Roll on digital TV

[stoke]

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.

Erm, how do struggling people pay for electricity and TV if they're struggling to put food on the table? I think your definition of struggling and mine differ significantly.

The big deal is the cost to the country. Sentech and others have been given billions to enact this project. Billions that could be spent elsewhere.

I just think that governmint priorities got mixed up somewhere along the way. They were going to provide services and many levels of education and housing and medical and pension and maintain social grants, while encouraging growth in small business. Somewhere along the way, all the money ended up going to big business projects that do very little to achieve the main goals.

 

[Ivork]

from what I understand the cost for the box will be between R400 and R700, hardly breaking the bank.

They went up. Now estimate is between R600 and R800 - about the price of a brand new 54cm TV......a lot for a poor guy.

If you have a TV with a digital tuner you shouldn't need one anyway

Indeed - try and find one. You would think they would be available by now.
Probably holding back till switch-off - raping the consumers by selling these cheap obsolete sets for as long as they can.

I swear we the worlds dumping ground for cr@p!

 

[Ivork]

Wahahahah, read it again! (the 1st paragraph -I must assume everything that follows is all BS as well).

DTT) every television owner in Johannesburg and Pretoria will need to buy a new aerial,

Only the poor vaalies in Jozie and Pretoria need to all go out & buy new antennas! Cool Banana! So Sorry for them!

What ass wrote this article? Someone send them a link to this thread. We so tired of all the erroneous info surrounding digital TV – could we please have someone talking sense!

 

[Tns]

what will they think of next to make money out of the cash cows....

 

[gmanrhoda]

Profiteering on ignorance

It's absolutely not true that you need to purchase a new aerial to receive the DTT signal a good high-gain UHF rooftoop aerial is quite capable of receiving the signal.Ellies is profiteering of the proles ignorance.folks do your homework and avoid being taken advantage of!!!!!!

 

[ProAsm]

DTT is transmitted around Channel 65 (823 mhz) which is in the Green band range.
So if you have a green band uhf antenna you home and dry.
Some yellow band aerials may also work depending on your distance from the tower.
Everyone else will need to change their aerials which is 80% of the viewing puplic.
One of the advantages of a digital signal is you either receive a brilliant signal or nothing.
Its not like current analog channels where the signal strength received determines your picture quality, here its either studio quality or nothing, similar to DSTV.

Due to the very high cost of tranmitters its overall cheaper to go digital as currently only 4 TV channels can be transmitted per tower.
With digital, you can transmit 8 TV channels on the same bandwidth as one analog channel giving the prospect of 32 channels per spectrum.
Maintenance on a digital transmitter is minimal and is self adjusting with just a laptop.
Maintenance on an analog transmitter is a nightmare, very time consuming and requires highly skilled engineers, not to mention the high quantity of spares and built in redundancies required.