Tech Talk: David Behrens on what the digital switchover means for your gadgets.

SEPTEMBER will be a watershed month for TV in Yorkshire. That’s when the old analogue transmitters – the ones that have beamed programmes in 625 lines across the region for the last 45 years – will finally be turned off. The transmitter masts are staying put, but will instead send out digital signals of higher quality and with more channels. Exactly how many more will depend on where you live, but at the very least you will get all the BBC networks and several each from ITV and Channel 4.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that some of the functionality you’ve taken for granted around your house may suddenly disappear. Your VHS video is probably already history, but the DVD recorder you bought to replace it may also be little more than a doorstop come the autumn. From September, only TVs, videos and set-top boxes with a Freeview logo on the front will be able to receive signals through your aerial. Some DVD recorders are compatible; many more are not.

Mine, for instance, is only a few years old, but has just an analogue tuner inside. It will still play discs two months from now, but it will no longer record. Theoretically, I could re-cable it to record from my satellite box, but it would then rely on the box being left on the right channel – and in a busy house that’s about as likely as coming home to find the children have done the washing-up.

Neither will DVD recorders be the only casualties – even some older digiboxes will be incompatible, but at least those are replaceable for £15 or so from your local supermarket. If, on the other hand, you currently rely on DVDs to record programmes, you may be looking at a £100 bill to upgrade to a digital recorder.

You can take some consolation from the knowledge that the latest recorders are much better than the one you will be leaving behind – they don’t need discs – and if you buy one with the Freeview Plus logo, you can more or less guarantee that recordings will start and end on time. You can also pause and rewind live TV – useful for when the phone rings in the middle of Holby City.

Simple DVD players are not affected by the switch to digital. But that old analogue telly in the kids’ bedroom will certainly need a digibox – and possibly a new aerial. It’s going to be a bumper autumn for the electronics trade.