What are the disadvantages of DTT?
If you’ve decided to opt for DTT rather than digital satellite and digital cable (see ‘What’s the best type of DTV for me?’ in the DTV FAQ), and you’ve checked both the state of your aerial and your postcode to verify that you can obtain a good signal (see ‘How can I get DTT?' in this FAQ), then there are still some potential problems.

The first is that, unless your DTT decoder is of a special type which contains more than one DTT tuner (see Combi Listings for current models), you cannot record one Freeview programme while watching another (although you can usually record an analogue terrestrial TV programme while watching a Freeview programme, or vice-versa, if your system is properly set up).

Another problem is that one DTT decoder will only allow you to get Freeview on one of your TV sets – the one attached to your rooftop aerial. If you have other TV sets in the house that use small, indoor antennas, buying additional adapters for them won’t be enough, since today’s DTT decoders only usually work if they are connected to a rooftop aerial. What you will need to do is to get an aerial installer to install a system that will distribute the output from your rooftop aerial to each of the TVs in the household (if you want to locate an aerial installer to do this, go to the CAI site).

In the future, you will be able to get DTT adapters that work off indoor aerials, but commercial availability is still a year or two away.

Finally, your DTT receiver may need to receive over-the-air software upgrades that fix bugs, add new features, or improve existing ones. The problem here is that you often need to know when that upgrade is being made available to your particular type of receiver so that you can ensure it's switched on and (in some cases) tuned to the right channel(s).

Currently, it isn't very clear how consumers are supposed to know about these scheduled updates, and - even if you do know when they're being broadcast - the procedure required to implement the upgrades is often not very user-friendly. A partial list of scheduled over-the-air software upgrades can be found on the DTG website by clicking here. 

In some cases, it even appears that manufacturers of some of the older DTT receivers on the market, particularly IDTVs (i.e. TV sets with integrated DTT decoders) have decided not to issue upgrades, even where there were known issues with the equipment. So be sure to ask for information about such issues if and when you decide to purchase a DTT receiver.

This is a DTT-specific problem: if you have satellite or cable, such upgrades are generally carried out automatically. In the future, this will also be the case for DTT - and it's fair to say that recent equipment does tend to be auto-updateable by default. The problem lies with the older boxes.