DStv hosted an event in Sandton last night (29 August) to unveil the satcasters plans for the immediate future: more HD, more movies and more Africa Magic.
As spilt on TVSA last week, two of the channels that will be going HD are Universal and Studio Universal. As we mentioned, Multichoice recently launched the Intelsat–20 - a new satellite that provides the bandwidth capacity to add extra services.
The new developments will launch on Monday, 1 October and will see the introduction of seven new HD channels in total with a movie revolution.
M-Net Movies 1 and 2 will be replaced by six movie channels: one premium channel with five themed channels.
Each is named accordingly: M-Net Movies Premiere, M-Net Movies Action Plus, M-Net Movies Family, M-Net Movies Comedy, M-Net Movies Drama & Romance; and M-Net Movies Showcase - all of them will be in HD and will only be available to Premium subscribers.
M-Net Movies Premiere replaces M-Net Movies 1 HD and will feature all of the most recently released movies, blockbusters etc. The first time movies air on DStv they'll air on this channel first and then move to the appropriate genre channel.
The genre channels will only air movies specific to each genre with a premiere movie each night during prime time. Every evening each channel will debut a new movie to the channel which will then be repeated at various times subsequently.
M-Net Movies Showcase replaces M-Net Movies 2 and will feature themed compilations and festivals. For instance showcases in October include a Steve Caroll festival, a Halloween festival and a matrix of the Matrix - all three movies in a night.
On the SD movie front: M-Net Stars and M-Net Action remain as they are and continue to be available on the Compact bouquet.
Also, Africa Magic Movies 1 arrives on the South African scene with movies from across Africa. The channel's been available across Africa but never in South Africa and arrives with Africa Magic Entertainment which features entertainment shows from across the continent. They join Africa Magic which remains as it is.
That's all the good news.
The bad news: there's a price to pay when it comes to the remote control.
The developments come with another channel reshuffle to make room for the new channels and for future.
The shuffle also eliminates double channels in the case of current HD channels e.g. M-Net and M-Net HD will both be on channel 101. If you have an HD PVR you'll get M-Net HD on 101 and if you have an SD decoder you'll get M-Net.
The only exceptions to this are Discovery Showcase HD and SuperSportHD because they only exist as HD channels.
The new channel numbering will be according to areas of interest and genre. This is an overview of the layout:
Channel 101 to 143: General Entertainment: international content
Channel 144 to 169: General Entertainment: local content
Channel 170 to 190: Documentaries and Lifestyle
Channel 191 to 195: Free-to-air channels e.g. SABC and eTV
Channel 198 to 199: Events Channels
Channel 200 to 221: SuperSport channels including SuperSport HD
Keep a lookout on TVSA for a print-out-and-keep of the new channel numbers - coming up soon. Also, lookout for highlights and news surrounding the new channels.
All of the changes take place on the same day: the channel shuffle and the addition of the Africa Magic channels go live early on the morning of Monday, 1 October and all of the movie channels launch at 10h30.