by Thinus Ferreira
MultiChoice decided to leak a first look of its next DStv Explora Ultra decoder which will be white - a first-ever in this colour - together with a brand new form factor for its top-end decoder that is another radical departure from previous versions.
The 4th generation DStv Explora Ultra also has a completely redesigned remote control, likely AI voice-controlled, similar to what overseas pay-TV operators have been offering their subscribers the past few years.
Taking its design cues from Sky in the United Kingdom's "Sky Q box" decoder, the new DStv Explora Ultra box doesn't have a market release date yet although it will be rolled out to consumers within months.
MultiChoice included the first look at its latest DStv Explora Ultra decoder in its 2024/2025 half-year financial results documentation for investors. MultiChoice declined to comment on various questions TVwithThinus asked last week about this to-be-released decoder.
The new DStv Explora Ulta decoder unveiling is similar to June 2020 when MultiChoice showed investors in its financial presentation that it was going to add both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video as third-party streaming apps to its DStv Explora Ultra, after which it later did so.
The next generation DStv Explora Ultra decoder will be the latest hardware release from MultiChoice and takes the place of the much-hyped DStv Glass - a customised version of Comcast's Sky Glass for South Africa that MultiChoice planned to release here but scuppered because of its worsening financial position.
Initially, Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO in September 2022 announced that DStv Glass - a proprietary smart TV set with a built-in DStv decoder - would launch in South Africa in 2023.
In May 2023 this was suddenly pushed out by two years.
In June this year Tim Jacobs, MultiChoice chief financial officer (CFO), told me that DStv Glass is dead - one of the victims of the financially stretched pay-TV operator's drastic cost-cutting measures coming as MultiChoice awaits an aggressive buy-out by France's Vivendi SE's Canal+ to help it fight against Netflix's streaming proliferation in Africa.
The latest DStv Explora Ultra decoder is inscribed with a Norman window design on top, a brand design flourish that MultiChoice adopted two years ago.
The Norman window, in grey, also appears on the right of the decoder front-face and inside it, the word "DStv".
The words "Ultra decoder" appear on the decoder front-face on the left.
The DStv Explora Ultra does away with the black plastic grate design in exchange for a smooth white plastic surface, a grey bottom-third base, and a thin grey trim around the top border.
The decoder's form factor is a rectangle with rounded corners, very similar to the Sky Q box.
Sky has what it calls a Sky Q Booster box, an extender to help with a better and amplified Wifi signal in the home. The new DStv Explora Ultra looks 90% similar to this white box.
Sky New Zealand's latest new decoder box is now also white and also looks similar - and now also has a white remote control.
The new DStv Explora Ultra is the first white DStv decoder line ever from MultiChoice.
MultiChoice's previous DStv decoders were black, its first PVR decoder line was metallic silver, and it also made one very rare, golden decoder.
This 24-carat gold-plated M-Net decoder was made in 1993 to celebrate M-Net's millionth decoder and is part of MultiChoice's corporate museum.
Remote control with voice control
The new DStv Explora Ultra remote control represents a somewhat shocking and eye-popping departure from the "half-banana oval" black shape shipped with DStv decoders up until now, with the next generation remote control switching to white.
The new white remote control has a reduced number of buttons.
The white remote control is very much similar to the design of the Sky Q remote control - even having a dedicated blue button directly underneath the grey circle omni-directional arrows and "Enter" button.
On the Sky Q remote control this blue button is pressed to activate voice control AI and to give voice commands to the decoder like "Find Sky News", "Go to movies", "Tune to channel [channel number]", "What should I watch?", "Open my recordings", "Take me to Catch Up" and multiple others.
Since MultiChoice and Comcast's Sky are Showmax 2.0 IT partners and worked on DStv Glass until its rollout was abruptly canned, it's clear that MultiChoice decided to go the Sky Q route with its next top-line decoder and remote control design.
While Sky Q has the functionality of pressing the "Q" button on the front-face of the decoder to find a lost remote control that will then beep for30 seconds, it doesn't look like this functionality will be included with the new DStv Explora Ultra that doesn't have a pressable button on the front-face.
Like the existing DStv Explora Ultra (its latest version in this range is 3B), the newest version will allow the recording of hundreds of hours of TV, give access to live linear and on-demand library content, as well as access to other video streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
In its latest half-year financial results MultiChoice said that DStv decoder sales increased 46%.
