" downloading the same movie. The download literally finished before the decoder rebooted. After complaining several times to the company unsuccessfully, I just sent them their crap back and never got to watch normal TV again at home.

        That doesn't sound like the problem is the digital signal. It sounds like the stupid "cable boxes" we have over here in the states, which universally suck and which they'll try to force you to rent even though you don't always need them. They're not there to convert digital to analog -- any remotely modern TV has a built-in digital receiver already. The boxes exist solely to handle DRM that the cable/satellite provider uses to control which channels you can receive. They're not necessary for broadcast signals like TFA is discussing.

        Some boxes are better than others though -- my parents had a few different types, some were tiny little units powered by a 6V wall adapter with only coax in, coax out...and those worked pretty well -- low power, quick boot, never crashed. Others were these massive boxes with component/composite/coax/HDMI outputs and all this other garbage which worked pretty much as poorly as what you've described. So you might be able to get a better box. Although I think the little ones couldn't do HD or something. Sounds like yours also had a DVR included, which is just more crap to go wrong...