Johannesburg - SA officially joined the high-definition (HD) TV club this week with the launch of MultiChoice's HD personal video recorder (PVR).

The device, which is being pushed out the door in time to launch a HD channel for the Beijing Olympics, will go on sale from August 4, it said.

The single HD channel will go live with promotional material from August 1, but will switch over to the Olympics when it starts on August 8.

MultiChoice CEO, Nolo Lethele, said that after the conclusion of the games, the broadcaster would be launching a new M-HD channel which would broadcast a selection of HD content from across the MNet channels. Additional channels will be added over time.

The new PVR, which will retail for R2 499 (the same as the existing PVR) replaces the standard PVR and marks the first time that MultiChoice will not be offering a high-end decoder that offers the ability to watch two channels from the same decoder.

Instead subscribers will have to use the recently launched XtraView service that uses a second decoder to enable viewing on a second TV. The new PVR does, however, allow subscribers to watch one channel while recording on two channels.

There is no difference in the price of the subscription from that paid by current PVR and Dual View subscribers.

The company will not be offering trade-ins on the old PVRs but these can, according to Lethele, be used to enable a dual-view environment.

The recording features of the standard definition PVR are not disabled when it is being used in this configuration.


The new PVR will allow subscribers to record 150 hours of video in standard definition or 50 hours of HD content (the current PVR has a limit of 80 hours of standard definition content).


In order to watch the HD channel in high-definition subscriber will have to have a TV that is HD-ready such as a plasma or LCD flat panel TV.

- Fin24.com