Richard Lindsay-Davies, the director general of the Digital TV Group in Britain looking after Freeview - Britain's public DTT offering - is in South Africa at the moment having discussions with e.tv and the SABC about Multiview in South Africa and helping the Multiview partnership with advice and services.
He spoke at the AfricaCast 2011 TV summit in Cape Town, part of the 14th AfricaCom conference and shared lessons learnt from the introduction of DVB-T2 digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom. He had advice for South African broadcasters, operators, manufacturers and stakeholders: ''Make sure you get a very clear framework that's set so that you don't create a nightmare you have to live with for the rest of your days that's not manageable.''
He said Britain's digital migration was in part ''tough'' for many reasons. ''With DTT some manufacturers got their fingers burnt. Their set top boxes (STBs) didn't operate very well and didn't perform very well in the market. One of the receivers in Tesco even ended up getting pulled because of problems. It wasn't painless but we got through it and there are lessons that can be learnt.''
Regarding 3D TV Richard Lindsay-Davies said it wasn't ''quite the success story everybody thought it would be.'' ''Broadcasters are moving a little bit more slowly.''
