A few weeks ago I bought a new TV. A nice shiny, new Sony Bravia 40″ EX400 series digital LCD TV. It’s a nice step up from our 28″ Philips CRT TV that we’ve had for almost eight years now.

It’s a great TV and I’m glad we made the choice. It’s a full HD digital TV with a great picture and flexible set of features. It has a digital and analogue tuner built in, multiple analogue and digital inputs as well as a USB port for watching DivX encoded movies directly off of a USB stick (I bought a 16GB memory stick just for that purpose).

But I digress – the actual reason for this post is related to the digital tuner. When I first plugged in the new TV and went through the setup process, part of which is auto-tuning, it picked up 12 over-the-air digital channels as well as the 5 terrestrial analogue channels.

I know there’s been a lot of media reports about digital TV coming to South Africa and it being a requirement for broadcasting the 2010 FIFA World Cup (which by the way got off to a cracking start, even though it’s difficult to work with vuvuzelas blaring in the city all day and night long) but I was always under the impression that you needed a set-top box to decode the over-the-air (not satellite) digital channels. So when I did the initial setup of the TV I wasn’t surprised that none of the digital channels the digital tuner in the TV picked up were not displaying, since I didn’t have a decoder.

However, this morning I happened to switch to the digital channels accidentally and they were being broadcast and displayed on my TV. The following channels are being broadcast and unscrambled by my TV’s digital tuner:

• e-TV (a free terrestrial channel)
• eAfri (not sure about this seems to be airing similar programs to e-TV)
• Mstar (showing infomercials in between airing movies, not latest block-busters)
• National Geographic (the one reason I wanted satellite TV)
• eClassic (e-TV broadcast programs, not same airtime as e-TV)
• BBC Lifestyle (one of my wife’s favourite satellite channels)
• Koowe (kids channel, by the looks of it a South African channel)
• MK (music video channel)

Yes, I know, for those who have satellite/cable TV this is nothing exciting – but for those of us, like me, that don’t think paying the premium price you have to pay to get satellite TV is worth it, without having full choice of which channels you want to watch – I think it’s great! Yes, we’ve got loads of movies on DVD but it’s now nice to have a little bit more choice in our TV viewing, and we’re not (for now) paying anything above our usual annual TV licensing fees.

I’m hoping this is not a once-off (testing) thing or at the very least it’s accessible to us through-out the broadcasting of the World Cup, and of course first-prize, available to us in future.

Are there any other South Africans out there that have seen this with their own digital TVs?

Update:  28 September 2010

It would appear that testing has resumed again since there are 8 digital channels available free over the air again. I’ve picked up the following channels again:

• e-TV (a free terrestrial channel)
• eAfri (not sure about this seems to be airing similar programs to e-TV)
• VUZU (wide variety of programmes)
• Blitz (SuperSport blitz sports news and highlights)
• Mstar (showing infomercials in between airing movies, not latest block-busters)
• Action TV (movies and TV-series programmes)
• Mzanzi Magic (local music, documentaries and TV-series programmes)
• Koowe (kids channel, by the looks of it a South African channel)

Tune in and enjoy while they’re available.

Update:  23 October 2010

For about a week now we’ve also been able to tune into MNet and CSN (Sport channel showing Supersport and Indian movies when not broadcasting sport). Not complaining, just saying

Update: 14 March 2011

For the last couple of days transmission has been scrambled and none of the channels were showing anything – not even the digital version of free channel, e-TV. Tonight, however, it appears test broadcasting has resumed – free digital TV for a little while longer – yay!

With a little over 93 days to go before the 2010 Soccer World Cup begins in South Africa more and more people are getting excited about the event and talking about world-cup related activities.

Our local radio station, 94.5 KFM, played a song on the radio last week that no one had heard of before as a potential 2010 World Cup theme song. Take a listen below and let me know what you think?

The imagery in the video isn’t important but listen to the tune and the lyrics.

What do you think? Did you find yourself tapping your foot, or your fingers on the table rhythmically? I sure did. As much as I hate the sound of the Vuvuzela I still like the song’s lyrics.

The song is called Stand As One and is sung by Martin PK and co-written by Martin PK and David Campos. You can find out more about them and the song on their Facebook Page.

I’ve been doing a little digging and as far as I can tell the adapted version of K’naan‘s song Wavin’ Flag will serve as the official FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup theme song. Very catchy and international sounding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Eokd-Ih1c&feature=player_embedded

Sources Witness This, CTV News.

While we spent new year’s eve with family quietly at home, others, around the world, celebrated the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. And in typical Boston.com Big Picture fashion they’ve put together another great collection of photos from around the world – enjoy!

People all around the world gathered in groups large and small last night to usher out the previous year, and welcome the arrival of 2010. Under a rare New Year’s Eve Blue Moon, crowds watched fireworks, cheered, made resolutions, and counted down to midnight. 2010 is the year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac, signifying a year of bravery and courage. Collected here are some photographs of people across the earth as they welcomed the new year in many different ways. (38 photos total) – source Boston.com

Fireworks from the Space Needle light up downtown Seattle, Washington to bring in the new year, as seen from Kerry Park, Friday, Jan. 1, 2009. (AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Cliff DesPeaux)

Last year we heard that the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission, who oversee our electoral process ensuring a free and fair election) would have their website overhauled so that it was compliant in all browsers, at a cost of R3million!

Now that might sound like a lot of money, it might not. If it was tax payers money (which I’m sure it was partly/wholely funded – then I’m disgusted and I want my share back!

Just look at these two screenshots of the IEC website and even more shockingly the WorldCup 2010 website supposedly promoting the event for South Africa in 2010.

Independent Electoral Commission website (click to visit site)

South Africa 2010 website (click to visit site)

Now, a quick cursory check in the source of the website revelas that the author was proud enough of his work to put his name in the meta-tags. 

Just take a look at this guy’s “resume” – wonder how he got the job? Pathetic!

I’ve been in this industy and business for a long time now and I know you can achieve 1000 times better quality work for 1% of what was spent – truly shocking to say the least!

If you feel the same way, why not go and sign my petition.

Update: 06 February 2009 - News24.com have picked up on the chatter on the various blogs and forums about the IEC website and the costs associated with building it – you can read more here.

Comments re-opened should anyone else wish to comment on this topic.