South African TV undergoes a Video On Demand revolution.

by Samuel Mungadze

The South African television market is set to undergo a revolution where consumers can hire the latest movies and watch programmes of their choice from anywhere on various devices. Two companies have confirmed the availability of the service in the country.

Multichoice will be launching in less than a week, while black-owned Seemahale Telecoms announced that it would be offering interactive television to the entire southern African region. The Multichoice DStv Box Office will be launched on Thursday next week and will allow subscribers access to the latest movies.

Subscribers will be able to rent movies, instead of going to video stores, which will be stored on their decoder''s hard drive. This latest development is a major stride in the local communications and television space. It poses a direct threat to DVD hire stores as well as cinemas.

DStv has 3.5 million subscribers. In the last financial year, the subscriber base has grown by 637000. Of this, 59%, or 375000, were in the lower end DStv Compact. They are unlikely to be able to access the service. Seemahale has also become the first company in Africa to be given the rights to deliver Nangu TV, an interactive TV offering.

The company last week signed a reseller agreement with Alnair, a Czech Republic-based company, to resell its Nangu TV solution to the African market.

Thabo Lehlokoe, chairperson of Seemahale, said that television space in SA and on the continent would now be revolutionalised. "We are living in the age of cloud computing and cloud services. With support for over-the-top delivery, Nangu TV is well suited for building cloud TV services. "This will help democratise television services in South Africa and the rest of the continent," Lehlokoe said. With Nangu TV, subscribers are able to consume live television, as well as non-linear TV features any time and anywhere on various devices, including set-top boxes, PCs, smartphones and other handheld devices, such as iPads.

Libor Bucinsky, product manager at Alnair, said they would be strengthening their position through various partnerships in the telecoms space, such as the Seemahale deal. The company has more than 20 customers in different European countries and more than 35 virtual operators have joined its existing platforms.

The number of set-top boxes running its solution has reached 50 000 units in the Czech and Slovak markets alone. Seemahale is also a partner of Motorola Mobility and offers enhanced personal media experiences through the provision of video infrastructure services, Internet Protocol TV, Video On Demand and different types of Motorola set-top boxes, including hybrids.