ONdigital test transmission (1998)

ONdigital is here - nearly - and it's going to change the way you watch TV forever. Well, until about half way through 2002 anyway. Here's a test transmission from happier times.

[@Gondarth]

I can't help but feel sentimental about this stuff. Yeah, ONdigital was a seriously flawed system, but if all you wanted in the late 90s was some good TV, this service did its job. It certainly had great visuals and good presentation..

[@nicholasr39]

Analogue Cable TV was much better. It had more channels, On Digital despite being digital still had time shift channels so you could have been watching Nickelodeon and at 7pm it would switch to Paramount comedy. The passport package on Telewest gave you all the channels plus telephone line rental for £15.99. You could then add premium channels such as Sky Movies and the telephone prices where much less than BT. The quality was so poor we spent months trying to get our money back. So in my view, On digital was the last place to watch some good telly! You should never pay upfront for anything and if someone is asking you to pay upfront, question why, On digital asked for upfront fees because they knew from day 1 the business was in trouble. It could have been worse, many people lost a lot of money when it collapsed

[@interstat2222]

It's sentimental to me too. There was such optimism for TV when the British were such leaders in it here. Even most of the receivers were made in the UK (Philips, Pace, Sony, Toshiba, Daewoo and others still had UK factories). Looking back, it's more like BSB v2 and feels like a retread of BSB's 1990 promo. They even had the same Battersea offices!

[@nutoutpizzadthehut]

Who are you talking to

[@PaulSmith-iy2ez]

I used to work for On digital all the way up to it's collapse. Still got several DTX6370 STBs and a lot of the ONnet kit.

[@CypherSonic]

The birth of munkeh

[@jameswalker4489]

this is the most 90s thing i have ever seen

[@davidbowie2046]

I had this! Had to pay £100 for the year, got the box that was a simple set up, but most people needed an ariel upgrade as you couldn't get all the channels.

[@adultmoshifan87]

OnDigital wasn’t available in my part of the country, but since Cartoon Network wasn’t available on Sky’s digital platform at launch, I would’ve had my parents get this instead of Sky Digital if it was available in my area! We continued to use Sky’s analog service until we moved house around halfway through December 1998, the move reverted us back to the basic 4 channels until we got Sky Digital in January 1999, fortunately by then Cartoon Network HAD arrived on Sky Digital by then, I knew that when seeing Sky Digital demoed at our local Dixon’s within days of 1998 coming to an end!

[@peterjamesmmbago4433]

Will it work with a PAL-NTSC convertor antenna ?

[@matthall3077]

7:52 Sooty!

[@AlexanderEdoh2013]

What song is used for the later part of this clip?

[@flatoutflatbroke]

0:10 M People: Moving On Up 5:19 Republica: Ready To Go 6:55 Happy Mondays: Step On 7:25 The Prodidgy: Full Throttle 7:40 Madonna: Ray Of Light 8:18 Robbie Williams: Let Me Entertain You 8:44 Kula Shaker: Hush 9:39 Sash!: Encore Une Fois 10:03: Finley Quaye: It's Great When We're Together 10:16 Sash!: Encore Une Fois (again)

[@somerandomchannelthatsused9565]

@@flatoutflatbroke This will help me

[@sparkidee]

Aside from my friend at school I didn't know anyone who had On Digital at the time. I remember not being able to watch a United champions league game on ITV as it was showing via OnSport so I went over to my friends to watch it. I can't find any footage of games that were broadcast on On Digital but I did think it was pretty good, slick in presentation and looked like the service could really be something! Unfortunately Murdoch Vision crushed it.

[@blueswingdown]

anyone know the song at 9:39?

[@matthall3077]

Encore Une Fois

[@blueswingdown]

@@matthall3077 thanks

[@northernplacecorporation]

These were copied from a DigiBeta to a VHS tape.

[@toastedroast]

If only a new company had rebuilt this from the ground up when itv digital flopped. We got freeview of course, But if we wanted subscription channels without getting sky, We could of had FeeView.

[@nicholasr39]

There was more channels on Analogue Cable TV (Now Virgin Media) this is one of the main reasons ITV Digital failed. You see the Sky cinema channels, there was only 3 back then and only U and PG rated content was shown during the day. Today there is pin protection and they show all content all day long. This would have been impossible on ITV Digital and it would have failed eventually. The signal used by ITV Digital was also very poor, they tried to cram in as much as possible and therefore the signal didn't go far. Now Freeview carries less but reaches further.