HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: HGTV in HD - why MultiChoice launched Discovery Inc.'s latest channel in high definition on DStv and the factors influencing what quality version a TV channel is launched and seen as.

MultiChoice added Discovery Inc.'s latest TV channel, HGTV (DStv 177) as a high definition (HD) channel straight out of the box - but not every channel is launched in HD and the majority of channels on DStv are still in standard definition (SD), with only some that have been upgraded from SD to HD over time.

So why was HGTV launched in HD, does it mean that all new TV channels that MultiChoice will be adding to DStv will be in HD immediately from launch, or did the context of the content influence the decision around HGTV?

This is one of the questions that TVwithThinus asked Aletta Alberts, MultiChoice's head of content strategy, at Discovery Inc.'s HGTV press conference held at the Table Bay hotel in Cape Town.

Aletta Alberts was one of the TV executive panellists on the afternoon of Day 2 of the 3-day press tour for the channel's launch in South Africa.

"It depends on whether at that specific moment we have capacity - satellite capacity in the sky - and depending on where we launch."

"Sometimes we might have capacity on IS20 - which is a satellite that sits over Southern Africa - but we don't have over Eutelsat 36B which sits over the rest of sub-Saharan Africa - that's the complication of it."

"Secondly, but actually most importantly, does the content lend itself to display HD in the best possible way? I think with HGTV this was a no-brainer," explained Aletta Alberts.

"Sometimes when we launch a regional channel it probably won't be in HD. It depends on the channel."


ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 1: IN PICTURES - 37 photos of HGTV's beautiful cocktail party at sunset at the infinity pool of a Upper Clifton mansion in Cape Town.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: IN PICTURES - 29 photos of HGTV's official South African media launch event presentation.

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Lee Hobbs, Discovery Inc.'s global brands boss for EMEA, says HGTV channel will bring 'loads of new and unseen content' to South Africa. 

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Discovery Inc.'s chief lifestyle brands officer Kathleen Finch says HGTV 'is a channel tailor-made for people who love their homes - and there are a lot of those people'. 

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Tarek El Moussa, the star of Flip or Flop on HGTV says it's 'a magical channel about real people working on real houses' and reveals what home means to him.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Announcing Flipping 101 with Tarek El Moussa and a new teaser trailer.

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Discovery Inc.'s Africa boss Amanda Turnbull says new channel HGTV on DStv is about real people but also aspirational, 'which is why we fought really hard to have it on Compact as well so more people can see it'. 

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: MultiChoice's content boss Aletta Alberts says Discovery Inc.'s new HGTV channel will do well on DStv because 'HGTV fits so well with South African consumer culture'.
 ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: IN PICTURES - 9 photos of HGTV's terrific 'Toolbox' lunch. 

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Executives press conference opening remarks: 'HGTV is going to be both inspirational and aspirational'. 

ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Executives press conference: Ads on HGTV won't get in viewers' way, instead it will add to the viewing experience.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: MultiChoice on why it decided to make HGTV available to DStv Compact subscribers as well: 'The content speaks to everybody'. 
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Will Discovery Inc.'s latest channel have local content? MultiChoice explains how it works with international third-party TV channels.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Press conference - Why Discovery Inc. launched it so quickly in South Africa after acquiring Scripps and Africa's growing importance as a pay-TV market among global content suppliers.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: Executives press conference - HGTV's surprising answer on design trend-spotting and staying ahead of the curve with what viewers want to see next.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: INTERVIEW - Flip or Flop star Tarek El Moussa: 'I feel like I have a very intimate relationship with HGTV because I feel like I've grown with them'.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: INTERVIEW - Flip or Flop star Tarek El Moussa: 'I feel like I have a very intimate relationship with HGTV because I feel like I've grown with them'.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 2: IN IMAGES - 20 photos of HGTV's gala rooftop dinner at the Zeitz Museum in Cape Town.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 3: IN IMAGES - 9 photos of the media breakfast and press screening & 4 sizzle reels including a special Home Town surprise message.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch Day 3: IN IMAGES - 8 photos of the Grand Provence media lunch.
ALSO READ: HGTV DStv channel launch press tour - An overview.

Turner International switches its Boomerang kids channel to high definition in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa.

Turner International has switched its Boomerang (DStv 302) kids channel carried on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform to a high definition (HD) feed on Tuesday, 5 March.

The switch from standard definition to HD wasn't announced, but TVwithThinus asked Turner about it on Tuesday morning, who confirmed it in an answer just before the close of business on Tuesday, saying the channel has indeed been upgraded.

Burson Cohn & Wolfe, the South African PR agency that reps Turner, told TVwithThinus that Boomerang indeed became an HD channel today.

It comes after viewers on Tuesday morning told me that they've noticed the change.

Turner in a statement to TVwithThinus says "continuing its ongoing commitment towards re-imagining television for African audiences, Turner has now made Boomerang available in high definition across Africa".

"The switch took place on the morning of 5 March, rolling out across the whole continent, effective immediately."

The change marks Turner's third African channel to transition to HD in recent months.

"Currently, South African viewers can enjoy watching their favourite kids channel, Cartoon Network (DStv 301), in HD, while the whole continent has access to the American blockbuster channel, TNT (DStv 137), in HD, alongside the 'more to laugh about' kids channel, Boomerang," says Turner.

SABC's TV channels finally switching to high definition (HD).

After a delay of years the SABC is finally switching its TV channels to high definition (HD) with the South African public broadcaster upgrading the broadcast quality of its channels from Monday 11 June.

SABC1 and SABC3 will both switch from standard definition (SD) to HD from Monday 11 June, with SABC2 that will go HD sometime next month in July. 

The upgrade will ensure crisper, sharper and clearer images for viewers watching content on the public broadcaster where those programmes are broadcast or have been filmed in HD. The free-to-air commercial TV rival, e.tv, upgraded to HD in October 2013 with the SABC that has been lagging far behind.

Analogue viewers – those without a satellite dish or a decoder – will however still experience the SABC channels in standard definition.

The SABC channels will only be able to be broadcast in HD and be able to be seen in HD on MultiChoice’s DStv satellite pay-TV platform, StarSat from China’s StarTimes Media SA and On Digital Media (ODM), eMedia Investment’s Openview, and digital terrestrial television (DTT) platforms.

With less than a year left and tens of millions of South African viewers who haven’t been switched yet, it has meanwhile become clear that South Africa will once again very likely miss yet another DTT deadline and won’t make the June 2019 deadline to switch off analogue broadcast signals in the country since millions of TV households still have to make the switch. 

South Africa has missed multiple DTT deadlines the past decade with the government-led process botched by corruption, in-fighting between stakeholders, drawn-out court cases, constant switching on broadcast standards and fighting over conditional access and encryption system issues.

South Africa started planning for the switch to DTT in 2008 but embarrassingly missed the June 2015 deadline that was set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to complete the process.

Meanwhile many poor TV households earning less than R3 200 who quality for a free government set-top box (STB) are however still waiting for one.

That’s also not solving the problem of households earning more than R3 200 but who are still very poor as well as those who can afford a STB, and how they are supposed to get one. 

The government isn’t giving any indication of how it will incentivise households who don’t quality and who must buy one at around R700 – or get a DTT-enabled TV set – to do so. The government has only committed to hand out 5.2 million free STBs but millions more South African TV households need one and will have to buy one.

If the government were to switch off analogue signals before the bulk of TV households have migrated, it will not just take away a public service from millions of South Africans but will have a sudden debilitating impact on especially the SABC’s TV ratings when millions of viewers will "disappear" – the currency used to set ad rates, and with the size of a TV channel’s viewership that is the driving force behind its advertising income.  

The department of communications needs another R6.6 billion to complete the DTT process.

There is also questions around the June 2019 deadline. The Democratic Alliance (DA) member of parliament, Marian Shinn in a recent statement said that the department of communications' latest new deadline of June 2019, apparently instituted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), is apparently bogus.

"The minister of communications now claims that a new deadline of mid-2019 has been agreed to with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a date that coincides with South Africa's next general election."

"Correspondence I have had with the ITU office in Geneva, shows that there is no 2019 deadline for South Africa," said Marian Shinn. "A parliamentary question I submitted to the minister asking documentary proof of the 'new' deadline has not been answered."

BREAKING. M-Net returns "HD" to the on-screen logos of all its HD channels after realising DStv subscribers struggle to discern what HD is.

M-Net is returning the letters "HD" to its native high definition TV channels on MultiChoice's DStv - realising that the pay-TV broadcaster's failure to communicate the change before it was quietly done - and little if any communication during the past three weeks beyond specific complaints - created confusion and a major perception problem.

M-Net and DStv viewers thought the channels reverted back to standard definition (SD) which - although wrong - instantly started to create a negative perception and detracted from M-Net and DStv's unique selling proposition (USI).

People thought M-Net and DStv have less HD channels and that the disappearance of "HD" in the logos they see on their TV screens, meant that the HD channels that were provided, had been taken away.

Even DStv installers told new and existing subscribers that HD channels are no longer in HD when signals were activated and neither installer nor subscriber saw "HD" on what "used to be" (and still is) an HD channel.

ALSO READ: M-Net explains why the HD suddenly disappeared from its on-screen channel logos.

In reality nothing changed, but it's an important lesson for the South African TV industry about TV channel and TV channel branding perceptions.

it is also an ominous signal and a cautionary warning for the coming chaos when the switch from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting (DTT) eventually happens in South Africa.

If higher LSM television viewers and subscription broadcasting consumers struggle to properly distinguish without the aid of a descriptive logo between SD and HD channels, a much bigger problem awaits when broadcasters in South Africa switch from analogue to digital TV channels.

That change will force millions of lower LSM viewers in the country to switch to a new system they don't comprehend or understand - wondering if, or why, the SABC1 through bunny ears is the same or looks different from the SABC1 received through a set-top box (STB).

It's clear that South African consumers and TV viewers will take a much longer time to acclimitise to what SD and HD are, given the relative few HD channels available for viewers to make comparisons.

A channel such as e.tv in high definition on OpenView HD's (OVHD) satellite platform, prominently displays an "e.tv HD" channel logo on screen.

DStv and M-Net also did so since October 2013 but decided to dump the HD marker on 21 February 2014 after barely six months.

M-Net now says the "HD" is added back again to all its channels broadcast in HD on MultiChoice's DStv.

M-Net and DStv which should have been much more proactive and have been more cautious before the quiet HD deletion, now says what it should have said before - and louder - before the on-screen logo changes.

M-Net says "the removal of the HD letters from the logos did not mean that the series/movies screened on the HD channels were not in HD. The change was done to create uniformity across all channels".

"M-Net channels would like to thank their viewers for the feedback received regarding the on-air corner TV channel logos," says Pierre Cloete, M-Net and M-Net Series channels director, in a statement.

"We have added back the HD descriptor as part of the on-screen channel logos to the channels which are broadcast in HD. This was done for the convenience of our HD subscribers, enabling them to identify which of the M-Net channels are broadcast in HD."

BREAKING. MultiChoice to change transmission of its DStv high definition channels; subscribers have to check, and pay, for possible adjustments.

MultiChoice is getting ready to change the transmission of the satellite pay-TV operator's growing number of high definition (HD) TV channels but the DStv subscribers who will require an adjustment to their satellite dish installation will have to pay for the upgrade themselves.

MultiChoice plans to officially switch to the DVB-S2 digital television standard for satellite TV broadcasting on 30 June and today enabled channel 425 on the DStv bouquet where existing DStv subscribers can test whether they would be able to receive DStv's HD TV channels from July without interruption.

MultiChoice says the change to DVB-S2 is done because "MultiChoice keeps abreast with technological developments" and to "ensure that our customers always receive the latest and best quality service".

MultiChoice is telling subscribers that DVB-S2 will make the addition of more TV channels and services possible on the DStv pay-TV platform. "The change will improve your reception, especially during rain storms," says MultiChoice - a problem known in the satellite pay-TV industry as "rain fade".

DStv subscribers who get a "Signal not found" or a "Connection to the DStv signal is lost" error message on-screen, will have to get an installer out with less than a month to go and no time to budget for the unforeseen expenditure easily totalling in the hundreds of rands in call-out cost before they lose their TV signals. DStv is saying subscribers will have to pay for this new physical adjustment required to their DStv dishes where it is required.

Since TV channels in HD are only available to DStv Premium subscribers - MultiChoice's highest paying subscribers - the possible problem where it affects TV households will impact the pay-TV service's top subscribers although MultiChoice says "no negative impact is expected for most HD PVR customers". "In the minority of cases, the installation will need to be adjusted."

DStv subscribers who experience a problem will need their DStv dish aligned or will need the LNB - the cable running between the satellite dish and the DStv decoder - to be rotated. MultiChoice is instituting the change for existing subscribers by changing the transmission standard used, but says "MultiChoice does not pay for installation-related costs".

"We want to ensure that your DStv service is not interrupted as we make this change. We have created a test on channel 425. Please tune to this channel and if you see the test slide, it means your decoder and installation is ready for the switch-over to DVB-S2."

"If you see an error message on this channel, this means that your installation is not ready for the switch-over. When we do the switch-over on 30 June, you will lose your HD services. Please send an SMS with your suburb name to 32445. An accredited installer will contact you within 24 hours to upgrade your installation. Please note that this SMS will cost R1."

"Please note that the work done to upgrade your installation will be for your own account," MultiChoice warns subscribers.

"MultiChoice does not pay for installation-related costs. We recommend that your installation be checked every few years as weather exposure and other factors can influence the quality of your installation and therefore impact your viewing."