MultiChoice digital TV ad astonishingly inaccurate: communication minister

Methinks the minister talks with forked tongue. I think an open system would be the best for South Africans. Period !
 
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Pythonista said:
Methinks the minister talks with forked tongue. I think an open system would be the best for South Africans. Period !
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No. For once the minister is actually making sense. Monochoice doesn't want encryption on the set top boxes because it opens the door for competition to them. Modern encryption technology is very cheap to include. The only real cost will be to Multichoice share holders.
 
It is absurd that a monopoly that makes such huge profits in this country claims that it, not the ANC government, represents the country’s interests.
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It is absurd that either can claim that.
 
When government speaks, they don't make sense until proven otherwise. I'm too lazy to figure out which it is.
 
I don't like the response by the minister...same issue I have with absurd tax on importing...just another form of tax...then again I won't have a need for said top-set box.
 
@ELP - your answer makes little sense. Can you be more clear. At this stage the only positive point I can see for Joe Public if they use encryption is that we can the refuse to pay SABC extortion fees - assuming, as in my case, that one does not have any other form of viewing television. My TV set is 99% used for watching downloaded (from the internet) content and the occasional hired DVD. I would welcome the chance to legally dump the SABC fees. But the mere fact that I have a TV set forces me to pay them because their signal is potentially able to be viewed on my TV. Not that I am that desperate.
 
Concerns that the South African market will be flooded by cheap low quality STB imports and undermine the local manufacturing industry and the prospects of jobs.
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How does the Chinese feel about this statement?
 
Many other countries are using or about to use the same system. They include Zambia, Uganda, Botswana, Ethiopia, Seychelles, Malawi, Nigeria, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Malaysia Ukraine, Belarus and Slovakia.
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:sick:
Seriously can't we follow the example of 1st world countries instead of these 3rd world backwards ones?

How about Singapore, Singapore is awesome.
 
Government possibly wants introduce - Doing the right thing and Pay your tv license it's the right thing to do.. If you buy a SET-TOP-BOX you will have to produce your TV license.
 
@Pythonista The current free to air channels will stay that way. The masses don't pay licence fees currently and they certainly won't start under this scheme. If you think lack of water makes people toyi-toyi wait till you cut off their TV. Its only law abiding types like you and I who pay TV licence fees.

The encryption will however allow the government to sell the service to stations to provide pay TV which is where Multichoice starts getting nervous. Or to put it another way ... do you really think Multichoice has suddenly started caring about the general public?
 
I read the open letter and was surprised and find myself agreeing that it is astonishingly inaccurate. They are obscuring the true facts - some points they make are 180° from the truth - quite audacious to publish this. I guess that its their propaganda.

Multichoice makes this ****ty government look a tad honest. And that some achievement.
 
elp said:
No. For once the minister is actually making sense. Monochoice doesn't want encryption on the set top boxes because it opens the door for competition to them. Modern encryption technology is very cheap to include. The only real cost will be to Multichoice share holders.
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Agreed ! their only worry is we could buy 10 channels for R150 and enjoy all of it.
they would rather sell us mnet at R300 for a single channel.
 
Multichoice has no credibility with me - these constant price hikes are well above those of the IT industry

Government has almost no credibility, but at least Mnr Carrim appears to be engaging with the people and with the issues. I hope his advisors are on track though
 
No encryption means an end to MNET and CSN terrestrial transmissions as MC will not allow them without encryption.
 
dabbler said:
No encryption means an end to MNET and CSN terrestrial transmissions as MC will not allow them without encryption.
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I'm pretty unencrypted open-time were one of M-Net biggest money earners. Any they fought hard for it to continue.

http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/broadcast/issue-no2/content/south-africa-end-of/bc
Icasa said that paid services could not have access to free-to- air, open-time windows, as they would be unfairly competing with other free-to-air broadcasters. The closure, the revenue loss of which two years ago was estimated at R60m, will result in a drop of nearly 40% of the open-time audience of about 500,000, says CEO Glen Marques.
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elp said:
No. For once the minister is actually making sense. Monochoice doesn't want encryption on the set top boxes because it opens the door for competition to them. Modern encryption technology is very cheap to include. The only real cost will be to Multichoice share holders.
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Exactly! whether or not tv signals are encrypted is entirely up to the broadcaster, however Multichoice in this case is trying very hard to make sure the defacto standard remains unencrypted support for all forcing use of 'their' decoders. Basically if this is no longer the case their sales of decoders become hard to justify and opens the door to paid content providers on a platform on which entry barrier will be cheaper than satellite. i.e. Anyone wanting to provide encrypted/paid for content has to provide hardware to do so.. if every STB supports it, then competitors don't have to fork out for decoders as all STBs support it.

With an open system wherein the standard STBs don't have encryption functionality, they will continue on their happy way for another decade. If this goes through then there'd be a lot of back pockets stuffed by MultiChoice.. I wonder though if they didnt with Dina Pule and now pissed that the new Minister won't give them a sympathetic ear.. but who knows? May is around the corner and if the Mister changes maybe the next one will have a price ;)

Big losers would be MultiChoice (increased competition + influx of new competitors which is very liekly) and in someways Altech UEC(They've been sole provider for yrs).. though i think the latter has a stake in STB production too.. albeit better for them if status quo remains as they then corner two markets ;)
 
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