The Duke of Edinburgh is reported as saying TV remotes are too complex. I guess over 95% of the population are probably able to use them eventually without difficulty even if they don’t use all the functions. I have an elderly relative who now has a Set Top Box as part of the BBC / Government scheme for the elderly and hasn’t yet been able to master the technology. Got the box fitted by a friendly young man, got some training, we wrote it down and repeated it several times. What it doesn’t say is what happens if you accidently catch the button next to the TV on button. Yes it turns the whole thing off. So what happens then. Panic. I thought it can’t be that bad and had a go. But I got an information screen with a small window showing the picture and I couldn’t get rid of it without turning everything off. There’s a lag as well so you can’t be certain if the button you last pressed is about to do something or if you missed it. So yes the Duke of Edinburgh is right. Where is the remote with just a few buttons? Why the lag between press and effect?
The Government are hell bent on turning off FM radio as well. The UK has taken an independant route using a low fidelity first generation DAB technology and the rest of Europe is different. I’ve had a high quality FM receiver for years, it will probably outlast me and gives excellent sound reproduction that I also feed the TV through. In 4 years it will go to landfill because the government wants to use the spectrum for mobile phones or something. So here we go again high tech, low quality.