The countdown is now drawing to a close. It’s set for tomorrow, Wednesday 20 October, the day the “switch off” of the DTT. A novelty that will kick off a two-year long transition period during which the transmission standard of the tv will pass by DVB-T to DVB-T2, of better quality, with consequent migration from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4 encoding. The “revolution”, as the insiders have defined it, will involve the eyes of the spectators but also their wallets, since the televisions put up for sale before 2010 they should be replaced with high definition devices or connected to decoder for high definition signal reception. Do not worry though, because in the initial phase the conversion to the new will be limited only to some broadcasts and it can in any case be addressed by drawing on two special bonuses made available by the Government and combinable with each other. Here’s everything you need to know.
It switch off it will affect in the first phase only the thematic channels of Rai and Mediaset, while all the others will remain visible regardless of the devices supplied. For the public service, these are Rai 4, Rai 5, Rai Movie, Rai YoYo, Rai Sport + HD, Rai Storia, Rai Gulp, Rai Premium and Rai Scuola. For the Biscione, instead, of TgCom 24, Italia 2, Boing Plus, Radio 105, R101 Tv and Virgin Radio Tv. a kind of test for the moment in which it will be up to turn off the old TVs permanently and turn on new smart models.
To make sure that television is ready for the new “era” just a test: type on your remote control 501 for Raiuno Hd, 505 for Canale 5 Hd and 507 for LA7 Hd. If at least one of these channels is visible, then the TV is ready. If, on the other hand, this is not the case, it will be necessary to run to the store. And this is where one of the two public facilities comes into play: the bonus Tv-Decoder. Introduced by the Ministry of Economic Development, it provides for a contribution up to 30 euros for the purchase of a terrestrial or satellite decoder or a new television. It is reserved for people with a family income Isee up to 20 thousand euros and may be requested until 21 December 2022, subject to the exhaustion of the allocated resources. The bonus is paid out in the form of a discount applied by the seller on the price of the purchased product: that’s enough submit a purchase request to the seller to benefit from it. The application form is downloadable from the Mise website. In addition, it is necessary to declare that you are resident in Italy and belong to a family unit in line with the established income criteria and that other members of the same unit have not already benefited from the bonus.
The second bonus is the one for the scrapping TV: it is one 20% discount on the purchase price, per a maximum of 100 euros, which can be accessed by scrapping a television purchased before 22 December 2018. It is aimed at everyone, within the limits of one per family unit, and does not provide for Isee limits: to obtain it, you must prove that you are resident in Italy, that you are in compliance with the payment of the RAI fee and above all to have properly scrapped a device compatible with what is indicated. To this end it is required to present a specific module of self-declaration to be discharged after disposing of the old appliance.
Scrapping can be carried out directly in stores who join the initiative by delivering their TV: in this case, the retailer himself will be in charge of the refusal by benefiting from a tax credit equal to the discount applied to the buyer. Alternatively, you can also take your old TV into aecological island authorized before going and the new one appears: at that point the employee of the collection center validates the form certifying the delivery of the appliance and with that signed sheet the user can go to the points of sale. The list of “suitable” products is on the Mise website. To meet the doubts and demands of consumers, theAncra, an association belonging to Confcommercio that represents specialized retailers of consumer electronics, has announced that it will create a flyer for all consumers to be distributed in stores to inform them about the digital terrestrial switch off.