Finding the right set top box for a really old television can be tricky.

As the digital switchover draws closer, around one in five Australian homes are yet to convert to digital. I'm guessing they're likely to be non-tech savvy homes, which means they probably haven't upgraded their television for a long time. Perhaps for such a long time that their television doesn't have any video inputs, just an aerial socket. There'd be plenty of other homes that are still relying on such a television in the bedroom, rumpus room or shed.

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Upgrading these old televisions to digital probably isn't as simple as buying a set top box. Remember when you got your first VCR? It might have had a composite video output on the back (the yellow socket, plus red and white for audio), but your television probably didn't have a composite video input. So the trick was to use an aerial cable to run from the RF output on the VCR to the RF input on your television. Now you could tune your television to channel 3 and see the output from the VCR.

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This trick worked because your VCR had an RF modulator, basically a converter which took the VCR's output and inserted it into the aerial signal as another channel before sending it out the RF socket. When the first digital set top boxes came along ten years ago, many of them also featured an RF Modulator, so you could connect the set top box to your television's aerial socket and watch all the digital channels coming from the set top box.

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The problem now is that very few new digital set top boxes include an RF Modulator. They might still feature an RF input and an RF output, but that RF output is generally just an RF pass-through. In other words, the set top box will relay your aerial signal to another device but it won't insert the digital channels in the process. So you can't hook up a new set top box to your television's aerial input, tune the television to channel 3 and watch the digital channels.

I rang half a dozen major electrical retailers last week and none of them sold set top boxes which featured an RF Modulator. The really disturbing thing was that some shop assistants didn't seem to understand the difference between an RF pass-through and an RF Modulator. If a shop assistant tells you that a new set top box features an RF Modulator, make sure they'll agree to refund your money if they're wrong.

If you do manage to find an old set top box with an RF Modulator, chances are that it's an old standard-def only set top box. These days you really want a high-def set top box, or else you're missing out on ABC News 24, One HD, 7mate, GEM and SBS HD. It doesn't matter if you don't have a high-def television, as the set top box can downscale the high-def channels to standard-def. They won't look as sharp, but at least you can watch them. Most of the shows on the high-def channels are in standard-def these days anyway. I'm pretty annoyed about the fact Nine hasn't been showing the cricket in high-def on GEM.

So if you can't find a high-def set top box with an RF Modulator, how do you upgrade an old television to digital? The easiest solution is to use an old VCR as an RF Modulator. After the digital switchover your old VCR won't be any good for watching or recording television, because it doesn't feature digital tuners. But if it's got video inputs, you could connect a set top box to the VCR's video inputs and then the VCR's RF output to the television's RF input. Now you can turn the television to channel 3 to watch the VCR and then switch the VCR to the AV input to watch the picture coming from the set top box. It's the same way many people hooked up their first DVD player. With a set up like this, you could even record the digital channels on your VCR.

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Source: smh