South Africa forging ahead with Digital Terrestrial Television

So while the rest of the world is already watching HDTV broadcasts we have to wait until 2012. What a crock, typical bl00dy africa!!!
 
DTT promises a great deal to its viewers. “Although some of the real benefits such as terrestrial HDTV (high-definition television) will only be evident from 2012, South African viewers can look forward to improved quality and the knowledge that we are up with the world’s most technologically advanced countries,” says Lindeque
That assumes that today's 'most technologically advanced countries' were resting on their laurels and doing nothing for the next 5 years. The country needs to learn to play leap-frog instead of being content with playing catch-up.
 
Who really cares?

They can do what they want but if they do not improve the content, who is going to watch it. As it is the TV is the one appliance in our house that get used so little, in fact if it were to get stolen I am not sure if I would bother to replace it. As the line from Pink Floyd's The Wall says "13 Channels of S**t on TV"
 
Anyone know if there are current DTT transmissions accessible in the Fourways area? I have a DVB-T card, and would be interested in seeing if I can pick them up.
 
Anyone know if there are current DTT transmissions accessible in the Fourways area? I have a DVB-T card, and would be interested in seeing if I can pick them up.

If your card is data only then no.

o i guess they going to make people pay more for hdtv too? never mind license fees.....
 
Channel 58 770Mhz off Brixton is carrying SABC 123 eTV and some radio channels.
This week they also started to broadcast an MPEG4 HD test programme.
I am using a Leadtek DTV 1000T to watch the HD as a recorded transport stream as the Leadtek software does not support the H.264 codec.
 
So while the rest of the world is already watching HDTV broadcasts we have to wait until 2012. What a crock, typical bl00dy africa!!!

Stop whining about stuff you don't understand. The reason that there will be limited HD broadcasts before 2012 is because there are insufficient frequencies available for analogue broadcasts, plus the same channels (plus some extras) on DTT as well as additional HD channels. In 2012 the analogue broadcasts will be switched off, freeing frequencies for HD broadcasts. It has nothing to do with Africa, the UK is having the same problem, however the topography of the UK does not require as many different transmitter frequencies in a small area as (for example) Jo'burg does.

Satellite offers a quicker and easier solution, as there are more frequencies available and it is likely that Sentech and Multichoice plus some others will go this route with HD in the short term.
 
Channel 58 770Mhz off Brixton is carrying SABC 123 eTV and some radio channels.
This week they also started to broadcast an MPEG4 HD test programme.
I am using a Leadtek DTV 1000T to watch the HD as a recorded transport stream as the Leadtek software does not support the H.264 codec.

you can try using progdvb instead, or get the coreavc decoder package.
 
Does anyone know when DVB-T test transmissions will commence in the Cape Town area? (As in Jo-burg).

I'm very keen to see if my Gigabyte U8000 dongle will do the trick....
 
Skipper, I have no idea as the info is hard to come by. I currently have a Sagem Set Top Box, and it picks up a signal on Channel 35, about 13 channels but they come up as Other and not TV or Radio. I also have a Happaugue PCI card but have not tested it yet. Let me know if you have any news.
 
I'm based in Midrand, using a DTT set-top box I had when I was living in the UK.

I picked up TV signal of E-TV, SABC 1 and SABC HD this week, but no picture. Ordinarily I'm getting TEXT only signal of a whole load of channels, but this was the first time I got TV signal. Just waiting for pictures now...
 
Ok, so I tested the old set top box this weekend for the first tie in ages, and now there are loads of radio and tv channels. No sound from the radio channels, and all of the TV channels are scrambled! Any other sightings of working channels?
 
I have a DVB-T tuner.
Set it up over the weekend and found 9 channels with picture and sound. (Pretoria area)
SABC 1, 2, 3
E-tv 1, 2
SABC International
SABC Entertainment
SABC Education

But it only worked until the Sunday. It then went blank. When i did a re-scan for the channels, I found none.
 
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