ElectronicsWeekly.com (UK)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Government offers free receivers for digital TV switchover

By Richard Wilson

The Government will provide free set-top boxes to the disabled and partially-sighted as well as less well-off elderly people when the digital TV switchover starts in Cumbria in October.

The Government faced opposition to its plans to switch off analogue broadcasts from interest groups which said the cost of a digital TV receiver would be an unfair burden on lower income groups and in particular the elderly and disabled who rely on TV.

As part of its £600m assistance scheme, which was announced last December, the Government has now said it will subsidise the total cost of "the necessary equipment to convert one television set to digital" for disabled and partially-sighted users as well as people over 75 years of age who are on some form of income-related benefit.

The DTI has created a specification for the scheme's set-top box which is known as a "Help Box". It is an energy efficient design, sub-4W, incorporating an audio commentary feature.

The first area to convert will be Whitehaven in Cumbria where a set-top box designed and manufactured in Wales by TVonics will be offered as part of a £1m support scheme being provided by Capita. "We are working on a Help Box for phase one, the Whitehaven scheme," said a TVonics spokesman.

This box is a modified version of an existing digital TV receiver, based on a Fujitsu chipset, which incorporates a feature known as audio description. This provides an audio commentary of programmes for blind and partially-sighted users.

Digital UK, which is overseeing the switchover for the Government, has started the bidding process for manufacturers to supply assisted-user set-top boxes for the rest of the country. 

For this TVonics has proposed a digital recorder design based on a Toshiba chipset. 


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