DSTV
 |
|
| Public | |
| Industry | Pay television |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | Ferndale, Randburg, South Africa |
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Area served
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South Africa |
| Products | Direct Broadcast Satellite |
| Services | Television |
| Owners | Multichoice |
| Website | www.DStv.com |
DStv (Digital Satellite Television) is MultiChoice's digital satellite TV service in Africa, launched in 1995, providing various bouquets offering general entertainment, movies, lifestyle & culture, sport, documentaries, news & commerce, children, music, religion and consumer channels to MultiChoice subscribers. DStv has around 8 million subscribers, with the majority being in South Africa and Nigeria. These two markets are considered to be the most important markets for DStv, although markets such as Kenya, Ghana, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Mauritius and Tanzania, though not having as many subscribers, are also a focus point for DStv.
DStv MobileX
DStv Mobile DVBH and Bomba
DStv 20th Century Fox generations
DStv has a range of decoders (set-top boxes) manufactured by Altech UEC and Pace. The latest decoders allow subscribers to use XtraView. This allows a subscriber to link two decoders under a single subscription fee, to increase the viewing environments. (similar to Sky‘s multiroom).
The Standard Decoder is DStv’s entry level HD single view decoder, introduced in 2014. It has XtraView capability, where it can be linked to itself,the HD PVR or the HD EXPLORA.
The explora, released in 2013 is DSTV's top spec decoder, improving on the old HD PVR decoder with more memory. It can record 1 channel and watch 1 channel.
The Explora, despite many updates to the firmware, still has many bugs that frustrate subscribers. In particular the Explora Catchup feature frequently skips episode 1 of a series, rendering the series unwatchable. Likewise, the schedules have been plagued by incorrect synopsis, incorrect series' numbers, incorrect actor and director details as well as recording conflicts and awkward user interface.
DSTV has yet to announce a schedule for repairing these issues, and largely ignore the many complaints.
Explora 2, released at the end of 2016, is the next generation of PVR decoder slated to replace the Explora eventually. The Explora 2 features a slimmed downed version of the Explora but with half the hard drive space of the Explora (1 terabyte is included in Explora 2 where the Explora came with 2 terabytes). In recompense, DStv implemented high efficiency video encoding (HEVC aka H.265), a much superior compression technology in order to offset data consumption. The video standard previously used was MPEG-2. The Explora 2 comes with a new A7 remote with backlit buttons for night time viewing. The new remote features a dedicated hotlink for ShowMax which joins Catchup, BoxOffice and DStv buttons for easy access to these services. The remote comes with low battery detection and also doubles as a universal remote for the TV.
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Wikipedia