Cheaper digital TV set-top box for South Africa

R700 ?

Thats a load of crap. Someone is making a hefty profit somewhere.

I can understand if the STB is High Def, but not if it is only Standard Def.

We pay about $30 for a SD STB and $50 for a HD STB.
 
Internet = information = knowledge = power.
Who would want to give that to the masses?
 
@ jdjoubert you obviously living in a country where the penetration of the technology is high ,exchange rate,competition ,production costs have also gone down with years of mass production etc. etc. its like comparing apples to oranges .

but @ R700 the price is still steep .
 
New transmission medium. Same old ****ty broadcast.
 
they're worrying about everyone having internets for the stb? i hope they aren't relying on internet for all by 2020 to assist with digital tv for all by 2010. the way they're going with their deadlines, there's more chance of the two marty mcflys meeting in the 1950s.
 
R700 for an STB?

Well I'll give them credit, the price hasn't really gone up in the 4 years its taken them to get to this point, which is a change. I would have expected the price to be R2000 by now.
 
Will the 'poorest of the poor' - who qualify to receive the subsidised STB's - be able to afford the charges associated with accessing the Internet via the STB ?
 
its 700 because they chose to support a local company rather than giving the manufacturing to china.

With SABC's announcement that 80% of the content across all the channels will be locally produced, i wonder it this means we can at last opt out of sabc and paying for something I never use.
 
I'm in Cape Town, is there any channels available yet? Can I get a add in TV card to pick up this signal or do you need the above mentioned box?
 
Complete waste of time and money. Instead of pouring money into something like this, which I reckon is doomed to failure, rather spend the money by subsidizing private sector projects (especially fibre ones) that will improve broadband penetration.

South Africa DOES NOT need to invent its own forms of broadband and internet access. Just follow the rest of the world. It's THAT simple. We're so far behind, yet we still want to invent new technologies that are going to 10-15 years too late in any case. Support what is already out there, like ADSL, EDGE, 3G, HSPA, ADSL, Fibre, Wimax and LTE.

Really, we don't need more crap that is uniquely African.

What I can't understand though, is why the mobile operators are pushing for this. Are these devices going to have 3G modems with SIM cards inside them? Is the return path via mobile networks, or the DTT spectrum? Will these SIM cards be opened up to abuse?
 
What speed will this provide, any real life examples of countries using this tech for Internet? Maybe MYbb can do an article explaining the tech.
 
However, people in rural areas don’t even know what the Internet is at this stage, Braithwaite-Kabosha added.
Click to expand...

Kinda part of the point is it not ? Maybe they scared that the "rural people" become educated , heaven forbid that !
 
I hear what you guys are saying about the ANC keeping the "rural people" uneducated but look at what Uncle Bob did next door in Zim - his priority was to educated the masses and i speak under correction, but they are supposedly the most literate nation in Africa? and look where it has gotten them.
 
Considering you can buy a DSTV decoder or Top-TV decoder plus installation for under R500 and you can get a cheap bouquet for about R150 per month or a bouquet with free-to-air channels for R20 per month, what is the point of digital TV? Satellite TV is superior in every respect.
 
Who is going to "subsidise" these STBs? Those with money have DVB-S solutions already and couldn't care less about DVB-T.
Even the poor will go for DVB-S instead of this since DVB-S is cheaper.
 
roughiain said:
What speed will this provide, any real life examples of countries using this tech for Internet? Maybe MYbb can do an article explaining the tech.
Click to expand...

Check out the "Related article" I linked at the bottom: Digital TV: Connecting the unconnected?.

I wrote the article while the DTT standards debate was still raging in 2010, but Aldred Dreyer and Gerhard Petrick do explain DTT interactivity and provide a different point of view on the matter.

With regards to the R700 cost: Remember our spec is for DVB-T2 (not DVB-T), and requires: 1080p MPEG4 video, 5.1 audio (with minimum 2 channel PCM output), MHEG-5, and STB Control to prevent subsidised boxes from working outside SA.

Other relevant specs are: composite video output, HDMI port, USB port, and RF bypass.

We have been warned for some time that our minimum spec is a recipe for an expensive STB.
 
Thanks for the info Jan.

From the article you linked above, this somes up my feelings about internet over DTT:

“In an age where the link between increased economic activity and access to a broadband connection is undisputed, arguing that digital terrestrial television with interactivity will provide for ‘connected homes’ would be tantamount to arguing in favour of an apartheid style Bantu education system that deliberately offered substandard education to people,” said Petrick.
 
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