Chorus letter re: upgrading to digital. Need some advice!

aidan_dunne

Hi there folks, hope you cable experts might be able to answer some of my questions.

Got a letter today from Chorus saying that they are about to start work here (Portlaoise) shortly upgrading the analogue cable to digital. They mentioned in the letter how there would be "minor interruptions" ( :rolleyes: ) to the service from time to time as the work was carried out but that they wouldn't need access into anyone's house and not to worry about anything like that.

Okay, here's my first question. I currently have the Chorus connection split between three rooms in the house (sitting room, where the connection coming in is, kitchen and bedroom) pretty basically using just a splitter and some TV extension cables. Now, if Chorus go ahead and upgrade all the underground cables and stuff here to digital, does that mean my existing split setup will be made redundant? If the area is upgraded to digital does that mean that you have to switch to a digital package, i.e. that the current analogue setup is switched off, or can you choose to stay with what you have and, therefore, just continue with a split setup like I currently have?

Secondly, if I'm forced to have to go digital because there is no longer an analogue option available after this upgrade work, does that mean that if I want to be able to watch telly in the kitchen and bedroom as well that I'll have to shell out more money each month for a multi-room package for STB's for each room? I know this is the case with Sky, just wondering what Chorus do. I have read something here before about how you can somehow have just one digital STB in the sitting room, for example, and there's some way you can then pass through a basic analogue-style group of channels through to other rooms in your house if you want to. Would that work in my case, do you think?

The thing is, you see, I'm fairly happy with the basic analogue package I have at the moment and the way I have it split around the house and don't really want to go digital unless I have to, mainly because I don't want to have to shell out more money each month for multi-room if I can help it!

Thirdly, are there any issues with setting up a DVD recorder with a Chorus digital STB? I presume the Chorus STB's have a second SCART socket for feeding out the signal to other devices (DVD or video recorders) so you can record from it, am I right?

Anyway, those are my questions for now. I appreciate your responses!

watty

Cable will still have some analogue channels for a while. MMDS will shortly have no analogue.

Digital needs a setbox / receiver/decoder for each TV.

steveon

The fact is in time there will eventually be no analog signal so if you want tv in other rooms you either pay for it, get a freesat system or do without.

Personally I think its about time the cabling system in Portlaoise was upgraded to Digital as up until now you had to get the digital signal by placing an aerial on the roof and receiving a signal from the hill located next to the curragh race track, cant remember its name exactly and depending on the installer they could have cut your analog signal unless you paid a further €6 to retain it.

In the meantime once the digital cabling system is up and running you can receive an analog signal from the back of the cable box and therefore receive the analog channels in additional rooms or wire it through a video and get the analog in additional rooms and the same digital channel as well which is handy...

Its the way of the future pay or lose out...