Digital TV migration: should you buy new equipment now?

the sad fact of the matter is that most people dont understand the mechanics of it all. so the retailer says no get this model coz its got a digital tv tuner built in (vs the identical tv, just no digital tv tuner)

its sad really, so common people... educate yourself so you can make an informed decision
 
Not. Buying. Anything.

I'd rather NOT watch TV at all before I subject myself to those crap SABC channels.
 
Has any one got something that they are using to get the digital signal ?

Weather its a TV card or a STB... or even a built in tuner ?

Is anyone still able to get the signal ?
 
Let me get this straight. Currently if you watch SABC channels or eTV through an antennae on your 42" TV it looks very crap. When digital goes live in SA, will the SABC channels be the same quality as DSTV standard definition when viewing through a STB?
 
Nerfherder said:
Has any one got something that they are using to get the digital signal ?

Weather its a TV card or a STB... or even a built in tuner ?

Is anyone still able to get the signal ?
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I have a digital TV card. Used to pick up the DTT signal 100% the last couple of years. Alas, it got switched off about four weeks ago :p
 
Swift-wp said:
Let me get this straight. Currently if you watch SABC channels or eTV through an antennae on your 42" TV it looks very crap. When digital goes live in SA, will the SABC channels be the same quality as DSTV standard definition when viewing through a STB?
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Current technology is analog, signal quality will vary due to fading, interference and antenna bandwidth ( needs to cover whole VHF/UHF spectrum - in dbn SABC2 on Sentech is 175MHz/ Channel 7; SABC3 is 217MHz / Channel 13 - about 42Mhz bandwidth) among other reasons. Digital tv will be compressed, contain error correction, and transmit on a small spectrum eg 655MHZ with a 8Mhz bandwidth. The antennae can be optimised for just that frequency and is better able to withstand interference.

With analog you don't receive the precise signal sent out by the tower, with digital you should, baring loss of signal.
 
You forgot to mention the digital cliff, yet another reason why DTT is fail.

They should just shutdown terrestrial TV broadcasts altogether and use that spectrum for something better, like wireless networks or something. DST makes a lot more sense because the latency does not matter in one way communication such as TV.

It is a pity that South Africa has wasted so much money on DTT already.
 
Vis1/0N said:
Current technology is analog, signal quality will vary due to fading, interference and antenna bandwidth ( needs to cover whole VHF/UHF spectrum - in dbn SABC2 on Sentech is 175MHz/ Channel 7; SABC3 is 217MHz / Channel 13 - about 42Mhz bandwidth) among other reasons. Digital tv will be compressed, contain error correction, and transmit on a small spectrum eg 655MHZ with a 8Mhz bandwidth. The antennae can be optimised for just that frequency and is better able to withstand interference.

With analog you don't receive the precise signal sent out by the tower, with digital you should, baring loss of signal.
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Agree. Got Chinese PVR with built-in DVB-T tuner. Improvements are quite noticeable. On analog, very grainy and discoloured picture with only 1 channel looking relatively decent. On other hand, digital had very clear picture with loss in image quality (artifacts) at times, on all existing channels (2x SABC 123, 2x E-something channel), plus bunch of radio stations. Taking into account that it is in bad reception area.

But there is point in watching local TV and hence, point of buying receiver?
 
People who want to watch SABC/ETV should just buy the Top TV decoder :p They're a lot cheaper than the STBs are going to be.
 
Valis said:
People who want to watch SABC/ETV should just buy the Top TV decoder :p They're a lot cheaper than the STBs are going to be.
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Doesn't it bug you that your house looks like telecommunications centre? :whistling: With 5 dishes: normal grid for TV, DSTV, TopTV, C-Band for international FTA channels and WISP grid antenna... :eek:
 
My house has got nothing - just one underground copper cable delivering my 4mbps uncapped ADSL.
 
Rouxenator said:
You forgot to mention the digital cliff, yet another reason why DTT is fail.
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I am on the digital cliff myself. I have a drifta that will not pick up any signal on my PC table. Elevating it to 1 metre on and my signal is 80%. The drifta uses a small part of the spectrum, being DVB-H the transmission is optimised for low resolution, high compression. Not sure about the frame rate. 16 channels received on a puny aerial.

With DTT there may be a need for more transmitters to cover the fringe areas, but the ERP required in built up areas will be certainly lower. Having a need for fewer high power (100kW) transmitters (that need to cover vast empty spaces to optimise costs/coverage/transmitter height) is a good thing.

I am excited to about having DVB-T2, higher definition, larger spectrum bandwidth, and portability. Televised sport in this county is not reasonably portable. DST (Satellite) certainly is not handheld tech. Which is why you have 0.8m dishes (and still need a tech to optimise reception.) DST cannot make more sense in this regard, you can't give up DTT.

I don't think money is wasted on DTT, unless you are saying so much money has been already.
 
Who cares about SABC some one would have to pay me to watch that crud
 
DVB-S2 is superior to DVB-T2. Handheld is better serviced off the mobile normal network using VOIP.

DTT is dead.
 
Rouxenator said:
DVB-S2 is superior to DVB-T2. Handheld is better serviced off the mobile normal network using VOIP.

DTT is dead.
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DVB-S uses satellite as the transport medium, DVB-T is terrestrial broadcast transport medium. Mobile networks are digital terrestrial broadcasters, yes? Obviously VOIP is not what you meant. I do agree that cellular networks could carry a DTV signal and improve coverage.

As for DTT being dead, it certainly ain't so - in Japan, France, Germany, UK, USA, Canada, Australia... it is just that is has been undergoing a prolonged painful labour in this country.
 
Do we know whether they picked a digital standard yet?
 
Valis said:
I have a digital TV card. Used to pick up the DTT signal 100% the last couple of years. Alas, it got switched off about four weeks ago :p
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I wonder why they switched off the signals without informing us. No one knows the reasoning behind it or if they are having transmission problems. Does anyone have contacts at Sentech or the Department of communications who can clarify this.
 
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