{"id":68570,"date":"2013-01-15T13:19:59","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T11:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=68570"},"modified":"2013-01-15T13:38:40","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T11:38:40","slug":"digital-tv-decoder-high-court-appeal-doc-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/68570-digital-tv-decoder-high-court-appeal-doc-responds.html","title":{"rendered":"Digital TV decoder high court appeal: DoC responds"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications (DoC<\/a>) issued a statement today (15 January 2013) in which it said that a recent ruling of the South Gauteng High Court in favour of E-TV<\/a> could delay South Africa\u2019s digital migration by up to three years.<\/p>\n

This comes after a meeting the DoC said it had yesterday with the SABC<\/a>, E-TV, and \u201cother free-to-air broadcasters\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to the DoC the meeting was held to consider the implications of implementing the South Gauteng High Court decision to grant broadcasters the right to control conditional access in State-subsidised set-top boxes (decoders), subject to ICASA<\/a>\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a scenario would mean that South Africa would only implement digital migration long after the International Telecommunication Union<\/a> deadline of June 2015,\u201d the DoC said.<\/p>\n

Stakeholders will have to manage the set-top box (STB) control matter with \u201cthe necessary care and urgency\u201d to avoid these severe delays, the DoC added.<\/p>\n

\"Dina

Dina Pule DTT<\/p><\/div>\n

E-TV initiated court action against the Minister of Communications, Dina Pule<\/a>, when she assigned responsibility for the hotly debated STB control system for digital terrestrial television (DTT<\/a>) to Sentech<\/a>, rather than free-to-air broadcasters such as the SABC and E-TV.<\/p>\n

According to E-TV, Pule had no mandate to make such a decision unilaterally, adding that it was understood that the administration of the STB Control system would reside with them and the SABC.<\/p>\n

Among other things, STB Control is expected to prevent the use of the decoder-like STBs subsidised by the South African government outside the country.<\/p>\n

Viewers that receive their TV signal through a normal roof antenna or \u201cbunny ears\u201d will have to get an STB to translate the new digital TV signal (using the DVB-T2 standard) into something existing analogue TVs can display.<\/p>\n

\"DVB-T2

Press-shot of a DVB-T2 set-top box<\/p><\/div>\n

The DoC said in its statement that the parties agreed yesterday to consider all options available in order to ensure a speedy implementation of the digital migration programme.<\/p>\n

These discussions centred on finding ways that will deliver set-top-boxes to the market and deliver much needed jobs this year, the DoC said. Broadcasters agreed to make their independent recommendations to the DoC by 28 January 2013, the statement continued.<\/p>\n

Among the proposals the parties are considering are ways of ensuring that the set-top-box manufacturing tender, which the DoC said is affected by the high court decision, is finalised without delay with due regard to the National Treasury regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department is committed to engaging the industry and is open to meeting the broadcasters at an earlier date should that be necessary,\u201d the statement concluded.<\/p>\n

More digital TV news<\/h3>\n

Digital TV delays: Minister must explain<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Digital TV migration in SA: a primer<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Digital TV deadline may be missed in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

New analogue TV signal switch-off deadline<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Digital TV commercial switch-on date set<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DoC advisor slated by E-TV<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Final digital terrestrial TV regulations are here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications said it is trying to find ways to meet South Africa\u2019s digital migration deadline in spite of delays caused by a recent court case<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":54275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[237,247,4190,6002,253,2092,35,361],"class_list":["post-68570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-department-of-communications","tag-digital-dividend","tag-digital-migration","tag-dina-pule","tag-dvb-t2","tag-e-tv","tag-headline","tag-sabc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68576,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68570\/revisions\/68576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}