...need an aerial or a satellite to watch superb TV and video pictures?

Who'd have thought the old telephone wires would be capable of sending moving images? And better still with the invention of wireless.

I still find it fascinating how the telephone lines that have been up for donkeys' years were put to a sophisticated use.

One assumes you don't have a 5Km copper line to your exchange.

If you have how do you manage to stream good quality images down your line.

I remember BT's publicity about the modern TPON (Telephone Passive Optical Network) technology they were installing on all new estates. Then came along Broadband and low and behold you needed to have good old 'copper' wiring to your house in order to have the service.

You're splitting hairs. You know exactly what I mean.

Well I'm very very glad I don't rely on broadband for my tv viewing. it would drive me nuts.

For a start, anyone who says broadband is "always on" in not living in the real world. There are the inexplicable times when it just stops for seconds, or even minutes at a time, then re starts.

Then there are the times the modem crashes and needs to be re booted.

Ah for good "old fashioned" television broadcast systems.

iptv may have uses, but to me it would ONLY be of use to capture and store something to watch off line later. The thought of trying to watch live with such an unreliable system seems mad.

I think if your pc or laptop has a ram of over 2GB, and your Broadband is fast, then it's generally like watching TV.

I know the first two posters were trying to be clever. But from my end, our BT wires haven't been changed in over 40 years. It's through THOSE wires the broadband signal eventually comes through.

Not trying to be clever. Yes the copper network that BT use is doing things it was never planned to do, and does it better the closer you are to your exchange.

I too will enjoy TV on demand when my Infinity connection goes live on the 12th May. But that has only been possible with introduction of new fibre being installed.

just watching music vids on YouTube in HD720p when I flicked over and saw this post (PC - TV via hdmi graphics card). Some of the HD720p 16:9 content looks better than regular SD Freeview.

*still on copper cables, but BT Fibre becomes an option for us at the end of this year.





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Who ever told you ram effects your broadband speed is very stupid.

Age and quality of cabling
distance from exchange
services at exchange


These are the only things that directly effect your broadband speed.

but there is more to it than just a fast Internet connection.
For example, in the past at my last place of work I was using a Mac G3 with 128Mb Ram on a 2Mb ADSL connection. It was slow with multiple web sites open and struggles with online video streaming. We then, soon after, switched the G3s out for Mid spec G5s with 2Gb RAM and a vastly better graphics card - but still on the same 2Mb internet connection.
The was a dramatic change is what could be done. Streaming now worked, and you could have open about 5 or 6 web sites with no slow down.

Only last year I bought a new i5 PC for home to replace the 5 year old one that I was using. Same connection, but the new one can stream HD, whereas the old one certainly cant.

We still live in amazing times, sometimes I get hacked off with a website because it hasnt fully loaded up within 3-4 seconds, then I think of being amazed that I could download any song from napster when I was about 18 and it would only take 15 minutes on dial-up. A whole album would be down when I got in from work!

Embrace it, dont insult it.

As far as I can see no-one has equated PC RAM with broadband speed...

I love technology. Even when on dial up it amazed me that I could send a note to a friend the other side of the world instantly, no more waiting weeks for a letter to arrive.

However I hope never to be forced to rely on streaming video. Although it works for me the whole internet is fragile. One undersea cable that got cut knocked out the net for half of the middle east last year. This fragility is why I back up to computer so much so that even if the net failed I would have entertainment and reference material that would last me years. The internet is a very handy tool, but don't rely on it being there forever. WW3 may well be a cyber war, no guns needed.

You may be right, but I am starting to think we rely on it too much. I had a text from a friend yesterday saying that she will be off the net until the end of the month, something to do with Orange upgrading, not sure what she means and I don't think she knows what they are on about either. Anyway she was saying that she is going to find it hard without the net as she checks her bank account every day and keep in touch with people and pay bills.

i do the same thing to be honest.


the internet is not the most reliable technology by a long way, it slows down, it disconnects and there are so many connection between my computer and the server I got to get to, that anything could go wrong.

I use Iplayer now and again, but I agree with other people, best to use direct transmission to get main T.V.

This is why I can't see You View being a hit

Lots of things have happened it 20 years, who would have thought we be watching films on a disc or listening to music on a little device attached to your clothing.

But then again, maybe people did think about all these things, look at sci-fi, a lot of stuff from Sci-fi is here.

20 years ago (and older) films on disc could be viewed on laserdisc and the device attached to your clothing for music would have been the sony walkman.

My we have moved forward

True, but Laser discs was big, heavy, fragile expensive things, I know my brother dropped one and it shattered

A sony walkman you could get 120 mins max of music on one tape, now you can get hours in a tiny unit that no one can see apart from the head phones.

But if you compare the equivalent technologies today with 20 years ago then the difference is huge.

Laserdiscs were very expensive and fragile whilst cassette tapes were always breaking or jamming in the playback mechanism

I'm like that too and I usually get annoyed at the computer at first before realising it might be the website's fault!

i think I can count on my one hand how many cassettes I had jamming on me. I still got a load in a box I have to rescue.

..... and still 20 years on we are greated with the most annoying computer/console message of all time


.......Loading please wait.........

I remember buying a CD walkman when they first came, out about twenty years ago from Comet...£149.99 ! The quality on the cassette Walkman was very good, but then you had better headphones with them unlike the crap you get with iPod et al these days.

I still have a MK1 Sony Discman, complete with strap, and matching folding headphones. The base is made from metal! Takes 4X AA batteries which if your lucky will last a whole hour. I thnk it was £199.99 in Dixons, 1988.

I never liked tape very much, although i had several Sony Walkmans over the years.

I have to say, that old style CDs still sound better than MP3s.

iptv requires very expensive router equipment and infrasturcture, with bandwidth set aside for the webcast connection if you want guaranteed quality.

catv is better, the equipment is simpler and cheaper, at least for broadcast tv.

tx and aerial is the simplest and easiest and best!

I only been bothering with portable music for the last 5 years, never owned a personal stereo until I got my Minidisc player.

Now I use my phone for my music.