Latest Television

Will high definition render existing televisions obsolete?

If so, when? I have I have a budget of 200GBP and would like to get a 20" LCD TV with Freeview built in.

Public Comments

1. hi-def is ONLY avaiable from sky HD or virgin+ box, on a subscription only. Therefore existing ( non-hd ready ) tvs will still work, as long as you have a freeview / sky / cable pluged into them before the DIGITIAL switchover wg
2. Eventually, yes. Eventually... However, it took almost 10 years from the first Freeview broadcasts, before the Government even STARTED to switch off the analogue signal. The first High Definition broadcasts were a little over a year ago. So a Standard Definition TV (with Freeview access, as mentioned above) will probably last you another 10 years. Eventually the SD signal will be switched off and everything will be broadcast in HD. Eventually...
3. the sort answer is NO,all you need to do is connect a freeview box to your current TV and that will last you until your current TV wears out. By that time you will have a few more pennies saved to get yourself a better TV. Otherwise you will have to search around on the likes of E-BAY, or Amazon, Comet etc to find what you want for £200. hope this helped.
4. The answer is no as there is only a limited hd range of broadcasts at present and they seem slow to be run out so the expectation is a non hd set is ok for the foreseeable future until the range of hd channels increase significantly and prices for hd equipment come down