I was invited to a live demo presentation of MultiChoice's new DStv on Demand earlier in the week, where Jason Probert showed, and talked about this new addition to DStv's satellite TV offering which now also has an extensive online TV watching component as well.
Jason Probert talks about MultiChoice's on demand service and how the pay TV platform started experimenting with an on demand TV service a while back, what DStv on Demand really means, what it does and how it works. He also reveals that MultiChoice is planning to double the amount of online video within a few months where currently DStv on Demand already offers 80 hours of video available per week.
For a comprehensive, yet easy-to-read (and understand!) overview of what DStv on Demand is and how it works, click on READ MORE below.
''At MultiChoice we have always been very customer focused and giving customers what they want,'' says Jason Probert, DStv Online's general manager about MultiChoice's new DStv on Demand service. With DStv on Demand, DStv Premium subscribers with either an SD PVR, HD PVR or an uncapped MWeb ADSL internet service, can watch already stored TV shows and video content whenever they want.
ALSO READ: DStv on Demand is not just free, its also ads free . . . for now.
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ALSO READ: DStv on Demand extends DStv's range on on-screen icons.
ALSO READ: DStv on Demand works really well.
ALSO READ: MultiChoice officially launches its new DStv on Demand service.
''Now that we've launched DStv on Demand, you really can watch TV wherever and whenever you want to watch it,'' he says. ''One of the major significant developments in television we've seen recently – especially with the rise of broadband in markets all over the world other than South Africa: we've seen double digit growth rates in terms of people watching online video. Broadcasters are responding in different ways.''
''In Britain the BBC launched the iPlayer. At the moment the iPlayer is doing 20% of all the UK internet traffic. Other broadcasters like Virgin Media who just released their results in the UK – more than 60% of their subscribers are watching television on demand,'' says Jason Probert. ''The US is experiencing a similar phenomenon. The major studios and broadcasters came together and formed Hulu.com which is showing phenomenal growth. Over the last year traffic has quadrupled. They're now doing more than one billion views a month: people going online and watching shows when they want to watch it. It's a phenomenal thing that's happening.''
''At MultiChoice we've been experimenting with on demand viewing for a while. We've had a service that has been a trial service but we haven't been able to roll it out in any great scale simply because the internet in South Africa hasn't made that feasible. The recent developments with the uncapping of broadband by MWeb has made it feasible for us to now roll out this service and to now launch it properly – so we have.''
''So, we've launched DStv on Demand. Practically, what does it really mean? We pre-record everything for you –all the major shows,'' says Jason Probert. ''What it means is that you no longer have to record all the top TV hits anymore because we are now doing that for you. You're not using your existing PVR's hard drive space – the DStv on Demand shows are downloaded and stored on another, separate section of your decoder. With DStv on Demand you can watch your favourite TV shows wherever you want, whenever you want. Its free to DStv Premium subscribers as long as you've got a PVR decoder, whether it’s the HD PVR or the SD PVR. We've been trialing DStv on Demand on the SD PVR for a while, some people have discovered it, its been sitting there, but we haven't talked about it. We've never announced it; we've never launched it and now we've officially launched on both the standard definition PVR and the high definition PVR and on your computer online – on the PC and a Mac and a Linux machine; whatever computer you've got you can access this service. Also if you've got a Windows computer you can also download the stuff which we didn't offer before. Basically you never need miss an episode ever again.''
[TV with Thinus note: Currently you need to be an internet subscriber to MWeb ASDL's uncapped broadband service as well, but MultiChoice says they're talking to other internet service providers at the moment.]
''Every day we record the most popular TV shows for you,'' says Jason Probert. ''We also record the highlights of all the major sport events for you and get that up within the hour. On the PVR we'll have 20 hours of catch-up TV every week. We keep the stuff there for seven days and after seven days it gets deleted and replaced with a new episode. If you have a HD PVR you will see the shows in high definition (HD) television for you where possible. There's a couple of exceptions where shows are not recorded or broadcast in HD. On DStv.com we've got lot more space. We're not restricted by space. So there's 80 hours available there of stuff to watch and over the next few months we're planning on doubling the amount of video available on DStv.com to watch. What's more is that you can download it and watch it whenever and wherever you want.''
''Obviously we need to satisfy a number of security requirements from the Hollywood studios,'' says Jason Probert. ''They're very particular and concerned that nobody be able to pirate this, and obviously MultiChoice is quite concerned about it ourselves – we didn't want to roll DStv on Demand out and have people being able to get illegal access to this. So its just for DStv subscribers and it comes with copyright protection.''
ALSO READ: My interview with MultiChoice South Africa CEO Nico Meyer: ''We want to be a true cross-platform operator. That is where we're repidly moving to.''
