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People who do not plan to convert to digital television change their minds when they understand what digital has to offer. This encouraging message comes from the "Go Digital" research project that studied the conversion of around 300 homes in the West Midlands to all Digital TV reception.
Before the trial around a fifth of all participants said that they were not interested in getting digital. After the trial, the majority of this group (68 per cent) now say they would convert, with many others showing an increased interest. Only a small number of these participants (6 per cent) still had no interest at all in switching to digital.
The Go Digital project has provided the industry with a great deal of detailed data on the technical and human aspects of converting to cable, satellite or terrestrial digital television. The project confirmed that increased channel choice and enhanced picture and sound quality are among the key benefits of digital television.
Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) were also popular, with users finding them much easier to use than VCRs. The fact that timer recordings of programmes could be set-up easily through the Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs) was particularly welcome, especially for those who struggle with this function on VCRs.
Go Digital was operated and funded by industry-leading organisations who agreed to carry out the project jointly and to share the costs equally. The members of the Go Digital project were: BBC, BSkyB, Channel 4, Dentsu, DCMS, DTI, Dixons, Endeva, ITC, MindShare, ntl, Nokia, Novapal, Pace, Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Telewest Broadband, The Digital Network. The ITC coordinated the project.
Trial households had all television sets converted to free to view digital reception and were effectively isolated from analogue transmissions for live viewing. Face-to-face interviews were carried out before and after installation and were backed up by questionnaires and additional telephone interviews.
Findings from Go Digital will inform the Digital Television Action Plan, which is designed to ensure that the Government's criteria for digital switchover are met.
Notes to Editors
1. A report on the key findings from Go Digital is published today and is available on the ITC web site (www.itc.org.uk).
2. The trial was conducted in a small area of the West Midlands. The area was chosen because there is good coverage of all three digital platforms, including both cable operators; ntl and Telewest. Digital Terrestrial reception was good enough to use set top aerials in parts of the area.
3. Trial households were offered free installation and use of the digital television equipment required to convert all existing television sets in their household for the duration of trial. Some households were given PVRs rather than converting their VCRs. Although VCRs were usually able to record digital they were not completely converted and for timer recordings used the analogue signal.
4. The trial was designed to offer "free to view" content only. The majority of the research was conducted before the launch of Freeview, so the number of channels available on DTT beyond the simulcast analogue channels was more limited.
5. A range of equipment was used to convert each home to all digital services. The equipment included: the latest standard Set Top Boxes (STB's) for each of the three digital television platforms; Integrated Digital Televisions (iDTV's); and advanced STB's such as Sky+ which incorporates a hard-disk video recorder and dual decoder.
6. The Digital Television Action Plan is intended to bring together government, industry and consumer groups to ensure that the criteria set for digital switchover are met so that Ministers can, if they choose, take the decision to proceed to full switchover by ordering the switching off by 2010 of analogue terrestrial transmissions.
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