TopTV - Prelim Tests

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avr-rulez

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38 Services found on Sirius 4.8 E Beam on 12525 V 30000 DVB-S2 FEC 2/3 Signal strength 12.5db using a 1.2M Fibreglass Motorised Dish.

Found so far that all services are in non standard DVB format of 704 x 576 - MPEG4

No 16:9 Widescreen as yet - although the video are fake wide screen with Black bars above and below. Nigeria music channel and Hi Nelly??

Picture quality is marginally better than same channel on DSTV SD - although I could only see on SABC feeds (witch is crappy anyway)

Audio is AAC-HE and AAC on others

No HD as they said.

Bit Rate is Low compared to MPEG2 - obviously has to do with better compression algo than MPEG2

Some services dont work and some are NDS encrypted.

PLEASE NOTE: this is as of Wednesday 24/03 and may change anytime

btw Fox FX has SABC feed - atm

AVR
 
Cool. I tested the decoder about a month ago. Did a questionnaire on the functions etc. Haven't checked since, cause we moved the dish to W7 for the new French feeds. Will move the dish back before the end of the week. Good to here that they have so many channels on that DVB-S2 transponder. Big jump forward in broadcasting tech. Are you sure the picture quality is better though? Didn't see much of a difference on the test feeds.
 
Are you sure the picture quality is better though?

The only comparison I can make is against the same channel on DSTV - that being SABC !!!!! (puke) and yes it is marginally better.

What gets me tho - is why would they not use 720 x 576 and use 704 x 576 ??

The other Nigeria channels are below par quality wise.

Actual fact the FreeView test cards are better quality.... go figure

side note: Hilarious watching the eTV news feeds on Tandberg
 
Update:

Prolly all the channels are now being beamed. All under NDS encryption. Except a few that have SABC crap feeds on. So launch must be soon.

So when can I get my box and card ODM?

Free2View have now also gone NDS.

AVR
 
My biggest question for this TopTV thing is whether the channels will be 16:9 or not. (I'm not expecting SABC to be, but things like Fox etc should be WS)
 
I'm still not sure if it's worth moving over for me yet ... buy new decoder, reposition satelite ... money down the drain if you don't like the service. I'll wait for others to try TopTV and if they like it then I'll consider it :)
 
Hmmm not exactly all that stellar looking, but it doesn't look bad...

I still wonder who their PR/branding person is.. because TopTV just sounds so childish, and the logo looks it as well.
 
"Top Sport is a premium sports channel featuring sports preferred by SA audiences."

Like more local soccer? wooh - I can hardly wait.

Oh and "Mzansi" ??? = the South? We are people of the South?

It seems like these might be the only worthwhile channels - if they actually materialise:

MGM, FOX News, FOX Entertainment, Discovery Travel and Living, Discovery Science, Showtime, and possibly TOP Movies.

Where oh where is HBO, Comedy Central, Cinemax, STARZ, ESPN, NBC, etc, etc... ?

Are there any HD channels?

For a comparison, have a look at DirecTV.com - Oh how I wish...
 
Last edited:
TheREV said:
"Top Sport is a premium sports channel featuring sports preferred by SA audiences."

Like more local soccer? wooh - I can hardly wait.

Oh and "Mzansi" ??? = the South? We are people of the South?

It seems like these might be the only worthwhile channels - if they actually materialise:

MGM, FOX News, FOX Entertainment, Discovery Travel and Living, Discovery Science, Showtime, and possibly TOP Movies.

Where oh where is HBO, Comedy Central, Cinemax, STARZ, ESPN, NBC, etc, etc... ?

Are there any HD channels?

For a comparison, have a look at DirecTV.com - Oh how I wish...
Click to expand...

Were you really expecting to compare them to DirectTV? Where is the money supposed to come from to run a services like that in South Africa? DirectTV has 18 million subscribers, DStv has between 3 and 4 in the whole of Africa (last time I checked), TopTV has none. Just giving you some perspective.
 
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