What, is this some sort of sick joke or something? The
host nation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup,
South Africa, will be unable to watch
the action happening in its own backyard in high-definition. According to a recent report from Johannesburg, the SABC "has no plans to broadcast the 2010 FIFA World Cup in high-definition for South Africans." Instead, Switzerland-based Host Broadcasting Services (HBS) will film the games in HD for other countries. The trouble is that an overwhelming amount of South African citizens would need to procure a digital set-top-box in order to view the content in high-def, and considering that HD adoption in the nation is already low, it's simply not a high enough priority to bother with. Of course, political pressures could lead to change in all of this, and for the sake of the locals yearning for more high-def (and technological progress in general), we certainly hope so.
posted Aug 20th 2008 2:28PM
This is totally screwed up!!! I understand that poverty is a major problem in South Africa, but this is just Beyond Wrong!!! I mean there have to be rich and middle class people in South Africa who are beyond ticked about this. Also I didn't read the Article, so if this is in The Article, put RTFA, but I have to ask this! Are there still going to be HDTVs in Pubic Places like there have been in Other countries that have hosted the World Cup before.
"Are there still going to be HDTVs in Pubic Places"
I don't think they make HDTVs small enough to fit in your pants yet. ;)
FACT: The world cup games will be broadcast on a different cable network called Supersport that's already broadcasting the Beijing olympics in HD here is South Africa. SABC is not the only broadcaster in South Africa.
Fistaz is correct, it'll be broadcast in HD on Supersport in South Africa.
http://www.dstv.com/main.aspx?ID=11107&s=11
this is not weird at all.
i am sure there are rich people there who own lcd and plasma tv sets, but the country is the one who doesnt support HDTV broadcasting.
I live in serbia, and i can tell you that it is the stupidest place to live if you like technology like HDTV. you can buy cheapest lcd televisons (sony, samsung, toshiba) here but you cant use them properly, because we dont even have digital broadcasting. very few people have XBOX 360 and playstation3 because for example XBOX 360 Arcade costs here around 700$, and PS3 is 800$ (40 GB). monthly sallary is 600$. not to mention Blu-Ray, thats like science fiction here.
most of the people still dream about PS2, i say dream because they cant even buy that.
i am even sure that south africa is going to get HDTV broadcasting before serbia.
we also had simmilar thing, this years eurovision song contest was in our capital city Belgrade, and it was broadcasted in HDTV via satelite. while all the people in europe watched it in HD with 5.1 sound, we were wathching in analog SD without even stereo.
but nobody complained because no one has ever heard here for HDTV, and they still dont make difference between lcd and plasma. people are so stupid here that they think like this:
why would i buy plasma(lcd) when all i will get is blurry picture that looks worse than on CRT tv set.