Wake me up when my digital television is switched, and working - because I have a feeling the transition from analogue to digital is going to be a very painful one for me.
I love watching television. I love going home to Mahendra reading the news on SABC 3 after a long day; smiling as family bonds break on the Amazing Race and marvelling at the almost psychic abilities of detectives on Law and Order.
So when I heard that the government wants to follow the rest of the world and improve our quality of life with digital television, my first thought was - this better be painless.
What they say
The Department of Communications has set a three-year period for household migrations, and very comfortingly stated the plan was to reach “close to 100%” of the population by 2011.
The rationale given for this shift was two-fold. First was government's desire to never be too far behind international countries while leading the African continent in technological developments. Second, government was looking for new ways to increase access to information, and digital television provided the answer.
E-government services over television, special services for the hearing and visually impaired and multilingual programming were promoted as the benefits of the changing technology landscape.
If I can't watch the 2010 Fifa World Cup on my TV, there will be a serious problem.
Audra Mahlong, ITWeb journalist
The advantages of the impending conversion continued, with comments that with digital television, up to five channels could be broadcast within the space of one band and viewers would experience improved picture and sound quality.
The government even went so far as to say: “The obvious advantage of digital broadcasting was that a much wider broadcasting spectrum could be deployed and thus more channels used, but also important was the building of a national identity through better communications.”
What I hear
If I can't watch the 2010 Fifa World Cup on my TV, there will be a serious problem. I enjoy acts of patriotism - and I will be highly upset if I miss the opportunity to sing along to the national anthem at the opening match.
And when the analogue signal is switched off in 2011, I will have to spend money on a set-top box, which will enable the translation of the digital signal by my analogue receiver.
When I heard that it would cost me R700 - I was not impressed. I was expecting this for free - after all, I pay my TV licence. The government - which I am convinced was thinking exactly what I was thinking - announced there would be subsidies for the pricy little box, to make them “affordable” for poor households. I hope they will introduce discount coupons for the rest of us.
Since I am effectively being forced to watch digital TV - I have to find ways of easing the pain of this coercion. But no remedy is in sight. I can try and run ahead of the pack and get myself an HDTV set - but then I will have to find one that has a tuner that can receive the digital broadcast.
I can also run now and get myself the set-top box. But, not only will I miss out on my possible discount, I might regret my decision later on. If any content providers decide to encrypt their channels, I will be sitting with a box that can't access those channels. So for now I wait, anxiously.
All for show
In November last year, the government launched a nine-month trial of digital television that will end in July when the trial licence expires.
We've been talking about the migration to digital for 10 years now and we're hoping the talk will translate into successful conversions in three years.
The US has been planning its migration for over 10 years. Congress started the process of digital broadcast migration in 1997, with the enacting of legislation that required broadcasters to switch their TV signals from analogue to digital by the end of the 2006, or when 85% of American TV viewers could receive digital signals. That deadline was moved to February, but recently got pushed out to July this year.
The UK has given itself four years to switch to the digital signal and the implementation will happen regionally. Brazil - which mirrors SA in terms of social inequalities - switched to digital in 2007, but it has given itself seven years for complete signal expansion. China will switch to digital in 2015 and Japan in 2011.
All these transitions will be slow. But if SA thinks it can do better, I'll gladly skip the pain of the transition and wake up when we're digital.
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