The End Of Australian Analog TV - Switching Off 

***** End off the broadcast, but not the show. No fucks given.

***** But really, just think of it. You saw damn history. It was the end of the broadcast that was the TV itself for decades! It happens only once, not more.

+HunChem Thats how the old B&W TVs used to go after you turned them off. Enough + charge on the CRT with a dead yoke to spot the centre. 6cm5, 6al3, 1s2, eht transformers - all gone.

+BURNINGJUNK 03:25

(End of the Analogue world)

Agreed, it was sad to watch. I believe us here in 'murica discontinued analog in 2009, and honestly it was time. Hard to justify the use of that wide frequency range for analog when you can pack more digital into the same space (not to mention data use of that spectrum.)

Propane TreeFiddy same. it was very hard to watch.

very few people watch TV these days anyway due to the on demand entertainment provided by the internet all they had to do is wait for the older generation to... um die off... and then slowly shut down the signals over the course of a few years most people wouldnt even notice and the government could have saved a few billion dollars TV had a good run but in the end, the internet killed it in the same way TV killed radio

Stephen Furr I disagree about it being time to switch off analog. The benefits of digital are somewhat overshadowed by the shorter transmission range and the fact that all analog only tvs were instantly obsoleted without a converter box and made it almost pointless to collect antique TVs. I think digital and analog TV could have co-existed sort of like how analog and digital FM do. I think it was pushed for digital only because there was lots of money to be made by selling off some of the frequency range used for TVs. Someone got filthy rich off of it.

"and made it almost pointless to collect antique TVs." Yeah, because that's not a niche within a niche... *facepalm*.

"But dad, Whats the web? its the neuron network"

tobortine RIP Analog TV 1940-2013 it's been fun even I didn't know we switched to Digtal j was little young

Peter Libranti i was born in 2010

@@jeykies3745. I was born 4 years before you.

@@MrDuckie00 i was 0 back then in 2013

Hence RU-vid! Where content is better and the conditions are worsening!

AlexChama Thanks for clarifying that!

rely

rely

Truer words were never spoken !

Implementation of audio packaging is somehow extremely stupid. It starts dropping out before video does and it's the one that's extremely important to not be interrupted. Who cares about couple of missed frames that are blocky, continuous audio is a must.

Well, whether or not digital TV will freeze depends on the encoding used. If the situation you describe was a problem for a lot of people, they could use progressive enhancement coding where the lower resolution images had ridiculous error correction on them so that they'd get through any kind of "normal" natural disturbance so you'd always have an image, like in the analog case. There are other error correction schemes that can be used to minimize the effect of loss as well, such that the TV could mask the consequences of errors. Like checkerboard macroblock distributions, separating information from blocks with high spacial correlation more in time so that you can be more confident that you have useful data to reconstruct lost data from if part of it is lost by localized noise. Most techniques like that become more effective as the resolution of the TV signal increases as well.

That's one of the reasons why I hate digital television

Absolutely, digital signal is not a superior product by any means. They killed analog because they needed to free up frequency range for more important reasons. So even the government knows analog is the way to go for a reliable communication signal.

when my little brother watches abc4kids when its windy or rainy, i just love watching the tv freak out.

Long live the Analog.

Television was dead when they turned of the analog signal And its digital zombie corpse was killed by Netflix not long after

@@mwbgaming28Actually Netflix will have the same path as Blockbuster, that reminds me that they told the radio the same thing that they would also disappear when television arrived but in the end they still exist.

@@SerranoECH piracy has made all of them obsolete anyway

In the US they counted down but I like Australia's switch because it was calm instead of THREE TWO ONE *static*

Numitron me to :'(

R. I. P. ATN7 SINDEY 😢😢😢😢💔💔💔💔💔

I’m in the USA so this did not affect me

I remember, love that effect. My previous cellphone (Droid Bionic) had (a simulation of) that effect when you locked it.

Michael Steinbach as does the nexus 4 possibly an android thing ?

Andrew Joy Yes, that's an Android thing, my Samsung does it too.

I remember it well... Then again we still have a CRT tv in the house... And up until 3 months ago I still had some CRT computer monitors in use... XD - Granted modern CRT displays aren't nearly as dramatic as the older ones... But you can still see the overall effect...

same, i dunno why tho

(*End of the Analogue World*)

We’re now in the digital world of TV

Hey guys, it's alright. Things like these happen sometimes, just like how we feel. You just gotta control how you feel.

@@enriquetitan06 there was an attempt to sound inspirational

OH MY GOD

The Gangs Shut Down Analog.

The Gang Goes Digital

I suspect the reason for that is that the digital tuner can't start decoding the video stream until it gets an intra-compressed frame, and they don't appear that often in the data stream. I think once every second, or something like that. Analogue, on the other hand just depends on the timing information within a frame, so it'll switch channels within a 25th of a second (or a 30th of a second for the Yanks). It's an example of the time-space trade-off in computer science. The digital system is much more efficient in terms of bandwidth use, but you pay a price in that it takes longer to decode and needs very complex circuitry to do so. The analogue system is fast to decode, using much simpler circuitry, but uses a lot of bandwidth.

Hmm, in theory they could preload a few channels ahead and before the current one to allow sapping fast through them. But of course it takes processor time. I've seen older converters were slower maybe in some years they'll catch up. But for me it's frustrating to see how easy people accepted it without complaints, go find a single complaint about this, you won't. Isn't that weird? People tend to be extremely volatile when someone takes something from them but not this case. Yes they get better image quality (often enough, apparently) and more channels but what about low strength signals? In emergency situations this could make a live or die difference. Ok I changed the subject :| bye.

zerpBot Preloading channels would require either multiple tuners or multiplexed channels. Even so, given the way our current video codecs work, changing channels would still require the decoding of several frames of video data, which takes time. Video codecs tend to use three kinds of encoded frames: I, P and B. I frames are basically like a JPEG image and only care about what's in that frame, while P and B frames are differences between frames. P frames are the differences between the current frame and the last I frame, while B frames are the difference between the current frame, the last I or P frame and the next I or P frame. The types usually go in a sequence along the lines of "IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBPBBPBBPBB" repeated over and over. Given the sequence of encoded frames, picking just one at random makes you most likely to get a B frame in the middle portion of the sequence, which means that to decode it, you need the two P frames its sandwiched between decoded first, and to decode those, you need the preceding I frame. If the decoder's processor is only fast enough to process one frame in the time needed to display one, then assuming all the frames needed are buffered but not decoded, it'll give a delay of four frames before it becomes visible, which at 25fps, comes out to 0.16 seconds, which is definitely noticeable. Multiplexed channels and buffering all data on a given frequency would allow switching channels with the above limit, but only if you don't jump frequencies, in which case, you have to start buffering data from the new frequency all over again, putting you back to slower switching, which given it only happens some of the time could arguably be more annoying than just being slow all the time. Multiple tuners could buffer the data for the current channel and its neighbours, cutting switching time to the above limit, but it would be an inefficient use of parts and power, and it would still be much slower if you don't change channels in steps of one. Constant decoding of the current channel and its neighbours using multiple tuners could get single-jump switching times on par with analogue, given that changing channels would just swap which decoded video buffer gets sent to the screen, while another tuner gets its frequency reassigned in the background, but it would be even worse in terms of parts and power efficiency, as most of the time two thirds (or more) of the work would be discarded.

mPky1 Also a possibility. It would help smooth over spikes in the time the decoder takes to decode a frame. The more frames you have buffered ahead of what's being displayed, the more tolerance you have for a particularly error-filled one needing a lot of additional time to decode. An error-free frame might need 15ms to decode (plenty fast enough to keep up with a 50fps frame-rate), but a badly corrupted one might need 20ms to run through the error-correction algorithms before it produces something the main decoder can handle, giving a total time of 35ms. Without a buffer, you'd have the picture stalling for a frame or two when you receive a single corrupted one (depending on the video frame-rate). It's annoying, but nowhere near as annoying as buffer underruns in audio. For that reason most audio playback programs have a few seconds of audio buffers. I remember MOD4WIN back in my Windows 3.1 days being able to buffer up to 19.8 seconds, and losing as much as half of that when some other program did something demanding and taking about half that time to refill the buffer. ...and I just realised that those 19.8 seconds of buffer would have eaten up about 3.5MB, or nearly half the computer's memory.

mPky1 Well, I was just giving what I thought was likely. It's entirely possible that some systems might be able to do all the error-correction as the signal is coming in. On the other hand, it's possible to use multiple layers of error-correction. CDs use a two-layer Reed-Solomon code. The data is first encoded in blocks with one code. The results are then interleaved into a new set of blocks and encoded again with the second code, and the results of that are put on the disc. On reading the disc, the errors which make it through the lowest one end up distributed infrequently in the the higher-level code due to the interlacing, resulting in errors which are sparse enough that they can usually be corrected. Apparently, the system is strong enough that scratches on the disc tend to make the laser go off-track before they beat the error-correction code. Chances are that digital TV uses something similar, though probably with different codes.

The movie Poltergeist actually has a scene with this occurring. You can find it on RU-vid under "Poltergeist TV Scene".

in2005 in Seattle when analog was in the CBS or what I know is also KIRO station and they would do sign off with national anthem.

You can tell due to the baby Kangaroo being tucked to bed by it's mother

As if Digital was the mother and Analog was the Joey.

Our local ABC Station in my part of USA. Turn off analog in the middle of newscast .

smallenginedude71 hahaha yes!

+smallenginedude71 Pirate radios are for plebs. Let's do imagery!

+smallenginedude71 Pirate TV has been around for ages. My grandmother had pirate satalite when i was a little kid(I am 31 now). They had these fancy descrambling boxes that worked some what to descramble channels for legit customers. Funny part is, the man who sold it to her forgot to mention it was illegal, and she almost got into a lot of trouble years later because of it.

That wont be on air for too long. The FCC will shut it down pretty quickly.

A VCR connected to a signal amplified connected to another signal amplifier connected to another signal amplifier connected to another signal amplifier connected to an aerial.

NEVER!!!!!

they will not switch it off, it will just get filtered from your Internet plan unless you pay extra.

ahhh the benefits of a VPN

it's actually happening now.

The same will happen to the internet some day

But it doesn't have an abrupt cut on low signal :) I've seen this a lot and it's very annoying. I like imperfections, so you can see that there is a nice system working underneath, not just "perfect" picture. But if everybody likes it then we'll watch HD. It could be that the respect for theese systems (the people behind) even made the program a little bit better, and less the "instant rush" thing.

I hope someone got to sever a fat cable with a fire axe.

Povl Besser reminds me of the intro to the transformers movie

They only have to switch off the analog modulator and switch on the digital one, or flip the switch from analog to digital if the modulator is ready for the transition

It was a plunger they used.

I believe that it was done with a huge multi-pole single-throw switch - with one pole for each broadcaster to ensure that they were all switched off in absolute synchronisation.

Yeah, but HF is now swamped with network line adaptor sprogs.

+Dudefoxlive I loved the way they swept it down like the old B&W sets used to do. "We will control the vertical. We will control the horizontal." It's just not the same watching The Outer Limits without a smidgen of snow in the pic.

Australia: Dec 3, 2013 9:00 AM America: Dec 2, 2013 5:00 PM (I was 2 years old at that time in America) so the night background reminds me of it being night in America

That static made me scream

Started watching this in 2023 (Srry if pinging so much, I’ll stop now)

​@@dtozzi2387Dominick 😢

It's only going downhill from there, with the smartphone, RU-vid ads, China, until inevitably all human society has collapsed and animals evolve to become anthromorphic and rebuilds society.

Didn't work for Penzias & Wilson...

EEVblog Any plans for the antenna? I suggest a pole mounted pigeon coupe. Only the true Nerd in your neighborhood would get that reference. For extra fun rotate the mast while they are asleep.

The digital signal is still analog so that antenna is still good.

no you need a "digital TV antenna" now. //sarcasm//

Such as the speed of technology, man. That reminds me of when HDTVs were new to the scene and cost $5000 and up. I can remember that when I bought my HDTV 3 years ago that I was just happy that it can serve as both a TV and a computer monitor. I hear ya about modern TV being crap. That's why I rarely watch it. I'm too busy watching youtube videos. That's where my entertainment comes from.

This is true. From working in TV in the states the Chief Engineer was talking about the cost of upgrading to Ultra HD, including a new transmitter. Why? Because the current equipment will be incompatible with the new standard. Still wondering why the FCC went with ATSC over DVB-T. DVB-T is more robust. ATSC sucks. Rant mode off now.

It will be quite some time before we switch to Ultra HD. OLEDs are promising, but have burn-in issues which need to be solved. Use a DVR to skip commercials.

Chris W fuck it I'm gonna stay with 1 tv until there is no way in hell it can ever be used (still got a CRT tv)

Right on brother, what's the point of having Ultra HD and other improvemnts if there is only Informercials and idiotic lifestyle programs. What happened to all the movies both recent and classic, the wonderful documentaries. Oh yeah you have to pay for them now. Oh well back to watching those blasted Twistasaw and Shark Vacuum cleaners. I wonder which girl will win the batcholar, I think I'll go back to reading books.

Same! I guess it’s the fact Mother Digital was putting Analog Joey to bed forever. Yes, I gave them names.

@@tggc1983 Aww, cute names!

***** Now they($uddenlink or the government) want to take those digital converter boxes back. No Shit

john smith Not buying it.

***** Then suddenlink is behind it. Suddenlink has a monopoly where I live.

***** Probably need a bigger anteanna.

worldgate989 but with analog TV I bet he could have received at least one station. Oh I know he needs one of those digital antennas at least that's what antenna manufacturers would have you believe.

Daedalus Young yes, I'm sure someone on RU-vid could come up with something as good Breaking Bad or The Wire.

yeah but the problem is there will be no shows to watch.

Breaking Bad and The Wire were the WORST examples you could've picked, because all episodes of both are available for purchase in SD and HD quality on RU-vid.

Virgin Media has RU-vid, but the controls to me are crap.

youtube’s crap now we can’t watch our shows without getting copyright striked or paying

It can't be. I'm pretty sure I can catch RTL signal a little bit over the border in Varnsdorf. Over terrestrial.

@@CZghost Only programmes that are not aimed on people in Germany. Luxembourg still has some small low power analog terrestrial transmitters. Maybe others have as well. According to Bundesnetzagentur analog tv broadcasts in Germany are not permitted anymore (Frequenznutzungsplan)

me either. usually the only time i would MAYBE consider watching it was if the power was on but the internet wasnt (since whenever i can watch tv i usually can just watch youtube on my ipad), and we quit coughing up the 65 dollars or whatever oddballs it was to watch cable tv. we useD (emphasis on the d, hence the capitalization) to use roku, which i have on my bedroom tv (yes i have a tv in my bedroom, but it's a very old flat-screen Element Electronics TV who's had a few of its LEDs broken because it fell twice, first time barely, 2nd all the way to the ground because its meant to be a wall mount but i had to have it turned into a table mount since my tv is right in between 2 windows) but now even though our living room Hisense has roku, we dont use it. we dont really have a need for a tv other than for my Xbox One which is also old (we own a lot of old stuff, like my current ipad is the air 2 from 2014, which is gonna be 9 years old this year, so, happy 9th birthday in advance, ipad.) one time we could only get 1 channel on the hisense which i think was channel 34, i think it was about these people who would go places and document them and their history. sorry for the long comment. bye!!!!!

@@MrPaper-cd3oe Well that's a proper comment. And please don't apologise as I enjoyed reading it. I would guess there are many folk these days like us who have given up watching TV, there's just never anything interesting on it anymore it seems, even the Christmas films over the last couple of years were pretty lame. And that's a shame as I used to enjoy Christmas telly. Maybe I'm just getting old. However saying that, I thought telly was rubbish when I was a teenager too.. 113 years ago 👀 Anyway that's it! Oh.. But before I go. Happy Birthday to your iPad 🎉😁

same as AM radio is perfect for long distance transmitting. i refuse to get DAB or DAB+ radio's while a AM / FM radio works just as good, or even better.

that is true and its people like you that will ensure we keep good radio reception

Same here on spain and funy how fast the spectrum was sold to mobile phone companys and nothing left for open internet wirless. I hear on usa they gona leave some frequencies for internet wirless but no idea how it end . a 800 MHz will rocks on range no like the crapy 2,4Ghz.

The US turned off analogue nationwide in 2008, where as Australia switched off region by region starting in 2010 with rural areas and Sydney was the final region to be switched off on the 3rd December 2013.

Jason Mikelsons While the original date was sometime in 2008 for the US shutdown the government delayed it for some reason till sometime in 2009 can't remember the exact month. At least in the northeast US where I live.

Analog TV is not totally off the air in the USA. Low-power TV (LPTV) stations are still allowed to use analog until September 1, 2015. There are some analog LPTV stations on Channel 6 acting as FM radio stations (because Channel 6's audio carrier is at 87.75 MHz, which can be picked up at 87.7 on an FM radio), but it is unknown if these stations will be forced to convert to digital (and thus lose their ability to be received on FM radios) or if a waiver will be granted for them.

Tylore Rogers Because it is. In fact ALL the TVs (except one) are running on analog.

Vrabb Não sei onde moras camarada, mas aqui em SC quase todas já são digitais. E no brasil, já houve muito tempo atrás uma redução no espectro, os canais do 60 - 69 foram removidos. Abraço!

Tylore Rogers Because i suspect they don't have the resources to switch over?

Bastet Furry They have, In fact we do have digital but we just don't switch entirely they have both on ;)

+Vrabbers We will closed it in Malaysia on 2019.Can't wait how it looks.But analog still exist here.

***** In England that is your second "Turnoff" the first was when the old 405 line TV standard ceased broadcasting on January2 1985.

Not at all mate. Most people who grew up with analogue will miss it in some way or another. Especially if you're a bit nerdy. I love digital, but considering 3/4 of my life was spent in front of analogue, it is a bit sad to see it go.

***** As far as I know, Teletext still works in DVB-T and DVB-S.

I was born in 1994 but I miss analog tv... Here in italy they just switched off without any end transmission thing like in Dave's video and most American tv stations, that was really bad.

4K and 8K

I think Analog radio will still be around for a while, still so many cars out there only with an analog radio

olaniyi570 I believe analog radio will be around for a long time still. Some FM stations put out both an analog and digital signal. The analog receiver still works and the digital receivers can be used as well.

And sure it had contributed a lot in advancing the Electronic Circuit Technologies

I haven't watched Aussie TV in years thanks to the very same things you just mentioned ;)

In that case here's my suggestions, do a similar video as Dave on all channels switching off at the same time.

Gerjaison OK that's a done deal :) Will do a video like this next week :)

Good! look forward to it mate! Historic moment! :)

here in holland there not even talking about stopping analog transmissions yet, however analog signals travel trough kabel in holland and not trough air.

Wow, I wonder how long they'll keep it going. Do many people still use analog in Holland?

ericsbuds Here in New Zealand we see it every day same with other small pacific islands and I bet they see our weather map too I think the same as what you think when I see other places around the world!!

Ayoo we need an update

Free box? Where?

I had to buy one too for my RV

why get the box when the newer flat screens have the digital tuner built in.

crt.

i think Canada did it around the same time we did in the US. we didn't get "free" boxes, but the US gov gave out one coupon per person that covered up to something like $40 of the cost. most of them ended up being free anyway...especially for people like me who just grabbed the cheapest one WalMart had. i still have a CRT TV that works fine and i don't care enough about television to bother spending money on a flat screen until this thing bites the dust. the one thing about digital TV that i find a bit ironic is that i now have to adjust my stupid antenna more than i did with analog TV! my apt building has a house antenna, but it won't pick up several stations, so i'm stuck with a ridiculous-looking pair of rabbit ears. i _should_ get one of those square, flat antennas and run a coax cable to my bedroom, but i'm torn between doing the work and that whole "not caring much about TV" thing i mentioned. hmmm, maybe what i should do is make my own flat (wall-mount) antenna. given that this is the EEVBlog channel, it might be a fitting project. i could probably harvest some of the parts out of my current antenna and reuse those. hey Dave, maybe a home-brew DTV antenna would be an easy and fun project video!

Our childhood memories

I know bro☺️

Well, it essentially is. If there was no cosmic radiation, the spectrum would be pitch black, our receivers would simply be silent and completely blank, you wouldn't know if the station is just silent or there is no signal.

@@CZghost Wow, that’s very interesting

Actually there's no reason lossy codecs couldn't encode random noise, it's just a matter of bandwidth. If you were to give a digital broadcast the equivalent bandwidth of an analog station's radio bandwidth, it'd look damn near pixel perfect, and it'd be doing it in HD with surround sound.

***** Yes, but one of the reasons for the switch to digital was not more fidelity, but more stations. We have the same thing in the UK with DAB radio - broadcast in definitely crusty 128Kb and often less of Layer 2 (yes,2) MPEG audio. It sounds like a dogs breakfast. By turning the quality into a market you were always going to get a quantity over quality problem. True lossless digital video would look freaking awesome, I've no beef with digital itself.

a shitty era

how so?

All the programming today is complete crap! I don’t care if I have an HD picture, like, it’s just a picture.

Timezones. Here in Australia, it’s 3rd December 2013 as the upload date, the very day Sydney’s analogue TV transmission was switched off. We’re literally hours ahead of the USA.

what channel??

please do a video on it