Roll on digital TV

A load of BS

AS THINGS currently stand, with the introduction of digital terrestrial television (DTT) every television owner in Johannesburg and Pretoria will need to buy a new aerial, and that's the game of TV reception and related electrical products manufacturer and importer Ellies, an AltX company with a 32-year history.
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Last time I checked most aerials sold in SA were perefectly capable of DTT reception, so where does he come with this BS story apart from the fact that he's attempting to "pump" Ellies stock?
 
stoke said:
I am still confused as to how on earth digital SABC is beneficial to me.
It's the same advert spammed rubbish, but now with an extra cost.
Where is the benefit?
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Its beneficial in a whole lot of ways that goes beyond television and programming, like for instance(hopefully) down the line the freeing up of the airwaves should mean space for other services which could have a similiar impact like that of GSM in the 90s.

But stuff like this just peeves me off because he's trying to make a profit from misinformation. The story does not say why people in Joburg and Pretoria would have to change their aerials.
 
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The freeing up of the airways?
We have 3 channels on VHF.
VHF is used for channel splices 2 - 13.
That's 11 channels.
We have 3.
We don't need digital TV.
We have MUCH more important things to worry about.

I wonder why Soweto TV only broadcasts on DSTV?

EDIT : Here is an even more confusing website trying to explain the need for a different aerial : http://www.dtvprimer.com/freetv.html

From the above website: That also means you can fit five digital standard-definition channels into the same 6 MHz as one analog channel.

So, this means that we can have all our SABC transmissions on one channel. Thereby saving SABC TV the licensing cost of 3 channels, but costing the consumer extra money to bring this into reality, with Sentech suddenly having a purpose again - installing the new hardware for a fortune.

In the meantime, rolling this new "advantage" out to rural communities with their newly acquired and sometimes dangerous free electricity is problematic. So, the oh so clever solution is to simply say that these communities will be able to purchase the decoder at a fraction of the cost that other people have to pay for it. Of course, every rural person will not be able to ignore the fact that they can now sell their acquired decoder at the nearest street interchange and make at least R100 profit. There is no way in heck that any struggling person can withstand such an opportunity.

This is absolute BS, and is the product of an industry that is fed governmint endorsed licensing money while at the same time allowed to behave as a commercial entity, handing out 13th and 14th and even 15th bonus cheques to all of their employees, while real services like E-TV are forced to work under exactly the same rules, but without the same funding or governmint support.

Seriously. This should not be a focus of this country, and is a side-product of the 2010 soccer world cup gold rush.

Lets get internet into the rural communities first.
 
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stoke said:
I am still confused as to how on earth digital SABC is beneficial to me.
It's the same advert spammed rubbish, but now with an extra cost.
Where is the benefit?
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There is none...


"It's an exciting prospect for us."
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Translates to "We're going to make a ****-load of cash on this deal"

Whilst I understand the need to upgrade technology all the time - I think they call it "progress", isn't this kinda forcing the public to buy something that they already pay for - what happened to free choice?
 
stoke said:
We don't need digital TV.
We have MUCH more important things to worry about.
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AFAIK the whole world would've switched to some form of digital television by 2015. I don't know what is more important for a nation than technological progress. I can just imagine you would've been one of those guys in the 70s who opposed the introduction of television.

Most South Africans don't care much about the technical intracies involved, all we want is more choice on television...even if its two monkey's wrestling in a cage:D
 
Can one use a satellite dish and get free to air, i.e. the same as terrestrial, transmissions? OK one has to buy a satellite receiver, but the cheapest DSTV option should suffice.

How do prices compare?
 
brixton tower said:
AFAIK the whole world would've switched to some form of digital television by 2015. I don't know what is more important for a nation than technological progress. I can just imagine you would've been one of those guys in the 70s who opposed the introduction of television.

Most South Africans don't care much about the technical intracies involved, all we want is more choice on television...even if its two monkey's wrestling in a cage:D
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No, most South Africans are worrying about where they're going to get their next meal from.
 
From what I heard from the chief knob at Ellies in CT - all the braai-grid type antenna's they been selling for the last 7 years or more are designed for DvB digital.

They had a big who-ha and special launch at the time so me thinks is BS story as well.

However, all those ellies boosters, amplifiers, splitters and combiners are not. Those would have to be changed - or removed and have direct feed from antenna to TV.
 
I agree, this article is questionable.
Sounds like someone at Finweek purchased a whole lot Ellies shares before writing this article !


T.I.A. - Build your own !

On lifehacker.com they posted how to build a DTV aerial 2 days ago. So maybe we don't need Ellies! lol , but not sure if it would work in SA

Here's link if someone wants to get cracking: Looks simple enough:
http://lifehacker.com/5138746/build-your-own-dtv-antenna
 
Rubbish

This article is rubbish, so many people are running money making scams.
When the UK switched over to digital a few years ago my family over there used the same aerial / antenna they've had at their house for over 10 years.

Furthermore, I believe people here are currently using their standard aerials to receive digital TV.

I think the government should do a better job about educating people, I know some people who are confused and think they need to change / upgrade their dstv decoders because of the terrestrial changeover. How lame is that. I'm sure multichoice isn't complaining, when people will be buying more expensive satellite receivers because they think it's necessary.
 
I live in Pretoria and getting 36 channels on DVB-T including radio (the other channels are double i.e.: 9 channels) on a usb TV card with a 30cm radio lookalike aerial.
this is BS
 
Well it opens up opertunity for local stations, and by local I mean station from your area. Like campus TV on universities.
 
bekdik said:
Can one use a satellite dish and get free to air, i.e. the same as terrestrial, transmissions? OK one has to buy a satellite receiver, but the cheapest DSTV option should suffice.

How do prices compare?
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Apologies, late response to this, based purely on my own experience. DSTV does in fact offer the free-to-air channels by satellite in their EasyView bouquet, though you have to pay a token annual fee of around R200. In addition to SABC 1/2/3 and ETV there's Botswana TV, Lesotho TV, Soweto TV and Al-Jazeera News, along with a few other odds and sods. You also get all the free-to-air radio channels like BBC World Service, Voice of America, 702, Classic FM, Jacaranda, Radio Netherlands etc. Going this route of course obviates the need and expense of switching to a digital system if all you want is the freebie channels.


DSTV used to offer an earlier 'unofficial' freebie-channels package, at a similar annual price, which included EuroNews instead of Al-Jazeera, but they are very reluctant to sell this to you now, pushing the EasyView bouquet instead.
 
EasyView from DStv is the way to go. Terrestrial broadcasting should only be used for low latency applications like cellular communications and data services (internet).

TV should move to satellite where latency is not a problem. Even if we get IP TV it would make sense to stream the content over satellite.

So in short DTtv is unwanted, unfuture friendly and crap.
 
stoke said:
In the meantime, rolling this new "advantage" out to rural communities with their newly acquired and sometimes dangerous free electricity is problematic. So, the oh so clever solution is to simply say that these communities will be able to purchase the decoder at a fraction of the cost that other people have to pay for it. Of course, every rural person will not be able to ignore the fact that they can now sell their acquired decoder at the nearest street interchange and make at least R100 profit. There is no way in heck that any struggling person can withstand such an opportunity.
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So "struggling" people have no desire to watch televsion? They all steal electricity? Don't be such a biggot. Yes, some people might do as you say and sell their cheap decoders for a higher price. But how does that help them? They'll still need another. And the last time I checked the "struggling" people I knew enjoyed watching television as much as everyone else and didn't have to steal electricity to do it.

And I don't understand why there is this big deal being made about the cost of the decoders for DDTV. We are not the only country making the switch and from what I understand the cost for the box will be between R400 and R700, hardly breaking the bank. If you have a TV with a digital tuner you shouldn't need one anyway.
 
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