Some one was telling me that next month, ASTRO will announce that they will going DIGITAL....
and by this year end.... we need to pay to upgrade our existing decoder ??

any idea , it is true ?

astro has been in digital since the launching la...all vid being compressed to MPEG2

but if u mean HD...datz another story la

are they going HD this year ??

(currently watching ASTRO on LCD )

Astro HD will be launching on 3 quarter of 2009.

Any source?

really? I thought they still on analog signal.

digital on broadcast..
but decoder they using now is analog

If ASTRO does indeed broadcast in HD, I'll say the money paid monthly should be worth it.

Reliable source? Rumours say it will be in 2012

The tauke in the shop where i bought my sharp aquos tv told me that in june 2009 launch LOL !

if true, i think astro might charge extra for HD service, maybe got 2 choices ie. Digital and Analog..

Heard tis mth soft launch and end of tis year full launch

In order for Astro to offer Digital HD channels, they need to change all the analogue decoder out there.

Astro already posting losses in their yearly accounts, due to bad investment decision in Indonesia.

Therefore, it is unlikely Astro will make the digital conversion move in the near future.

There's no harm to them whether they change to digital or not, they monopolise the market. No competition, means no innovation required.

i agree .. my guess is they gonna launch hd broadcast in 2088

no way! That fast? My sources told me that they will go HD in year 8888

good one!

No, they're not on MPEG-2, rather some propriatery compression codec that is more akin like MPEG 1.5.

VCD < ASTRO < DVD (MPEG-2)

Why? BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO CHEAPSKATE TO PAY FOR MPEG-2 ROYALTY FEES.

I don't think they can lauch HD anywhere in the near future, from what i heard last time they have bandwidth problem...if they set the quality to high, it'll suck up more bandwidth and when it comes to raining time, you'll all be watching the yellow dot on the black screen. Thus, they have to lower the quality more to compensate for cloudy weathers.

Don't know if they fix it now or not....but given the Stinginess of ASTRO...(who even charge you for that stupid useless guide book every month), i doubt it.

Someone posted that Astro is looking for tester for HD, right? So, it shouldn't be that far away. Hope so.

Astro monopoly on satellite broadcast means we consumers are at their mercy..they will charge a hand and a leg for HD quality.

We need to give Astro some competition to beef up their service.

Last time I remember, when Astro launched, they promise that all channels are commercial free. Now, it seems like Astro has more commercial than national channels.

No competition = no innovation = blood sucking from consumer

So, for those who expect Astro to go digital.....you can slowly wait until maybe your grand children's generation.

Whaddya expect...Malaysia BOLEH!!!

Telekom(Streamyx), TNB, and a gazillion other license monopolized by UMNO cronies.