{"id":87883,"date":"2013-09-30T14:16:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T12:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=87883"},"modified":"2013-10-01T08:36:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T06:36:42","slug":"freevision-prices-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/87883-freevision-prices-revealed.html","title":{"rendered":"Freevision prices revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sentech<\/a> has relaunched its Vivid free-to-air satellite TV platform as “Freevision” at an event in Johannesburg on Monday, 30 September 2013.<\/p>\n

A Freevision dish, decoder, and installation will start at R1,350, Sentech CEO Setumo Mohapi<\/a> told attendees.<\/p>\n

ABT, one of the manufacturers that will produce set-top boxes for FreeVision, confirmed at the event that it would offer its decoder, dish, and installation for R1,699.<\/p>\n

Another manufacturer, Telergy, plans to offer an \u201cupgrade\u201d option on its “Go Digital” brand of decoders: R499 excluding installation.<\/p>\n

Telergy said it will also have a standard definition decoder (with dish and installation) for R999. Telergy plans to launch a high definition decoder with video-on-demand capabilities in future for R1,499 (also including dish and installation).<\/p>\n

Freevision uses Intelsat 20 located at 68.5\u00b0E, the same satellite as DStv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sentech said that this means most TV viewers in South Africa will not need to install a second satellite dish or change the position of their existing dish when joining Freevision.<\/p>\n

Freevision\u2019s launch was confirmed in mid-August 2013 after news emerged that Sentech planned to relaunch Vivid under a new brand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Setumo

Setumo Mohapi<\/p><\/div>\n

At the launch event, Sentech CEO Setumo Mohapi admitted before attendees that Vivid was a failure, and said that Freevision is not just the same platform relaunched.<\/p>\n

“Vivid was created in 1999 with a specific agreement between SABC<\/a> and Sentech,” Mohapi said. “Today we are putting Vivid behind us. We are doing something completely different.”<\/p>\n

From conversations with manufacturers at the launch event, it emerged that Sentech has adopted a model similar to that which OpenView HD will use.<\/p>\n

Any manufacturer may approach Sentech to produce set-top boxes for Freevision, and channels will pay the distributor a fee to carry their content.<\/p>\n

Freevision channels<\/h3>\n

While it is understood that Freevision will offer essentially the same channels that were available on Vivid before, Sentech said it intends to expand Freevision beyond linear broadcasting.<\/p>\n

Sentech has previously revealed that it intends to offer an online video player<\/a>, catch-up services, HD content, and personal video recording (PVR).<\/p>\n

More free-to-air satellite broadcasting news<\/h3>\n

DStv EasyView versus OpenView HD<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

SABC can\u2019t stop us: OpenView HD<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

OpenView HD \u201cmisleading the public\u201d: SABC<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Free OpenView HD channel list for SA revealed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Free satellite TV for SA: channel genres, PVR plans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Freevision satellite TV announced<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once known as Vivid, the free-to-air satellite television service Freevision has been launched and pricing announced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":84757,"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_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[20701,21043,35,2760,21627,20981],"class_list":["post-87883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-abt","tag-freevision","tag-headline","tag-sentech","tag-telergy","tag-vivid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87883"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87883"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87941,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87883\/revisions\/87941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}