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DTT user guide: DigitalTV in your home

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What is digital terrestrial television. Picture: City Press
What is digital terrestrial television. Picture: City Press

South Africa is about to begin its journey to a purely digital TV world. During this time, TV-owning households will have to switch from analogue transmission (received through an aerial) to digital (through a decoder and possibly an aerial). The key here is the decoder.

Who is digital terrestrial television (DTT) compliant?

Some homes already have decoders because they subscribe to pay TV services like DStv or StarSat. This means your TV won’t suddenly be cut off when the switchover to digital TV happens within the next two years – but you may not get all the new free-to-air channels that will be available.

In the past few years, we have also seen the launch of other TV platforms. Free-to-air satellite operator Openview HD was launched by e.tv parent company Sabido Investments. Sentech has its own satellite platform, Freevision, which will be used to cover the houses that won’t be able to receive DTT signals through a decoder. If you already use these free-to-air services, you probably receive the three SABC channels and e.tv via your existing decoder, and you are already DTT compliant.

In the future, TV sets will most likely all be sold with DTT decoders built in.

But those without the new TVs and without satellite services will need to get a new DTT decoder (also called a set-top box) and possibly also a new aerial.

Of the 12.8 million TV-owning households in South Africa, 7.8 million do not have a decoder in their homes. A decoder will cost between R600 and R800, and some of us will get them for free.

Who will get free decoders?

Government is planning to spend R4.3 billion to provide 5 million DTT decoders to the poorest TV-owning households.

Although government hasn’t yet outlined the rules, if you want to apply for a free decoder, you will most likely need:

. A South African ID document;

. A valid TV licence; and

. Proof of address.

So how poor do you need to be to apply for a free decoder?

South Africa has 4 million TV-owning households earning less than R1 500 a month and another 2 million earning less than R3 200. So, in an effort to ease the financial burden of buying a set-top box, government has the plan in place to distribute 5 million free decoders.

However, there are concerns in civil society and the private sector that 5 million free decoders will not meet the need, and that the human right to access to information will be impinged.

Loren Braithwaite-Kabosha, the CEO of the SA Communication Forum, said that in her opinion these were not going to be enough.

“I think the 5 million figure was a number that came out of the 2005 digital migration working group,” said Braithwaite-Kabosha. “That number has stayed since 2005. It’s 10 years later and our population has expanded, while the level of poverty hasn’t decreased.”

But spokesperson for the department of communications Mishack Molakeng had this to say. “According to Stats SA, there are 3 million indigents. Not all of these own televisions. From the 5 million subsidy, it is assumed that it will cater for all qualifying poor television-owning households.”

Braithwaite-Kabosha and others, like the SOS Coalition, have further fears about the documents needed to apply for a free decoder, especially when it concerns the poorest of the poor, who live in rural areas. Many are “undocumented” citizens without access to the necessary papers, including proof of address.

Asked how many undocumented houses may be left out of the transfer to digital TV, Molakeng said: “It is difficult to come up with such a figure. A comprehensive study has to be undertaken to determine the figure of television households without licences.”

As things stand now, households that cannot afford a TV licence can apply for a concessionary one, which is issued by the SABC to TV owners who receive either a pension or social grant, and to people who are older than 70.

According to the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (Usaasa) website, 810 000 of these licences have been issued.

Who will distribute the free decoders?

It’s not yet clear. But government has said that the decoder subsidy programme will be run through Usaasa and the SA Post Office.

What about the rest of us?

There are currently 4.9 million TV households with satellite dishes and there will be 5 million free decoders handed out by government, which means that 2.9 million TV-owning households will have to buy decoders without help from government.

They can sign up with pay TV platforms like DStv or StarSat, which have a monthly subscription.

Or they can sign up with free-to-air satellite services like Openview HD and Freevision, which only have the one-off costs for the satellite dish, decoder and installation, and no monthly subscription.

Alternatively, they should be able to buy a DTT decoder in a retail store. The decoders will be made in South Africa or imported.

What are “grey” decoders?

Communications Minister Faith Muthambi recently reversed the government’s policy, saying that our DTT decoders will not need to be encrypted.

Encryption scrambles the signal at the broadcaster’s end to make sure that only authorised decoders will be able to get the signal for viewing. This provides an added layer of protection of the broadcaster’s content from signal piracy and also protects consumers.

Several decoder manufacturers have voiced fears that without this encryption, there could be a flood of “grey products” into the market.

This was what Mauritius experienced during its own digital migration.

There are fears that these decoders can be “hijacked”.

Industry experts explain this “hijacking” by saying that normally a pay TV decoder has a secure TV bootloader that ensures only the operator’s authorised software is loaded into a decoder. A “grey” box does not have such a secure loader, and is therefore able to download whatever the manufacturer wishes to put in the box.

Hijacking occurs when a third party (for example, a rogue operator or manufacturer) puts software into a decoder that either bypasses the pay TV service provider control or allows the box to promote an alternative service.

In simple terms, government subsidises a DTT decoder to receive SABC and e.tv, and then a rogue agent puts new software in the set-top box that allows the user to view DStv for free, or a rogue agent fixes the box to allow only certain content, enabling people to watch TV programmes they haven’t paid for.

Molakeng stresses that government is working with regulatory bodies to guard against such imports, as well as monitor local manufacturers and retailers.

What kind of TV will we get with our DTT decoders?

This is still unclear. Some broadcasters don’t want to reveal their plans in a competitive market. The SABC has proposed five DTT channels made up of its three current channels (SABC1, 2 and 3) and the SABC News and SABC Encore channels that it has on the DStv platform.

E.tv says we can expect “a variety of great channels [of] local dramas, movies, music, kids programming and educational shows”.

*This series on digital terrestrial television is produced in partnership with the SOS Coalition

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