Orbit TV started because most streaming advice online is written from a desk in another country. Fibre lines here behave differently, load shedding reshuffles the evening, and a decoder bought second-hand rarely matches the manual. So we test in actual living rooms, on the connections households actually pay for, and we keep the notes even when a device turns out to be a poor buy.
Boxes, soundbars and decoders come out of our own budget or arrive as reader loans we return. Where a unit was supplied by a brand, the write-up says so on the first screen, not in a footnote.
A first-day impression tells you almost nothing about firmware updates, app store gaps or how a remote holds up after three months. Our test windows run for weeks, and we revisit a device when a major update lands.
Data use per hour, setup time, buffering counts on a named line speed. If we could not measure something properly, we say that too instead of guessing a figure that reads well.
The effect we want is simple: a household can read one piece and know whether a monthly plan, a smart TV box or a free-to-air rescan fits their setup before they spend anything. Cancelling should be as clear as signing up, and support responses belong in the review next to the picture quality.
Orbit TV started as a shared spreadsheet between three households trying to work out which decoder was worth keeping. That spreadsheet turned into a review desk. We still buy most of the gear ourselves, still argue about remote layouts, and still write down what broke after the last firmware push.
Lead reviewer, fibre and streaming
Runs the evening buffering logs on a 50 Mbps line in Johannesburg. Has tested more than forty set-top boxes, including three second-hand units bought from pawn shops. Keeps a notebook of every router setting that changed playback.
Audio and picture quality
Handles soundbar comparisons and subtitle accuracy checks. Spent two years installing home cinema setups in Durban, which is where the habit of measuring speaker placement with a tape measure comes from. Writes the spec tables you see on each review.
Load shedding and power testing
Documents what happens to decoders, ONTs and smart TV boxes when the power drops. Has run recovery tests through Stage 2 to Stage 6 outages from a flat in Bloemfontein. Also tracks which subscriptions keep counting data during a cut.
Parental controls and app store gaps
Tests parental control menus on every platform we review, including how quickly a PIN reset works and what happens when a child profile is deleted. Keeps a running list of apps that never made it to the local app store.
Free-to-air and antenna work
Rescans second-hand decoders and logs which free channels still broadcast after frequency updates. Has tested indoor and outdoor antennas in suburban and rural areas, and notes signal strength readings for each attempt.
Support and cancellation tracking
Handles the unglamorous part: calling support lines, timing how long a cancellation takes, and recording what we paid and where we bought it. Keeps a log of every response time and every promise that was not kept.