Home Entertainment Samsung launching new video on demand service in South Africa in 2012

Samsung launching new video on demand service in South Africa in 2012

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If there’s one thing I’ve always been insanely jealous of when it comes to our American compatriots, (besides their vast quantities of bacon, of course) it’s their easy access to video on demand services like Netflix and Amazon VOD. Video streaming technology is extremely popular everywhere else in the world as well, whereas back home we currently only have Multichoice’s BoxOffice as an alternative.

But now Samsung is hoping to expand on those choices by introducing a new service called Video Hub.

According to MyBroadband, Video Hub will be launching with Samsung’s new 7-inch Galaxy Tab2 tablet some time in 2012. During the unveiling of the tablet, Paulo Ferreira (Samsung SA’s head of mobile product and software solutions) revealed that the service will offer users over 1,000 movies and series for purchase as well as rental. Content will be available in both standard and high definition and users will be able to begin viewing content while it is still being downloaded.

Now while 1,000 titles simply pales in comparison to Netflix’s claim of 75,000 titles, it is a start. With the cost of local cinema prices constantly increasing and decent uncapped internet offerings becoming more easily attainable, a video on demand service will soon become far more enticing to many. Just looking at the massive popularity of VOD services overseas (it’s reported that Netflix alone accounts for approximately 24% of all internet traffic in North America) it’s quite clear that people want this option, so it’s about time we South Africans get it as well.

Last Updated: March 29, 2012

5 Comments

  1. What kind of network speed would you need?

    With our poor ADSL coverage (esp for more than 1mb areas) this news is not nice 🙁

    Reply

    • uberutang

      March 29, 2012 at 16:10

      LOL never mind, I thought this was for their smart tvs, not the tablets.

      Reply

  2. Justin Hess

    March 29, 2012 at 17:53

    Wow, they mst have a lot of confidence in their product and the market to do that. What with piracy 
    being pretty prevalent (near as I can tell) I wonder what makes them think customers will take their 
    product over the cheaper, more illegal route

    Reply

  3. Theunis Jansen Van Rensburg

    March 30, 2012 at 10:14

    This is good news, we need to start somewhere. Hopefully this service takes off, so that it can be expanded very quickly, and customers can get easier access to it.

    Reply

  4. James Francis

    March 30, 2012 at 13:39

    They have brokered a deal with Telkom for special bandwidth packages. Strangely it does not seem any cheaper from investing in a 50gb account with Afrihost, which is what I do. 

    Reply

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