BIG notices are now appearing in the Times advising dates for the digital changeover that is being imposed on us, whether we want it or not. They give the impression that all that is required is to add a cheap digital box. This is only true if all we want to do is watch a programme on one channel.
There is hardly any mention of what happens to our existing recording equipment, which can currently record across channels at various times, and while we watch a different programme.
I wonder how many readers realise that after changeover date their existing and quite serviceable video recorders will no longer work, except in limited form, and with some complicated setting up. One full page notice merely advises us to ' . . . consider any recording equipment'.
When I took this lack of information up with BBC Spotlight the astonishing reply I received indicated that they thought viewers would want to buy new recorders. So, we can all afford to go out and buy new ones, can we, and join the queue at the dump to throw away our perfectly good existing video recorders?
Terence Scarborough
1 Uplands
Tavistock