By the end of 2008 analogue TV will be a thing of the past in Norway. By then all the analogue terrestrial broadcast equipment will be shut down and replaced by digital equipment. Personally, I’ve been trying to avoid digital TV solutions because they are usually encrypted, closed systems that are not compatible with my Windows Media Center. And I love my media center - when it works, that is. But soon a digital TV system will replace the nice analogue system in my apartment building and I don’t have any choice but to embrace it.

Yesterday me, Gine and the other members of the cooperative building and housing association who bothered to show up, had a meeting with the company that will implement the solution in our four apartment buildings. I guess it will be very interesting in September when they are supposed to have everything in place. They’ve been in business since late 2004, but their set-top box does not have PVR functionality, something that should be a very least common denominator for set-top boxes. The company do, however, say that this will be in place before September. We’ll see.

An interesting side effect of the introduction of digital TV in the apartment building is that there will suddenly be a dedicated fiber optic connection to each apartment building. This means that I can upgrade my internet connection to a whooping 100/10Mb. Good stuff, but not very necessary, I’ve got a theoretical maximum of 24Mb downstream on my current connection, and I never, ever use that much. Besides, the wireless connection inside my apartment only supports 54Mb anyway.