Digital-only TV in The Netherlands

JDMurray

I just heard a blurb in a podcast that The Netherlands is the first country to completely discontinue off-air analog TV service, forcing everyone to go digital. Although 94% of the country receives cable TV service, 74000 analog-only households are now without television.

Royal KPN apparently provides both free and for-pay channels, but are people allowed to buy their own tuners and use them without paying to subscribe to the cable service? And can't you still receive analog TV broadcasts from surrounding countries?

Webmaster

74000 analog-only households are now without television.

True, but the number is and will decrease with thousands per day. It only costs roughly 3 to 25 euro per month, depending on the provider and they have special discount started packages. The 'K' in KPN stands for royal, but they are no longer a governement company and monopolist as they used to be a long time ago. The KPN still ownes most of the infrastructure but because that was originally largely built and paid for by the governement, they are forced, by the socalled OPTA, to allow competitors to offer services over their infrastructure (fiber, fiber, fiber). The KPN and OPTA are always at war about this. KPN charges competitors as much as they need to stay competive. KPN is still 'the' provider when it comes to quality, but, there are a whole lot of other and cheaper provider. The market is free for anyone to enter.

At one of my first IT jobs, at a large global operating cable 'factory', I was helping out the marketing director with a powerpoint problem. The presentation was meant to get them the job to built the fiber network throughout the company. Since I showed an obvious interest he was eager to tell me all about it, show me network schemas etc. They had a 3D animation showing how they would replace devices, in the ground (with fiber repeaters etc) with minimal disruption. Cool stuff. Not as cool as actually seeing the fibers twist in the factory. Anyway...

And can't you still receive analog TV broadcasts from surrounding countries?

If you are 'near' the border at the south or east (other sides are sea) that would probably work, but they can switch to digital for almost nothing. And more importantly they don't have our channels in neighboring countries. Some do, but than they are subtitled or worse. It's not only the transmission method that is modern.

You can buy a decoder at any relevant shop and even some less relevant shops, for $70+. Or buy a disc for $400 and pay $4 per month for satellite access. We don't pay for basic service (35 channels or so), it's actually a small tax that goes to three government-funded 'public' channels. "Watch-and-listen money" is what it used to be called. Because a lot of people (decades ago) didn't pay the tax and the separate IRS departement was inefficient and ineffective, they let the providers charge it. You only pay ($20-30 per month) if you want the extra channels (the additional Discovery channels, ESPN, movie channels, etc).

So those that don't have cable still paid that basic rate. Moving to digital basically costs only a couple of bucks extra per month. The DVD quality, reliable reception, rewind and replay of live television, and additional (foreign) channels they get in return is more than worth it.

Plantwiz

Well, if all else fails, they likely still have books over there

Get rid of the televisions and read (oh wait, I must be thinking of the US where we typically get our butts kicked by every other nation scholastically).

Actually, I'm not looking forward to the 'push' for it over here. I'd rather see more effort put forth to finding more renewable energy resources, better efficency automobiles, less housing developement and renewal of older areas as well as protecting farm/grazing lands...instead we have a 2007ish plan to be all digital....just saddens me

sprkymrk

Plantwiz wrote:

Well, if all else fails, they likely still have books over there

Get rid of the televisions and read (oh wait, I must be thinking of the US where we typically get our butts kicked by every other nation scholastically).(

I haven't had a television in the house for almost 15 years. My wife and I got rid of our 1 and only TV shortly after we were married. I still catch a few programs when traveling (hotels) or on occasions when we visit friends and family, but otherwise we have raised our children without the influence of TV. I don't regret it at all. Okay, I do miss the NFL.

Of course, my children are now addicted to DVD movies we occasionally play on the computers. Whenever we rent one from Block Buster they have to watch it a zillion times before we return it.

JDMurray

Some people have noted that their children have almost entirely replace TV with YouTube.com. The variety of entertaining videos on demand has apparently at least equaled the entertainment value of television programming for the younger generations. Of course, it's also a social thing, where you can't risk showing up at school not having seen then "killer video" that everyone else is talking about that day.

Webmaster

jdmurray wrote:

Some people have noted that their children have almost entirely replace TV with YouTube.com.

@Marcia: sounds like that 19" set you 'created' will come in handy.

Trailerisf

sprkymrk wrote:

Plantwiz wrote:

Well, if all else fails, they likely still have books over there

Get rid of the televisions and read (oh wait, I must be thinking of the US where we typically get our butts kicked by every other nation scholastically).(

I haven't had a television in the house for almost 15 years. My wife and I got rid of our 1 and only TV shortly after we were married. I still catch a few programs when traveling (hotels) or on occasions when we visit friends and family, but otherwise we have raised our children without the influence of TV. I don't regret it at all. Okay, I do miss the NFL.

Of course, my children are now addicted to DVD movies we occasionally play on the computers. Whenever we rent one from Block Buster they have to watch it a zillion times before we return it.

I don't watch alot of tv between work and studying and family commitments, but is nice to relax and fall asleep in bed while watching it.

I may watch 45 mins a day at best, but I'd miss it alot.

They had to go digital in Holland. All the windmills played havoc with the analog. (snicker)

JDMurray

Trailerisf wrote:

They had to go digital in Holland. All the windmills played havoc with the analog. (snicker)

Hey, did they ever try to generate and store electricity from the windmills in Holland? Even with expensive equipment they couldn't generate much, but if it was enough to light up just a neighborhood it'd be an interesting experiment. How often are those things turning?

Webmaster

I'm obviously aware of the cliche, but most Dutch people never seen a classic windmill upclose. I had to drive hours to show some windmills to a couple of friends from the US. Many cities still have one though, but most of them don't function anymore. They are either converted to a house or are museum pieces accessible to tourists. Apart from moving water, they were basically machinery, to saw wood (allowed us to create all those ships fast), grind corn, etc, which obviously has been replaced long ago. Several of them are on the World Heritage list and just changing one stone or screw is a big no-no (though there are probably a couple who have a Yagi antenna )
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/818

We do have a polder (the 11th province which used to be entirely water) and other places filled with modern windmills that generate electricity. Also in rural areas farmers sometimes have their own windmill for electricity. A fair percentage of the electricity we have is already socalled 'green energy', and comes primarily from these windmills. But those are obviously not the same as the 'cliche' ones, but:
http://i2.tinypic.com/1zyhusz.jpg
Many people don't like how it changes the typical landscape, so we now plan to build a huge windmill park in the sea, though that may take 10+ years.

steve-o87

Webmaster wrote:

I'm obviously aware of the cliche, but most Dutch people never seen a classic windmill upclose. I had to drive hours to show some windmills to a couple of friends from the US. Many cities still have one though, but most of them don't function anymore. They are either converted to a house or are museum pieces accessible to tourists. Apart from moving water, they were basically machinery, to saw wood (allowed us to create all those ships fast), grind corn, etc, which obviously has been replaced long ago. Several of them are on the World Heritage list and just changing one stone or screw is a big no-no (though there are probably a couple who have a Yagi antenna )
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/818

We do have a polder (the 11th province which used to be entirely water) and other places filled with modern windmills that generate electricity. Also in rural areas farmers sometimes have their own windmill for electricity. A fair percentage of the electricity we have is already socalled 'green energy', and comes primarily from these windmills. But those are obviously not the same as the 'cliche' ones, but:
http://i2.tinypic.com/1zyhusz.jpg
Many people don't like how it changes the typical landscape, so we now plan to build a huge windmill park in the sea, though that may take 10+ years.

This is going to sound SO stupid but I had no idea that you actually lived in the Netherlands. I figured you lived in the U.S, I guess your name should have been a dead give away since Afrikaans in South Africa is derived from dutch.

sprkymrk

In the state of Illinois they just began building a new power plant based on coal, but with about 20% of the electricity being derived from wind. It appears that most new power plants are going to have to be built using a certain amount of "clean" renewable resourses due to all the special interest groups political power, although I think it is a good thing to do in any case.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6612922

Webmaster

Nah, not stupid at all, I think many members don't know but that's probably also because I don't consider it that relevant to share it explicitely.

I heard my name is pretty common in South-Africa, though also the German version with the double 'n' at the end. Even though they subtitle Afrikaans here (e.g. on the news) but I can still understand some of it, especially if the context is obvious. Different grammar, sentence strucutre, but just like Flemish in Belgium it includes a lot of Dutch and 'old-Dutch' words (which we don't use any longer and replaced by an English variant or modernised/simplified.) I like them both because it sounds somewhat more relaxed.

This reminded me of an older topic, in which I also said something about windmills:
"Yes, we do have a load of windmills"



Well, it's true, it could be there are thousands rather than hundreds, which given the small size of the country is a load. Those who grown up in a small town, like me, have probably seen one up close or drove by one. In the cities they often don't have the blades anymore and as I mentioned previously, are either converted to a house or tourist attraction. And as common in larger cities, they old architecture dissappear between the larger modern buildings and people pass by without even noticing it exists. Sometimes they are even picked up and moved to more popular tourist locations.

Here's a very typical one, which is now a house:
www.techexams.net/images/mill.jpg

sprkymrk wrote:

although I think it is a good thing to do in any case.

I agree. And eventually we'll have to so we might as well do it now, globally. Despite our windmill parks, it looks like we'll be building at least one more nuclair powerplant... I rather have a windmill obstruct my view, or solar panels on roofs, actually I don't mind seeing them at all, I like that modern look and it's for a good cause.

JDMurray

We have the modern types out in the desert near Palm Springs (http://www.windmilltours.com/). Not nearly as quaint as the live-in kind, but they are quite impressive, as a few are some the tallest electo-mechanical devices in the USA.

Webmaster

jdmurray wrote:

We have the modern types out in the desert near Palm Springs (http://www.windmilltours.com/). Not nearly as quaint as the live-in kind, but they are quite impressive, as a few are some the tallest electo-mechanical devices in the USA.

That sure is impressive. I like the sound of just one (especially the classic ones), must be cool to hear them all together. Here are two of a setup in the sea by Denmark:
www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Denmark/photo65260.htm
www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo460163.htm

Plantwiz

Well, the 19" isn't connected to the outside world and merely plays a small adventure game from Scholastic Books. Oh yes, and the microscope from last Holiday!! So, no YouTube for that screen

Actually, We have a working windmill over here and I've been to it a couple times. It merely is for show and grinds a bit of grain throughout the season. I believe it was imported from the Netherlands to be in the sister city here.