What to do with DSTV modem

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Daniedj

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Hi, I was just wondering what one can do with those DSTV modems Multichoice sold since the services like TVMail is dropped.
 
What do we know about this device apart from the DSTV branding. It sure wasn't made by them so let's start there.
 
I wonder how many people in total actually used this. I'll check if I can get it to work on my PC. Won't have a need for it though since I'm on ADSL anyways.
 
You could always connect it up to your PC and use it as a regular modem. Pity it doesn't support caller ID though.
 
It as such a waste of development capital by DSTV...people don't want read and write e-mails on the family tv. They could have used the modem much more effectively for pay per view type of services.
 
Daniedj said:
I'll check if I can get it to work on my PC.
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It does but it's not supported by any of the built in drivers. If anybody is interested in the drivers I can make them available for download.
 
If you paid for this thing and cannot use it anymore isn't there a case for Multichoice to refund you, now that it can't be used for their e-mail?. There's also a keyboard that was part of the package?
 
Skeptik said:
If you paid for this thing and cannot use it anymore isn't there a case for Multichoice to refund you, now that it can't be used for their e-mail?. There's also a keyboard that was part of the package?
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I agree with you. It's not like owners of these devices decided to stop using it. Multichoice canned the service therefore they "should" refund or buy back their equipment.
 
Jonny Two Shoes said:
what type of modem is it??? speed and all??
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It's a 56kbps modem with a serial connection. I'm not sure if it's V92 compliant, iirc it uses a conexant chipset.

werner said:
could someone quickly explain what this was about? some sort of email system for tv's without using a pc???
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It's nothing fancy or worth getting excited about, at one point in time DSTV were offering a modem and keyboard (for around R295) with the idea being that the decoder would become an interactive device and you could read you e-mail, vote in online polls etc.

The modem is a standard serial modem which connects to a serial port at the back of the decoder, whenever the decoder needed an internet connection it would dial in to the specified POP server.

As for the keyboard, this was a simple IR keyboard and it uses the same protocol as the old DSTV remotes. It was far from ideal if you could type at even a reasonable pace.
 
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Thanks @ TivoZA :)

I remember the TVmail option on my dsl menu but never bothered about it. Nowadays you can send mail via cellphone...who bothers about anything else other than a pc :) guess thats why it failed to take off
 
I know someone who used this service. I will try get hold of the modem and see what I can do with it. I just don't have a serial port :(

They hardly used the TV-mail, they had a 660 decoder and it took over a minute to type 10 words! Really slow.
 
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