SouthTel VOD:TV here soon
MultiChoice recently announced that they are set to launch their new DStv BoxOffice video-on-demand offering in the near future.
DStv BoxOffice will be a PVR based offering where movies will be downloaded to the subscriber’s device using satellite bandwidth. These movies will then be available for a fee.
Another company, SouthTel, is also poised to launch in South Africa a push video-on-demand service called “SouthTel Push VOD:TV”.
SouthTel promises to bring local consumers “a thousand titles through our personal video recorder (PVR), within a few weeks/months after release from major Hollywood studios and as a hosted solution to mobile operators”. A large portion of the content will be available in HD.
SouthTel told MyBroadband that they have ongoing service trials, with plans to launch a commercial service in a month or two.
Well known Television Blogger Thinus Ferreira yesterday reported that SouthTel will launch a trial version of its VOD:TV in July, with a planned commercial launch in September.
SouthTel explained that users will need a decoder (PVR) and a satellite dish to receive content, which will then be accessible to subscribers at a fee.
The content will be pushed to the subscribers’ PVR hard drive’ and will be ciphered on the disk drive and cannot be viewed until purchased.
A notification system and interactive menus let the end-user navigate through the stored content.
Pricing for the new SouthTel VOD:TV service has not been finalized yet, but the company said that it is likely that there will be various packages at very competitive rates.
