The broken state of MultiChoice's GOtv website shows what you should know about digital TV in South Africa

Hanno Labuschagne

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The broken state of MultiChoice's GOtv website shows what you should know about digital TV in South Africa

Navigating to MultiChoice's GOtv website for South Africa, the TV guide is blank, the coverage map points to a server that is no longer online, and clicking on the self-service portal results in a server error.

GOtv launched in South Africa in February 2016, offering low-cost pay TV services over the country's digital terrestrial television (DTT) network, which uses version two of the Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial standard (DVB–T2).

While South Africa has not fully migrated from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting, state-owned signal distributor Sentech has operated a DTT network for the country since as early as 2010.
 
Shocking that DSTV (so far) have gotten away with paying millions of rands for a knowingly worthless ANN7 whilst everyone knows it was to leverage Gupta influence in insuring non-encrypted digital tv. I hope one day we see a few execs behind bars for this.
 

Secret MultiChoice-SABC anti-encryption deal​

Etv argued that without signal encryption, South Africa’s government-subsidised STBs would simply be scalped, below the cost price, in other countries that have adopted the DVB-T2 standard.
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Excellent history on the STB CAM issue - thanks
Cloudy did not help as he was in the pocket of MultiChoice "for making a deal on the SABC archives"
MultiChoice was in cahoots with Guptas which influenced government.
 
Even the Dstv website takes you to 404 pages.
 
Can the company no longer afford to pay developers with knowledge and skills? Perhaps they did really suffer a massive loss in subscribers.
 
Shocking that DSTV (so far) have gotten away with paying millions of rands for a knowingly worthless ANN7 whilst everyone knows it was to leverage Gupta influence in insuring non-encrypted digital tv. I hope one day we see a few execs behind bars for this.
There is always hope. Perhaps MyBroadband could do some journalism on this subject. It should be something the State Capture enquiry investigates.
 
I am in the satellite / TV installation business and I still can't understand why flat screen digital TV tuners were deliberately inhibited in these sets. Now you have to purchase a digital box to receive the DTV transmissions.
 
I am in the satellite / TV installation business and I still can't understand why flat screen digital TV tuners were deliberately inhibited in these sets. Now you have to purchase a digital box to receive the DTV transmissions.
As a matter of interest which sets had their tuners inhibited? All of the TVs produced the last few years have had working digital tuners.
 
As a matter of interest which sets had their tuners inhibited? All of the TVs produced the last few years have had working digital tuners.
Many of the house brands. A customer purchased a JVC flat screen TV last week no DTV tuner.
 
SA Post Office is supposed to distribute the STB for the digital broadcasts. Apparently they have found that there is not much interest from communities for this technology. Truth is that most viewers are either on DStv or on OpenviewHD already. Why would you bother to receive a bad signal image (snow) via a Yagi antenna if for a couple of hundred bucks you can buy a satelliete dish and decoder and watch a clear image.

The government is dumbstruck.
 
I noticed GOtv channels on my free government set top box. Is it possible to insert GOtv card and access those channels?
 
I noticed GOtv channels on my free government set top box. Is it possible to insert GOtv card and access those channels?
There is no incription ficilities on the government digital set top boxes. You will have to purchase a GOtv decoder from Mulitchoice.
 
Shocking that DSTV (so far) have gotten away with paying millions of rands for a knowingly worthless ANN7 whilst everyone knows it was to leverage Gupta influence in insuring non-encrypted digital tv. I hope one day we see a few execs behind bars for this.
Behind bars? More likely they will name streets after the Gupta's.
 
What frequency range do South African television broadcasters transmit on with DVB-T2 ?
 
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