In what was suppose to be an article to showcase the latest DStv Packages and Pricing, has turned into an angry customer fueled discussion whith current DStv customers complaining about the fact that they are not able to pay for individual DStv channels.

Furious DStv customers has taken to the comments to express their anger about the fact that they are not able to pay for DStv channels they want. With DStv Premium subscription now amounting to over R600 if you include PVR access and Extra View functionality, it has just become too expensive for some customers.

Most DStv customers are complaining that they just can not afford to pay the premium subscription to get access to latest sporting events and series. Currently the only way to gain access to these channels is to either buy a premium DStv subscription or be able to get your hands on a old MNet Analog decoder.

Asked why DStv don’t offer customers the opportunity to pay per channels, the company simply responded that there would be a significant cost associated with the development, implementation and administration of the broadcast and backend systems required to deliver customized channel packages, in addition customer also wanted to know why DStv does not provide pensioners with discounted rates and the company responded with that they have not yet found a sustainable method to manage pensioner discounts that is not open to abuse.

It seems that DStv customers are not the only ones wanting to pay per channels, earlier this weeks all Pay TV operators in South Africa have been issued with compliance notices from the National Consumer Commission (NCC). The NCC wants DStv and Top TV to unbundle their channel bouquets and allow subscribers to select which channels they want.

Apparently grouping channels into bouquets falls under the section in the new Consumer Protection Act that prohibits the bundling of services. The CPA states that consumers may not be forced to buy goods or services that do not want or require.

DStv has since responded to the notice saying that they have indeed received it and that they are considering it.

The last couple of months allot has changed on DStv, South Africa’s leading Pay TV operator. DStv has launched a new Mobile Pay TV service called DSTV Mobile, added a few channels to their bouquets and even had a price increase.

With all these changes happening I thought it would be a good idea to give you a breakdown of all the services DStv is offering now, how much you can expect to pay for the different bouquets and what channels are on what DStv bouquets.

Package	Price	Nr of Channels
DStv Premium	R559.00	98
DStv Compact	R246.00	55
DStv EasyView	R20.00	16
DStv Indian South	R190.50	14
DStv Indian North	R251.20	17
DStv Portuguesa	R251.20	8
DStv Select 1	R157.00	39
DStv Select 2	R157.00	36
DStv Mobile	R36.00 (Free for DStv Premium Subscribers)	9
DStv Lite	R99.00	29
DStv Mobile DVBH (Drifta)	R36.00 (Free for DStv Premium Subscribers)	12

Channel	DStv Premium	DStv Compact	DStv Easy View	DStv Mobile (DVBH)
M-Net (101)	x
M-Net Movies 1 (103)	x
M-Net Movies 2 (104)	x
M-Net Stars (105)	x	x
M-Net Action (106)	x	x
Mzanzi Magic (107)	x	x
Universal Channel (108)	x	x
Turner Classic Movies (109)	x	x
M-Net Series (110)	x	x
kykNET (111)	x
MagicWorld (112)	x	x	x
SONY (113)	x	x
AfricaMagic (114)	x	x		x
AfricaMagic+ (115)	x	x
BBC Entertainment (120)	x
Discovery Channel (121)	x
Vuzu (123)	x	x
E! Entertainment Television (124)	x
Zone Reality (125)	x	x
SONY MAX (126)	x	x		x
SABC 1 (131)	x	x	x
SABC 2 (132)	x	x	x
SABC 3 (133)	x	x	x
e.tv (134)	x	x	x
Soweto TV (150)	x	x
M-Net HD (170)	x
SuperSport HD (171)	x
Discovery HD (172)	x
SuperSport HD 2 (174)	x
M-Net Movies 1 HD (175)	x
SuperSport HD 3 (176)	x
BBC Lifestyle (180)	x	x
Travel Channel (181)	x
The Home Channel (182)	x	x
Style (183)	x	x
Fashion TV (184)	x	x
Food Network (185)	x	x
Big Brother Amplified (198)	x	x		x
SuperSport Blitz (200)	x	x	x	x
SuperSport 1 (201)	x			x
SuperSport 2 (202)	x			x
SuperSport 3 (203)	x	x		x
SuperSport 4 (204)	x	x
SuperSport 5 (205)	x
SuperSport 6 (206)	x			x
SuperSport 7 (207)	x
SuperSport MaXimo 1 (208)	x
ESPN (230)	x	x
ESPN Classic (231)	x
Telly Track (232)	x	x
Discovery World (250)	x	x
BBC Knowledge (251)	x
HISTORY (254)	x
Crime & Investigation Network (255)	x
National Geographic (260)	x	x
Nat Geo Wild (261)	x
Animal Planet (264)	x	x
Ignition (265)	x
Cartoon Network (301)	x	x
Boomerang (302)	x
Disney Channel (303)	x
Nickelodeon (305)	x
Cbeebies (306)	x
KooWee (307)	x	x
KidsCo (308)	x	x
Mindset Learn (319)	x	x	x
Channel O (320)	x	x		x
MTV (321)	x
MTV Base (322)	x	x
VH-1 (323)	x
MK (324)	x
TRACE Urban (325)	x	x		x
Afro Music (326)	x	x
One Gospel (331)	x	x
TBN (341)	x	x	x
Rhema TV (343)	x	x	x
Islam Channel (347)	x	x	x
BBC World News (400)	x	x
CNN International (401)	x	x		x
Sky News (402)	x
eNews (403)	x	x		x
Euro News (404)	x
Russia Today (405)	x
Al Jazeera (406)	x	x	x
NDTV247 (407)	x	x
Parliamentary Service (408)	x	x	x
CCTV News (409)	x	x	x
CNBC Africa (410)	x	x	x
Bloomberg (411)	x
Summit TV (412)	x	x
Weather24 (415)	x	x	x
RAI International (430)	x
BVN (431)	x
ERT (432)	x
Deautsche Welle (446)	x
CCTV4 (447)	x	x	x
RTP International (501)	x
TV5 Monde Afrique (607)	x

For a complete list of channels available on all the different DStv Bouquets see here

Multichoice operator of South Africas only pay-tv service DSTV, has announced that in the comming nine months it will launch a additional three HD (High defenition) channels. These three HD channels will include a dedicated sports channel called SuperSport HD, and 2 other channels dedicated to movies and documentaries probably Movie Magic HD and perhaps DiscoveryHD or NatGeoHD.

Previous speculation was that the three new channels from DSTV would have come at an extra cost but according to Multichoice the three channels wil be available to DSTV HD subscribers at no extra cost.

All the new channels will be broadcast at a resolution of 720p using MPEG-4.

Multichoice took some heavy critic from the public with the release of their buggy HD PVR decoder that was plagued by software bugs that caused some early adopters to revert back to the SD PVR.

The price of the HD Decoder is also another reason why the addoption of the HD service is slow, although it was launched at a kind of reasonable price of R2500.00 it now retails for a astranomical R4000.00. To address this high price issue Multichoice has commissioned a new HD PVR with a smaller HDD which should retail for about R2000.00.

Multichoice also plans to release a new software update for the HD PVR during November that will enable video on demand for the device.