Firstly, I must say that providing support on digital TV is well-outside my area of technical competence.
However, I was inspired to write something on the subject when I recently received an email from Richard Buckton who runs a very useful site providing advice on all aspects of digital television.
The site is mainly about the forthcoming digital switchover and provides a simple guide to the various service options together with a number of local focus pages covering specific areas of the country in considerable detail.
Richard's email reminded me of the time that I was caught out when buying my first 'stereo' TV from a major high-street retailer.
As I soon discovered, there were no stereo broadcasts at the time and my TV was still unable to deliver stereo when these were subsequently introduced using the NICAM system.
In describing this product as a 'stereo TV', the retailer was not exactly selling under 'false pretences' though a salesman for this organisation subsequently explained 'off the record' that it was a stereo TV provided that the signal came from a stereo source (which did not happen to include the internal TV tuner).
I mention this because I now see the same confusion around television sets described as 'HD Ready' which generally need some sort of external decoder before they will reproduce a high-definition picture―though, as I understand it, there are some TV models becoming available with internal FREESAT tuners which will handle HDTV directly.
It is also my understanding (as I mentioned, I am not an expert) that existing FREEVIEW boxes and internal TV tuners will not handle the HDTV services shortly being introduced as part of the FREEVIEW service.
I hope and believe that Digital TV Advice will provide a shining beacon in this sea of darkness.