This week we bring you a special edition of TechCentral’s TalkCentral podcast focusing exclusively on digital terrestrial television. Dave Hagen, technical director for digital TV at M-Net and deputy chairman of the Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association, joins your hosts Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones for this extended edition of the show.

Hagen answers just about everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television. Why is it important that SA has adopted the second generation of the European standard for digital TV? When will the first decoders go on sale? Can you pick up the signals in the test transmission period? How much will the technology cost?

Hagen also spends time talking about the commercial pilot conducted in Soweto by M-Net and e.tv, the work that has to be done with the SA Bureau of Standards, the local decoder manufacturing industry, and much, much more.

In the audio version of the podcast, you should notice an improvement in the quality of the audio over previous shows. This is thanks to our new Yeti Blue USB microphone. A tip of the hat to Simon Dingle and our friends at our sister podcast, the ZA Tech Show, for the recommendation. Thanks, guys.

The new mic is very sensitive, so we apologise for the tapping and knocking you’ll hear in places. We’ll fix this in the next show.

Sorry, there’s no video this week.

[gplayer href=”https://techcentral.co.za/wp-content/audio/TalkCentral/tc23.mp3″ ] Stream this week’s show: [/gplayer]

Alternatively, download TalkCentral: Episode 23 to your computer.

The TalkCentral RSS feed is available via Feedburner. Use it to subscribe to the show in your favourite reader. — Staff reporter, TechCentral