UK Digibox: Classic or Dud

Yesterday I pressed the red button hoping for all the goalmouth action, but all I got was a load of souped-up Ceefax reports.

PF, go on, take the plunge.

I am intrigued to see which way you go on Saturday afternoons, PJM - to BBCi's Score Interactive with Stubbsy or Sky Sports News with Stelling(sy). Or out, to the shops.

Incidentally, I think they must have those laptop gadgets. Or is that just my imagination getting the better of me?

I ask because I am having difficulty training my family to switch it off when they switch the telly off and I need to get just the right level of psycho dad-ness.

One piece of information that has been mentioned which is true is that there is little difference in power consumption etc between the on and standby modes of a Sky box. All standby does is switch off the video output, the box is otherwise completely functional.

Is a Sky box the same as a Freeview box, only with different channels?

But then I'm the sort of person who's convinced that all this talk of the oncoming "energy crisis" could be solved by everyone switching off their computers when they leave work at night.

(the tivo has real problems with grass, smoke, fire, tv static and especially water on lower qualities)

There's the Little People inside mine.

I switch my computer off at night and I have recently started going round switching off lights.

Do I really have to wait until March for a choice of two football matches?

grass, smoke, fire, tv static and especially water

I wish to make a poor quality joke out of this.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1573979,00.asp

Not the fridge.

I can't believe some people don't even turn their computers off.

I read years ago that modern computers have very low power consumption, so don't feel too guilty about leaving it on. Is that correct?

i fear that if i switch off my tv or vcr at the mains, they will forget all their presets. is that insane?

If that is not true, though, then I think Alba is being rather impatient. Surely you can switch it on and use it a minute later, and save power, rather than leave it on the whole time. But again, what do I know? When I try to put my computer on standby it basically shuts down - it returns to life frozen and unusable, and must be, I think, Reset.

Why a laptop computer is not using power, I don't know. But again - what do I know?

I have erased Community TV and Teachers TV and Bloomberg. Perhaps I am becoming reckless. I am tempted to erase the pop video channels too.

I think the VCR will forget the time if you switch it off at the plug.

i unplug it, it uses battery power while asleep.

Back in the days when I had an attention span.

ITV3 has been superceded in our affections by More4 and ITV4 (all yr ITC/RAI needs).

They're talking about debut hat-tricks on Sky Sports News. I bet they don't mention Tony Cottee OR if they mention Ian St John they neglect to point out that Everton beat Liverpool 4-3 in that match.

Hang on, I have email, they have email...

I have taken to watching National Geographic's rubbish list programmes (Top 10 "when bears fall out of trees onto trampolines", that sort of thing - seriously, the other night I watched a bear fall out of a tree onto a trampoline. It bounced off the trampoline and fell head first onto the ground. Then they followed it with some people who nearly drowned trying to rescue a cow off a cliff. Do you even get National Geographic on Digibox?

I still haven't watched anything on ITV4. Too many channels!

An old-fashioned valve amplifier would definitely last longer if it was kept switched on all the time - valves are really just a sophisticated sort of lightbulb, and valve failure nearly always occurs at switch-on.

Middling? Vehicle?

It's a terrific picture!

I'm now watching a Snow show on one of the normal channels about land ownership. Pam is getting quite angry.

(I shamefully have left my CD player, phono pre-amp, line-level pre-amp, and monoblocs switched on for weeks at a time. The CD player has a class A output stage so it's probably sucking power from the wall like nobody's business 24 hours a day. It's the only concession to audiophile lore I make thesedays. I accept I'm also killing the planet).

Seeing as we are picking on your writing, you also made 'thesedays' into one word. Is that a new usage, like Morrissey's 'Everyday' meaning ... 'every day'?

I suppose I can meet you halfway on Quick Change.

The MOD owns 600,000 acres of land in the UK - cor! The mods own only a few promenades.

Another parallel is 'Inbetween Days', where I am not sure the first word is quite a proper word.

It is only now that I understand what you meant by 'Snow show'.

The rockers, I suppose, own only a red guitar, three chords and the truth?

See http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/mux/

If you can't get BBC3 (Mux1), you probably can't get BBC1, BBC2 or News 24 either?

I call serial commas, "the Oxford Comma". Sounds much posher.

This morning: red button goals galore action from the likes of EVERTON.

In the near future:

Friday 20 January - 1900-2030 GMT, BBC THREE
Group A: Egypt v Libya

Saturday 21 January - 1900-2110 GMT, BBC THREE
Group A: Morocco v Ivory Coast
Group B: Cameroon v Angola
Group B: Togo v DR Congo

Sunday 22 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group C: Tunisia v Zambia
Group C: South Africa v Guinea

Monday 23 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group D: Nigeria v Ghana
Group D: Zimbabwe v Senegal

Tuesday 24 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group A: Libya v Ivory Coast
Group A: Egypt v Morocco

Wednesday 25 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group B: Angola v DR Congo
Group B: Cameroon v Togo

Thursday 26 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group C: Zambia v Guinea
Group C: Tunisia v South Africa

Friday 27 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group D: Ghana v Senegal
Group D: Nigeria v Zimbabwe

Saturday 28 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group A: Egypt v Ivory Coast
Group A: Libya v Morocco

Sunday 29 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group B: Angola v Togo
Group B: Cameroon v DR Congo

Monday 30 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group C: Tunisia v Guinea
Group C: Zambia v South Africa

Tuesday 31 January - 1900-2100 GMT, BBC THREE
Group D: Nigeria v Senegal
Group D: Ghana v Zimbabwe

R.W. Burchfield - The New Fowler's Modern English Usage.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4614598.stm

"The guy who owns it really should do the lottery because the chances of sending out a signal from a digibox and sending out precisely and exactly on a major emergency channel are far more than 14 million to one."

Today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4712122.stm

SO JUST WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

It's ironic that this thread has turned into a bit of an S.O.S. list.

More digibox excitement: the other day I put it on top of the DVD player, and when I tried to play a DVD it wouldn't work, just kept saying "CLOSE" and flickering about. Took DVD back to library as "damaged". Got replacement DVD. Also refused to work. Tried DVD that is personal property and known to work. Would not work. Moved digibox. All was sweetness and light again.
That was a bit longwinded. To sum up:

a) I am a joey.

b) My digibox lacks some kind of "shielding".

c) funny old world.

I want one of those Humax recording things.

I wonder if ITV Digital boxes are collectors' items?

3-way at Argos sounds absolutely delightful. Brings a whole new meaninglessness to "please go to your collection point".

-- PJ Miller (pjmiller6...), January 4th, 2007.