Stand-alone sales of smartcards to watch AD Sports’ new pay-TV channels will have to wait until current decoders are upgraded.
The matter is of wide interest to sport fans as AD Sports will be showing English Premier League football matches starting this season.
The smartcards, available for a year-long subscription, presently come only as part of a package with the AD Sports Humax high-definition (HD) decoder, which sells at Dh999.
They will soon be compatible with the Humax decoder sold by Al Jazeera for this year’s World Cup.
Customers with an Al Jazeera Humax decoder had hoped they could buy an AD Sports smartcard to view the English matches. But that will be the case only after Humax provides a software upgrade to the Al Jazeera boxes. No time frame was provided for the upgrade.
“Smartcards will be available to buy separately in the future, but will only be compatible with the latest Humax HD decoders that are today being sold on the market,” said Karim Sarkis, the executive director of broadcasting at Abu Dhabi Media Company, which owns AD Sports and The National. “The reason is that we are using new technologies which will not work with older boxes.”
Stand-alone sales of smartcards to watch AD Sports’ new pay-TV channels will have to wait until current decoders are upgraded.
The matter is of wide interest to sport fans as AD Sports will be showing English Premier League football matches starting this season.
The smartcards, available for a year-long subscription, presently come only as part of a package with the AD Sports Humax high-definition (HD) decoder, which sells at Dh999.
They will soon be compatible with the Humax decoder sold by Al Jazeera for this year’s World Cup.
Customers with an Al Jazeera Humax decoder had hoped they could buy an AD Sports smartcard to view the English matches. But that will be the case only after Humax provides a software upgrade to the Al Jazeera boxes. No time frame was provided for the upgrade.
“Smartcards will be available to buy separately in the future, but will only be compatible with the latest Humax HD decoders that are today being sold on the market,” said Karim Sarkis, the executive director of broadcasting at Abu Dhabi Media Company, which owns AD Sports and The National. “The reason is that we are using new technologies which will not work with older boxes.”
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