DSTV Rant Thread...

[DJ...]

And I ****ing hate their language filter that doesn't ****ing work properly. Right now, it's on "original soundtrack" and it's not working for ****. I cannot stand the constant "breaks" in the sound.

This is becoming more and more prevalent on DSTV. It really does piss me off...!!!

 

[ToxicBunny]

Yeah, it pisses me off no end as well.

I'm in the process of drafting a Rant email to them, that will include this, as well as the fact that I was watching the movie on HD tonight, and they had this nice big logo claiming the movie was in 5.1... when lo and behold, my amplifier never shifted from Stereo during the entire movie.

 

[DJ...]

Yeah, it pisses me off no end as well.

I'm in the process of drafting a Rant email to them, that will include this, as well as the fact that I was watching the movie on HD tonight, and they had this nice big logo claiming the movie was in 5.1... when lo and behold, my amplifier never shifted from Stereo during the entire movie.

Include a link to this thread as well in your email...

 

[ToxicBunny]

Ektually, thats not a bad idea in the slightest. I'll link to this one, and the one or two others that have arisen today...

 

[Grep]

Hey guys I hear you pain but its not just here. I have full access to a slingbox in the UK with over 800 channels and theres almost nothing to watch as well. The only thing we love is that we can see eastenders omnibus in the same week, otherwise seriously theres nothing they have that we dont. So rest assure its not just here.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Figure I might as well post my email here just so other people can either pickup on it and possibly write their own.

Hi There,

This email is being directed to this email address in lieu of there being a dedicated complaints/customer care email address. And I will not use a web based contact form as there is no record on my side of what was said, and I find them entirely too impersonal.

I have a few complaints regarding the DSTV service that have been building of late. I will list them in a relatively short bullet point form following from this.

1) Series numbering : It seems DSTV staff are UNABLE to get series and season numbering correct even though I am 100% sure that this information is passed on to them from the relevant content distributors. Is it because whoever is inputting the information into the EPG system is wholly incompetent or that you just don't realise how useful the correct information is?.

2) Language filtering : It has become ALOT more prevalent of late that again whoever is in charge of the language tracks is again incompetent due to broadcasting the SAME language track on both "Original" and "Family". I do not have a family of young kids to monitor and therefore my decoder is set to default to "Original" because I enjoy watching the programmes/movies with the soundtrack that they were meant to be watched with, and I do not appreciate your staff policing this for me and forcing me to watch the language censored version of programmes/movies. Please correct this ASAP as it is starting to get beyond mildly annoying.

3) Surround sound : Again, this is becoming more prevalent, and I have a very recent example of this. The 8pm movie tonight (Sunday the 4th of January) on MnetHD, was advertised as being broadcast in 5.1. I watched the entire movie and not ONCE did my Amplifier shift across to 5.1 channels. It was constantly only playing in Stereo. This is a minor bug bear for me but it is still important as you advertised the movie as being in 5.1 but didn't broadcast it as such.

4) Repeats : This is an issue that gets raised time and time again by many different people. I am struggling to find a decent channel lately where ANY of the programming is original or not being re-broadcast for the 3rd or 4th time now. Occasionally I catch an episode of something I haven't seen before, but that is because I missed it the first or second or third time it was broadcast over the last 2 years. But more often than not I am watching things I have seen before. I know only a certain amount of new programming is developed each year and repeats are necessary to fill in the schedule, but lately ALL I am seeing is repeats and nothing new or original on the Channels.

5) Channel Specific to MTV : I have tried watching the MTV channel over the last few days and just cannot do so for more than a few minutes before having to change the channel because it is beyond annoying. Whoever is doing the encoding of the source broadcast does not have a clue as to what they are doing and have introduced an audio defect that manifests itself as a break in the audio every few seconds, it ends up sounding like the audio is constantly clipping. It basically makes the channel unwatchable.

I have a slew of other issues that I could go on about, but these are currently my pet peeves. The others are much bigger in terms of the structure of the content, and the pricing of the service.

I am including links to 2 threads that have appeared on the MyBroadband Forum over the last 2 days to highlight that I am not the only one with issues with your service. There are many more threads in the same vein on this forum, but those 2 should highlight some of the issues.

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=152250

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=152285


I expect a prompt response to this email, and the type of response I get will determine how much longer you as a company get to keep me as a subscriber.
I know I am not the only person that is currently reviewing whether to keep DSTV in my household due to the current financial climate, and your service, which at the present moment could only be described as woefully incompetent.

 

[DJ...]

Hey guys I hear you pain but its not just here. I have full access to a slingbox in the UK with over 800 channels and theres almost nothing to watch as well. The only thing we love is that we can see eastenders omnibus in the same week, otherwise seriously theres nothing they have that we dont. So rest assure its not just here.

I mean no offence here but the fact that you put yourself through an Eastenders omnibus does not speak volumes for your credibility...

The issue here is the rampant degradation of quality. What was once a great (yet overpriced) service, has no become a shoddy (and still overpriced) service.

BTW, why not get a Skybox or Telewest box? I had Sky in the UK and it was much better than DSTV...

 

[Grep]

Haha dude, i hear you, but we love our EE especially that Nochoice decided not to air over the xmas season. As I speak I click to the slingbox and find Bigbrother on with channel4, so I flip channels and theres just nothing worth watching. I do have the skybox connected and it still has nothing worth watching that we dont have. Trust me, its not just here.

We have to wait till end Feb for more Prison Break

 

[DJ...]

Figure I might as well post my email here just so other people can either pickup on it and possibly write their own.

Nice mail TB - well put. Keep us up to date with their responses, if any...

 

[ToxicBunny]

They're lucky I was being all ummm civil and stuff...

I was v tempted to go off on a complete rant.. But I figured calling them incompetent twice in one mail was about as far as I could go whilst still being "civil".

Any response I get will be posted here..

 

[kingmonty]

Hey TB: you missed the point that almost half of all of the movies that have been aired in the last few weeks (i.e the festive season) are at least 5 years old. The Mighty Ducks (that was repeated constantly over this festive season) is as old as the hills. Also, the fact that so much old content is being repeated is unfair on subscribers. As an example, here's a list of old movies (at least 3 years old) that should no longer be aired as prolifically as it is:

Head above Water: 1996
The Super: 1991
Shaft: 2000
Sirens: 2002
Home for the Holidays: 1995
The Santa Clause: 1994
Bulworth: 1998
Ghost: 1990
The Next Karate Kid: 1994
Tara Road: 2005
Two if by Sea: 1996
The I Inside: 2003
Night falls on Manhattan: 1997
Bob the Butler: 2005
Larger than Life: 1996
Gladiator: 1992
Moulin Rouge: 2001
Beyond the Stars: 1989
Heat: 1995
Where the truth lies: 2005
Cadence: 1990
Copycat: 1995


Finally, another gripe is the flighting of Mini Series on the movie channels. Why not put mini series on the Series channel, and leave it off the movie channel? Does that just make too much sense? And why do you flight these mini series back to back on the movie channel, thereby taking up movie space?

 

[ToxicBunny]

kingmonty : I didn't leave them off per se... They're a different type of complaint.. I did the repeats one, which I know they won't deal with... The geist of my complaints was technical issues that they are having.

 

[wcoetzee]

Finally, another gripe is the flighting of Mini Series on the movie channels. Why not put mini series on the Series channel, and leave it off the movie channel? Does that just make too much sense? And why do you flight these mini series back to back on the movie channel, thereby taking up movie space?

valid point

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

And I ****ing hate their language filter that doesn't ****ing work properly. Right now, it's on "original soundtrack" and it's not working for ****. I cannot stand the constant "breaks" in the sound.

This is becoming more and more prevalent on DSTV. It really does piss me off...!!!

und ze answer

The other peeve? It being admitted that yes, they do censor movies during the day ... but not to worry, it's to protect the childrens

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

Another wonderful thing they do is this repeating of a series that's been on primetime Mnet either in another time slot/different day on Mnet or on ActionX and then a month or so later, again on the Series channel ......

 

[nihilist]

You know why DSTV sucks? Lack of competition.

 

[2CentsWorth]

You know why DSTV sucks? Lack of competition.

What happened to the imminent competition anyway? They got their licenses and just faded away?

 

[Voicysaurous]

Here's my 2c

I hate Christmas shopping where everyone spends R200 and you get a lame present anyway.

So instead of spending X amount on each person, I spent 5x X amount and bought my parents a PVR & dish for the previous xmas.

They don't go out so they enjoy watching it non stop. I don't watch TV at all and in the year that we've had it, I only watch shark week or monkeys when it's on & I'm not playing PC games.

I couldn't be arsed what shows on dstv to be honest, but I have only 1 rule: The two channels on the PVR may NOT be on the same channel! Nothing worse than actually deciding to watch dstv one day and finding kyknet on both channels >_<

 

[Londo]

I had DSTV on debit order. Then I found they had continue to debit for service at a 2nd house long after they should have. Took 2 x 45 min call to set that straight. Calls at my cost, of course. So I take them off debit order.

Then I go away for a few months and when I come back, I find I have been cut off. I never saw any invoices from them. They tell me they "only send invoices if you owe", which, of course, I did.

They then send me a statement with a whole lot of code "describing" various debits and credits with a balance owing of a few hundred rand. I ask them over the course of about 4 months for an understandable breakdown of the charges. Nothing, just more of the same statements. Then a threat to hand me over to a debt collector. I send them one last email saying that if they don't give me a breakdown by a certain date, I will consider the matter closed. No breakdown came and I have heard nothing further.

I think no one at DSTV could figure out the invoice. I think they thought I would be so desperate for DSTV that I would just pay up. Well, I am not and, 4 months later, I still don't miss it. So much of what we do is just habit.

Give you an example. In the 80's the baseball players in the US went on strike. Lasted 3 months or so. I was a big baseball fan (SF Giants) and used to watch many of their games (both on TV and at the stadium). Well, during the strike I started to do other things with the time I used to spend on baseball. When the strike ended, I never went back. And the stats showed that there were many fans like me. Just never went back. I think it took many years before the viewership recovered.

DSTV has this attitude that the viewer need them more they they need the viewer. Even with a monopoly, this is a dangerous attitude for their long term business.

 

[cocococo]

I only wish they had more access to showing more nfl games , esp now since its playoffs. If frikken Sky tv in the uk can show a decent amount of coverage then I dont see why we cant.

I'm with you here. One game a week isn't good enough. It would also be great if they could maybe get rights to broadcasts the games the following day and not necessarily live (like sabc 2 does with the rugby).

NFL really is a sport for pansies - fscking head to toe protection and restarting the game every time one of the players falls down. Ice hockey on the other hand I can watch. But now that they're curbing the fighting, it seems to have lost it's edge a bit...

Come on man. That's just how the game works. If they didn't have protection the length of the average career in the nfl would probably be 2 games. And yes it is a bit irritating that the game stops after every play, but it makes it so much more tactical. It's like an intelligent version of rugby.