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.

DStv, the pay TV service from Multichoice, has launched two new channels to DStv Premium and Compact subscribers today.

The two channels forms part of the Discovery Network channels and has been available for just over a year in South Africa already on competing pay TV service TopTV.

The addition of the the two new channels namely TLC and Investigation Discovery brings the total number of Discovery Network channels available on DStv to six now which includes Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery World and Discovery HD Showcase.

TLC features non-scripted female targeted entertainment programmes focusing on everything from food, family, weddings, fashion, health and life events. The compelling programme line-up includes massive US hit series such as What not to Wear starring Randy Fenoli, Say Yes to the Dress, Rich Bride Poor Bride, Jon and Kate Plus 8as well as popular Discovery Channel series, Cake Boss. These will be a joined by a selection of fascinating specials including Becoming Chaz, which takes you on the remarkable, personal journey of Cher’s daughter, Chastity Bono, as she undergoes gender reassignment surgery to become a man.

ID is the world’s leading fact-based channel focused on crime, forensics and investigative programming.  The channel targets adults aged 25-54 with a strong female skew and gives viewers a compelling line-up of crime and investigative programming, focusing on the science of forensics and how it is used to unlock some of the world’s most fascinating criminal investigations. The channels includes series such as Nightmare Next Door, Couples Who Kill, Disappeared, True Crimes with Aphrodite Jones and Who On Earth Did I Marry. The channel is also teaming up with legendary crime noir writer and author of LA Confidential, James Ellroy for a special new series called LA: City of Demons.

The new channels area available from today, 14 October 2011, to DStv Premium and DStv Compact subscribers on channels 186 (TLC) and 252 (ID).

When DStv launched their DStv Mobile service in November 2010 it was only compatible with your PC and iOS devices. A few months after the announcement however DStv promised to have Android and Blackberry apps that will be compatible with the service.

April came and gone without any apps released for the Android and Blackberry platforms as promised and now a few months later DStv has finally launched their much anticipated Android app for viewing DStv Mobile content through the Drifta decoder.

But don’t get too happy yet, there are some fallbacks to the new DStv Mobile Android app, like it is only compatible with certain device, yep not a certain version of Android but more specific only certain devices. The DStv Mobile Android app will only run on the Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000), Samsung Galaxy Tab (GT-P1000) and Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100), and don’t even think that you’ll be able to run this on a rooted phone.

DStv is preventing people with rooted phones to make use of the app due to content right restrictions, which in my opinion is a bit of a fail specially since major Android handset manufacturers are now adopting a open bootloader policy which enables you to run just about any version of Android on your phone.

Personally for me the launch of the DStv Mobile Android app is a bit of a fail seeing as it has so much restrictions, and why it is only compatible with a hand full of Samsung device is beyond me. What do you think, should DStv rather have waited a little bit longer before releasing to offer more device compatibility? It’s clear that DStv pushed this app for the Rugby World Cup.

DStv’s much anticipated video on demand movie rental system, DStv BoxOffice, went live this weekend but things did not go as smooth as planned.

The DStv BoxOffice service started becoming available to DStv premium PVR users since early morning Friday 22 July 2011, but since then allot of users are yet still to receive their movie rentals.

Friday evening I set out to test out the new BoxOffice service from DStv, only to be disappointed by the slow registration progress. To sign up you have to SMS your smartcard number and then your DStv BoxOffice account will be set up, I SMS’d my smartcard number through at around 19:00 and only the next morning at around 10:00 I got an SMS telling me that they are experiencing a large demand and are sitting with a backlog of SMS messages that will be attended to. In the SMS DStv also promised an extra free movie rental on the house to make up for the long wait.

Sunday around 12:00 me and the wife decided we wanted to watch a movie, so I set out and followed the rental process by SMSing the unique code to the number onscreen to initiate my movie rental. According to the instructions, shortly after you have SMS’ed the unique code through to the number you will notified via the DStv decoder messaging system that your movie is available to watch.

It is now Monday morning close to 09:00 and I am yet still to receive my movie rental.

For a company operated by Naspers with huge brands behind their name like MWeb one would expect that they would be used to high volume launches by now, I mean DStv knows how many subscribers they have and they know how many of them have PVR decoders, working out the demand would be easy.

Have you tried DStv BoxOffice? If so, tell us about your experience.

Multichoice has launched their much anticipated DStv BoxOffice service last night at an event in Johannesburg. DStv BoxOffice is a video on demand rental service that enable DStv customer to rent the latest Hollywood blockbuster movies for a nominal fee straight from their PVR decoders.

DStv started rolling out the BoxOffice service to premium subscribers from last night and will provide them with 48 hours worth of movie rentals at a price of R25 per movie.

DStv BoxOffice provides subscribers with access to 15 movie rentals at a time that are all stored on their PVR decoders, once a subscriber has then paid for the movie rental the movie will become available to watch.

The big question is will you loose valuable recording space on your PVR now that the BoxOffice movies are downloaded to your device? The answer is no, DStv has reserved space for the BoxOffice service on the PVR decoder since day one so none of your recording will be affected, but due to the limited reserve space you will only have access to 48 hours worth of movies at a time.

New movies will be added to the DStv BoxOffice service every week, with DStv planning to provide up to 150 blockbuster Hollywood movies each year on the service a mere 4 to 6 months after the cinema release.

Payment of the movie rentals can happen via your credit card or via your DStv BoxOffice account that operates almost the same as your DStv account that you can pay monthly the same ways you would pay your DStv account.

For a list of DStv BoxOffice movies currently available or for more information about the service visit http://boxoffice.dstv.com/

DStv today has announced a brand new decoder for their DStv Mobile offering, called the DStv Mobile USB Drifta decoder.

The new USB Drifta decoder just like the WiFi Drifta, functions as a mobile DStv decoder enabling users to connect to the DStv Mobile DVB-H network to view certain channels on the go.

The new USB device is much sleeker than the original DStv Drifta decoder and plugs straight into you USB port on your computer, eliminating the need to pair the device through WiFi like the original WiFi Drifta. “It’s just a matter of loading the Drifta USB application onto your PC,” explains Mark Rayner, general manager: DStv Mobile South Africa. “After that, you simply plug the Drifta USB into your PC and launch the application; within seconds you can then enjoy DStv Mobile content.”

In addition to the launch of the DStv USB Drifta Decoder, DStv Mobile has also announced the addition of the M-Net Series channel to the DStv mobile bouquet, offering popular content such as “The Good Wife” and “CSI: Miami”.

Good news is that the new DStv USB Drifta decoder comes in at a few hundred rand cheaper then the original Drifta, making it now even more affordable for people to subscribe to DStv. The new DStv Mobile USB Drifta decoder is available here for only R399.

Rumor about DStv launching a Pay Per View service started late last year and the rumor was recently confirmed when DStv amended their Terms and Conditions and added clauses under the heading BoxOffice Service.

Since then DStv have slipped up a few times, with some DStv PVR owners saying that the BoxOffice menu has showed up on their PVR’s but was quickly removed. DStv BoxOffice will be South Africa’s first online Video On Demand service, allowing users to rent the latest Hollywood blockbuster movies for an unconfirmed nominal fee of R29 per movie. The service will make use of the current DStv satellite infrastructure and be available to DStv PVR at no additional cost, except to paying for the movie rental.

Well know television journalist, Thinus Ferreira, has reported that DStv PVR owners will be able to pay for their DStv BoxOffice movie rentasl either by Credit Card or it can be charged to their DStv account, multichoice has however not confirmed this.

According to an invitation I received last night, Multichoice will be rolling out the red carpet and welcome DStv BoxOffice – South Africa’s first video on demand service on the 21st of July 2011. It is still unclear whether the BoxOffice service will be activated on that night, but hopefully PVR owners will be able to use the service from 22 July 2011.

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

On Friday, 8 April 2011, DStv will be launching their 6th High Definition (HD) channel to join the DStv family of HD channels.

The new HD channel, SuperSport HD 3,  will be complementing the existing two SuperSport HD channels to deliver HD capable viewers with a even wider variety of sport in High Definition.

With the introduction of SuperSport HD 3, DStv will reshuffle it’s sport broadcasts across the current SuperSport HD channels.

SuperSport HD1, channel 171: SS HD1 will consists of a variety of sporting codes, including local and international rugby, PSL football, Uefa Champions League, tennis majors, European Tour, US PGA golf, F1 and MotoGP.

SuperSport HD2, channel 174: SS HD2, which currently shows the EPL, will be the new channel which will be available from 8 April 2011 at 6am. It will feature various High Definition sports programming, including selected cricket, Bundesliga soccer, PSL soccer, Europa League soccer, tennis majors, Champions League soccer, F1 and MotoGP.

SuperSport HD3, channel 176: SS HD3 will now broadcast the 24-hour English Premier League channel (previously available on SS HD2). A limited amount of programming, particularly legacy matches will be in Standard Definition because of their historical nature.

Apart from the changes above to the SuperSport HD channels, DStv will also be broadcasting sport on the M-Net HD channel on Saturday’s between 2-7 pm, these sport will mainly consist of Rugby but viewers may also see soccer from time to time.

With the addition of SuperSport HD 3, the total amount of High Definition channels on DStv now stands at six with the inclusion of M-Net HD, SuperSport HD 1, SuperSport HD 2, Discovery HD Showcase and M-Net Movies HD 1.

“We made a commitment to our viewers and now we are delivering,” said Andre de Villiers, SuperSport’s marketing director. “Sporting events are increasingly being produced in High Definition and SuperSport is committed to bringing more of this broadcast technology to the market. Sport, in particular, lends itself to the excellent quality offered by High Definition.”

“High Definition channels are becoming the television standard globally. We don’t want our subscribers to be left behind – our focus is on rolling out as many High Definition channels onto the DStv platform as possible,” commented Aletta Alberts, GM: Content, MultiChoice.

It’s great to see South Africa catching up with the rest of the world where HD channels are a norm nowadays, but how much I enjoy sport I would still like to see more variety when it comes to HD channels in South Africa.

DStv Mobile has announced that they will be adding three new channels to their mobile TV offering bringing the total number of channels available on the mobile TV platform to twelve.

With the free introductory phase coming to an end at the end of March 2011, DStv Mobile subscribers will enjoy the three extra channel starting from 1 April 2011. The channels that will join the existing DStv Mobile bouquet are CNNi, E!Entertainment and Sony Max.

Not only will DStv Mobile introduce the three new channels they have also promised applications for Nokia and Android smartphones to enable people with those phones to watch DStv Mobile with the Drifta decoder.

From 1 April 2011, you can expect to pay R36 per month to watch DStv Mobile through the Drifta decoder or alternatively if you have a DVB-H phone you can also opt for the R9 per week option.

Good news for DStv Premium subscribers is that they will have access to DStv Mobile through the Drifta decoder or a DVB-H phone at no extra cost per month. If you are a DStv Compact subscriber and subscribe to DStv Mobile before 31 March 2011 you will get access to the service for free until the end of March 2012.