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Digital broadcasting is about time division multiplexing, which is completely different to good analogue, blast out one channel on one frequency.
TDM is more susceptible to break up than analogue due to the fact that so many channels are sharing that bandwidth therefore positioning of your aerial and environmentals which have an effect on signal strength can affect digital more so than it did old analogue receivers.

Yes, but the muxes are in groups ... so (from my brief observations) you tend to lose more than one channel at a time, but - happily - not all channels. But when the antenna is flapping about on the top of an exposed caravan, or when the rain is [censored] down, then the picture cracks up (and often drops out all together), rather than just deteriorating for a while as it would have done previously. So, to answer my own question:- in the situation I am talking about, no ... it is not an improvement.

My guess is that digital TV technology probably works best for "cable" (CATV).

If I ever felt the need to install TV for my own use (which is very unlikely, I might add), I believe I would go for "satellite" (Sat-TV) just as I did back in the late 1980's.

@Dave: yes, we don't like the idea of wasting brass up 'ere tha' knows.

Your right Geoff,it really annoys me that people buy into sky Hd, then say Itsthe best they have ever seen. No analogue is the best you've seen , you just forgot. Is digital tv an improvement on analogue, yes for quantity, tbh. Wouldn't go back, loving FX, etc. it's like saying is hdmi do better than film, or digital camera better than wet film.

Real life is analogue. Real amplifiers are analogue. Transducer signals are analogue. Sound waves are analogue. And I can remember analogue computers (eg, in gun aiming kit, guided missiles, and navigation devices) as well!

All A-to-D converters do is to approximate (at best) an analogue signal, especially if it's one that is changing. And, as we know, each and every time a signal is converted, some of the information must be lost.

Some things are naturally digital, of course. Number systems, digital computers and other electronic gear based on logic levels, for example. Or any technology that needs to be programmed, or runs by following software programs.

But don't get me started on film! Kodak stopped producing standard 8mm Kodachrome cine film in commercial quantities in 1992. But I have heard of sixty year old reels of exposed film (that have been stored in an attic since the 1970's) that still looked new. Meanwhile archive black-and-white film on a polyester base has an expected lifetime of 300 years or so!

The modern "media" crowd (all those "Media Studies" degrees, don't forget) wouldn't have a clue about how to go about editing cine film, of course. Like everything else these days, stuff like that has to be done quickly (read as:- poorly) at a computer, to enable folk to get home in time for tea!

But here's another thing to think about:- I was once told that you could tell if a movie or TV episode was shot on film when spoked wheels (stage-coaches IIRC) would appear to be going backwards (if shot on film - but not on video). But that would depend upon the speed of the rotation with respect to shutter speed, I reckon.

Meanwhile, with digital capture it is quite different. This is especially noticeable with aeroplane propellers, which (with digital cameras) appear as a most unnatural and nauseous series of curved lines!

OK ... that's enough miscellaneous ramblings for one day.

Sorry Geoff, but 'real life' is digital not analogue. All types of energy, whatever type they are, move upwards and downwards in energy levels in small packets or 'quanta' - hence the term quantum mechanics. This energy level is at the miniscule level (think it is the form of 10 to the minus 32) but it is real nevertheless. We appear to observe this in the analogue form, but it is a mixture of countless digital changes in energy levels.

Take a sine wave for example - that would look pretty analogue to most people (me included), but it is actually made up of billions of changes in energy levels from one to another. These changes to the sine wave don't happen in the analogue form, but change in discrete packets or quanta i.e. they change or jump from one level to another in time.

Whooo easy there Mike we are getting into Fourier territory, enough to send anyone into a coma.

@Mike: I'll take your word for all that Mike, but I think I'll stick with stuff I can detect on my multimeter (analogue, of course) etc. (not to forget ECG recorder, blood gas analyser ... and all the rest).

Meanwhile, as another topic for discussion:- how about data archiving? Back in the good old days a bit of software and a tape drive was enough to make sure data was backed up properly, although it wasn't an easy task.

Today, the job we now call data protection is much more complex, needing a variety of technologies and procedures to manage the back-up and archiving of multiple data types and then to ensure that such data can indeed be recovered later if need be.

One slip with their data, and an enterprise (or, Heaven Forbid, a hospital) could face massive costs or even go out of business. And that's a situation no "solution provider" can afford to have happen.

And then there's the question of the storage of all the other dross that mounts up every day. Emails, Tweets ... and all the rest, 90% of which is most likely just inane [censored]! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that all that stuff is stored in "data warehouses". Where are these places (someone once mentioned Sweden)? How is it all stored? Rows and rows of RAID drives? And ... er, why?

Meanwhile, how's this for analogue?

My slide-rule melted on the back shelf of the car just after my final exam of my degree course back in 1976.

I often wondered if that was some kind of omen.

Either a Good Omen, just good timing ... or both!

Just like analogue and digital multimeters, I believe that slide-rules remain useful alongside electronic calculators.

Why? Because with slide-rules you have to know the magnitude of the answer!

In other words, you have to actually think about what you are doing, and what sort of result to expect (rather than just number crunching). I commend that approach to all engineering technicians, and also to those aspiring to become technicians!

I'm not a technician, I'm an engineer, is it me being snobby, I suppose so, but the degree and experience sets me apart from the technician as an engineer. An engineer is someone who can diagnose, remedy and then produce a solution, unfortunately this doesn't seem to happen in the ebme world. Sorry Geoff but a technician has the ability to do what the manual tells him to do, the engineer has the ability to apply all principles to a problem and solve with or without of a manual. Hence I believe that all ebme techs should justify their very jobs with IENG registration.