Advantages
- Watch TV with captions, if compliant with Australian Standard 4933
- Connect to any VCR or DVD recorder and record captioned programs
- Different digital tuners use different fonts and formatting
- Can solve many reception problems
Disadvantages
- May need to upgrade your antenna
- Not all digital equipment is compliant with Australian Standard 4933
Buy a High Definition set-top box if:
- You have a television/monitor which supports High Definition resolutions. (These are typically called a HDTV or HD Ready)
- You have a sound system which supports digital 5.1 surround sound.
- You want to see all the new digital multichannels (some of which are HD only).
Buy Standard Definition set-top box if:
- You have a SDTV or normal analog TV which does not support HDTV. (Likely anything older than 2 years will not support HDTV resolutions)
- You are not so concerned about receiving 5.1 surround sound broadcasts.
To record the captions you can either buy a digital set-top box and connect it to a VCR or DVD recorder, or you can buy one with an inbuilt hard-disk recorder (but make sure that it is a model which allows you to recoprd the captions). These are more expensive but boast lots of added features that make recording easy.
