Tokai-SA
I currently have a nice 42" TV, looking to get another 65" to put alongside the 42" so I can watch more than one channel at once, whilst I'm noodling on a guitar & Kemper, sitting in front of my PC checking out various guitar forums, Youtube vids, Facebook, eBay, and e mails all at the same time...with everything connected to a pair of studio monitors.
I thought I was doing what everyone else was doing? ?
dee
We also have only a 32" display hooked to the XBOX. I'm also busy with my post grad studies so no time for DSTV as well. The only thing I really miss is the occasional sports game. The rest I can get on DVD.
IceCreamMan
Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Ray wrote
So, you guys who have the TV but no dish and not watching anything, do you need to pay the license?
If it's a TV (i.e. it has a tuner in it), you have to pay. Antenna or dish doesn't count, it's the capability of the set to receive signals. If it is a screen, with no tuner, then it is not a TV and no fees are payable.
As far as the license ghouls go (SABC hands over to some debt collector) - simply go to the police station and swear a statement that you threw out your TV a year or two ago after it broke and never replaced it (or replaced it with a DVD and screen). Send that to them and invite them to come round and check if they want.
One thing I will miss is a bit of sport.
Thankfully I've never had an interest. One of the reasons I've never bothered with DSTV is they seem to have an absurd number of sports and other "filler" channels whether you want them or not. The smaller packages rarely have more than one or two channels I'd ever want to watch.
haaaaa u make it sound so easy...reality is far different......... easier to get divorced in ZA than get off their licence database...... so much so I now pay 2 tv licences per year....ja its a long story and I don't even get a signal.....but this year is the year I stand my ground ?
Jayhell
We haven't had a TV for the last 12 years. We don't watch sport. Instead my wife downloads the programs she watches off the net and I really don't care. I hate the TV. It sucks the time from your life, advertisements get pushed on you, it's just annoying really. We have an I-pod dock on our living room 'TV' stand and I'd rather have the music I love blaring than a TV.
Keira-WitherKay
Afraid to admit i'm the movie/ tv addict .... And being an insomniac i record everything on pvr i want as i seldom watch shows at their times as i am either teaching or performing most evenings ....but i get home and happily watch a few hours ......
No sport except cricket and no soapies but movies /series and doccies i love
oddly enough i never watch music on tv .... Prefer youtube or cd's ... But thats mostly due to my eclectic tastes .....
And like many i multi task and can make dinner , play guitar and watch tv with my emails open ....and with dstv boxoffice i rent dvd's rather than a dvd store
that said , i gladly pay my lisence fee .... And get my moneys worth out of the dstv fee too
Kush
Wow, really interesting feedback form you guys. Going into day 3 now and so far so good. I have downgraded my DSTV account from the full bucket to one of the lessor ones. I discovered how you can only get Discovery if you get the full bucket (those sneaky bas...) With that discovery came the realisation that I would not find much to interest me on TV now even if I wanted to watch something. Oh and a background to the above, the wife and I decided a downgrade would be best as it gives us the local channels in a good quality and gives us the option to watch the news channels if we should want to. But I must admit, I woke up yesterday and thought " what have I done!" but the FOMO shall pass I guess. BTW (pronounced "Beee.Teee. Dubs" apparently) FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out, a recently discovered disease responsible for addictions to TV, facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter etc.
Ray
You know, over the last few days I have been telling the people here that we going to get rid of it. And from some there is a grudging support for the notion. And from others there's a sad understanding. Noone is saying "YES!! Let's do it!". So I feel like a bit scaly hey. And then my wife reckons look here, we just saw the royal baby and all. And I think but hey, we watched the news channels to see the same thing over and over waiting for the baby to be born. Then it was born and then we waited for the couple to come out with the baby for hours. And then they came out and waved and buggered off. And that has been going on over and over on the news channels. Well, I didnt watch it but every time I walk past a TV set I see something to do with that.
AlanRatcliffe
I don't try keep up on the news at all these days. No newspapers or news sites, no TV or radio news either. And you know what? The important stuff still filters through to me by one method or another (although it might take a day or two). I avoid all the bite-sized repetition that way and I still get to hear about royal babies and when Madiba is ill.
It's amazing how much of the global news I get by visiting Sickipedia once a week. The same for local news from Madam & Eve and Zapiro. ?
Attila
There is a White Dot Society, the name is derived from the old Barlow Vision type TV's cause when you turn them off the screen implodes to a single white dot in the middle of the screen which would be kept alive for some time by capacitors.
"Viva the White Dot Society
I read a little book called Get a Life by David Burke and Jean Lotus. They call themselves The White Dot Anti-Television Campaign. There are millions of wonderful things about the book and they really gave me the courage to get rid of the box. Here are some of their best snippets:
# If you live to be 80 years old and you watch the average amount of TV per day (3.5 hours) then you will spend 13.3 years of your life watching stuff you mostly can't remember
# 13.3 years staring at a piece of furniture
# Television is implicated in the increase of obesity in western society
# The focus on shock tactic news reports coupled with a high proportion of crime dramas can contribute to increasing levels of inappropriate (and disproportionate) paranoia about becoming a victim of crime"
Mixerboy
Kush wrote
Wow, really interesting feedback form you guys. Going into day 3 now and so far so good. I have downgraded my DSTV account from the full bucket to one of the lessor ones. I discovered how you can only get Discovery if you get the full bucket (those sneaky bas...) With that discovery came the realisation that I would not find much to interest me on TV now even if I wanted to watch something. Oh and a background to the above, the wife and I decided a downgrade would be best as it gives us the local channels in a good quality and gives us the option to watch the news channels if we should want to. But I must admit, I woke up yesterday and thought " what have I done!" but the FOMO shall pass I guess. BTW (pronounced "Beee.Teee. Dubs" apparently) FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out, a recently discovered disease responsible for addictions to TV, facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter etc.
So we've replaced "by the way" with an acronym, and have bastardized the acronym into three words with the same amount of syllables as the original, it's almost as bad as when someone finds something mildly amusing and they actually say the word "lol".
kayDUB
Yup, our decoder is busted and frankly I would like it to stay that way. It just feels like I have more time!
+1 to the occasional movie or music dvd though!
Mixerboy wrote
So we've replaced "by the way" with an acronym, and have bastardized the acronym into three words with the same amount of syllables as the original, it's almost as bad as when someone finds something mildly amusing and they actually say the word "lol".
lol
ZarK
When I caught myself watching informercials at 03:00 in the morning for the 3rd morning in a row, I knew I had a problem... This was about 5 years ago. I used to be addicted to the screen and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Since then I gave my 2 big screens away and went complete cold turkey. I've never looked back. I have way too many interests and hobbies that require a good deal of time and dedication to be as enjoyable as can be. TV can be a time/brain sucker if you're so inclined or not careful enough. I prefer spending my time on living instead of watching other people's lives unfold (be it real or fictitious.) These days I (rarely) watch series and movies on my laptop exclusively. That's it. For the rest I prefer to 'make my own movies' out there... I've even taken up flying this year. (Now that's a friggin large high def screen everytime I look out the cockpit! ? )
ActionArnie
kayDUB wrote
Yup, our decoder is busted and frankly I would like it to stay that way. It just feels like I have more time!
+1 to the occasional movie or music dvd though!
Mixerboy wrote
So we've replaced "by the way" with an acronym, and have bastardized the acronym into three words with the same amount of syllables as the original, it's almost as bad as when someone finds something mildly amusing and they actually say the word "lol".
lol
?
I still remember the confusion the first time I heard someone say 'rofl', i.e. rawful ... or past tense, I rawfulled.
Kush
ActionArnie wrote
kayDUB wrote
Yup, our decoder is busted and frankly I would like it to stay that way. It just feels like I have more time!
+1 to the occasional movie or music dvd though!
Mixerboy wrote
So we've replaced "by the way" with an acronym, and have bastardized the acronym into three words with the same amount of syllables as the original, it's almost as bad as when someone finds something mildly amusing and they actually say the word "lol".
lol
?
I still remember the confusion the first time I heard someone say 'rofl', i.e. rawful ... or past tense, I rawfulled.
They say that? Rawful? This is seriously getting out of hand. I have had to learn some of these things in order to communicate with the young ones around me. It took me being made to feel like an idiot when I asked my niece in person what "smh" meant as she was constantly typing that in our Skype chats. I had secretly wondered for so long and just had to ask as I could not, for the life of me, figure out what "smh" meant. And you can be sure I had better things to do than Google that and other stupid acronyms just so I can make sense of it all. But after the "omg"s and "you are so retarded"s I got, the Google idea might not have been so bad after all (online urban dictionary is very helpful, I later discovered.... yes there is now an urban dictionary which lists and defines all these words and non-words that are used by the young ones when speaking this new language similar to English). But I just thought "So, I am the retarded one for speaking complete sentences using complete words and typing complete words using correctly spelt, non-abbreviated words?" Maybe I am just getting old (I am only 31, how DO you over-40's cope?)
What IS this world coming to.... smh
[deleted]
Not fair! I googled it and got Sydney Morning Herald!
Kush
Viccy wrote
Not fair! I googled it and got Sydney Morning Herald!
:roflmao: try the urban dictionary
symbolofmylife
I stopped DSTV over 3 years ago. And to date no regrets what so ever. But what we do do it watch tv on occasion online...so we watch what we feel like when we feel like it.
Kush
I have just gotten through my first weekend without the DSTV. It was pretty good. I managed to get time to study and mess around on the guitar. I even found time to read the Sunday papers, I didn't realise how much I missed that simple act of sitting outside with a cup of Earl Grey tea and reading the papers. I spent time with the family too, on Sunday night we watched The Amazing Race Australia (a family favourite) and later my wife and I watched Call the Midwife (a favourite of ours along with Downton Abbey which is currently between seasons) all in all I think I watched no more than 3 and a half hours of TV the entire weekend, not bad at all! I really enjoyed my weekend.
RJN
I dont have DSTV. I just have "backed-up" movies and series, which i find can still be a time waster. TV's are evil , its Procrastination's poster child.
Mixerboy
