How long must I wait before the B.yond smart card gets activated? It still says not activated after 4 hours. The installer says 1 hour, the helpline says 24 hours :S

Mine was activated mmediately after installation

just wanna ask if we upgrade to astro byond, the old decoder, dish & smart card still can use right
let's say install byond in house A, then take old decoder, dish & smart card to house B and install it, can we view
astro in house B?

The decoder is fully auto updating, channels can appear (and disappear) without having to put the decoder in standby. One of the features is that the decoder can even take updates as programs overrun, I assume this is for the external hard drive recorder when it (eventually) arrives.

This auto updating feature is fairly common now globally and most broadcasters with a recording decoder use it to ensure you record the whole football match even when it goes to extra time :-D

What!!! for those who are stay outside Klang Valley need to wait for 2 weeks more!!! It's means, astro was "lying" to me la.., said that installer will come within 10 working days... if like that, it is more than 10 working days!!!! they said, first come first serve... and I order this byond since the first day of their launch....

But if i'm not mistaken, they're one forumer here said that his/her house in kelantan already got byond?????

This post has been edited by AjkR06: Dec 20 2009, 10:56 PM

anyone know the price of hdmi extender over Cat5 ?

The existing dish can cope with what you term as "drifting". Drifting makes it sound like it is uncontrolled, which it most certainly is not! Any geostationary orbital position is about a 75x75 mile (the UK defined this) square in which the satellite can locate itself.

Prior to the launch of Measat 3a the older satellite Measat 3 had this whole space to itself and utilized it fully! A single satellite in any orbital position is allowed to freely "drift" in the 75x75 mile square only using its boosters to stay "in the zone". The single satellite drifting saves on booster fuel, which is very limited on any satellite.

Once a second satellite is deployed the 75x75 square tends to be subdivided and a satellite is maintained within these sub divisions. This is normal and what you correctly point out in your observations.

Astra SES (not Astro) in western europe operate up to 7 satellites in the same orbital position, for this they have to tightly control their position but do so with a normal sized dish.

The new dish and LNB, compared to the old one, is about 6db stronger on both satellites, with each satellite being allowed to "drift" in its own zone. The Measat 3 signal has not changed since Measat 3a was launched.

Dish and LNB designs are continually improving, when I started in this industry a 1db noise level was good, now the LNBs have a noise level of 0.1db, a ten fold improvement.

Astros new dish looks better designed for Malaysia being almost round and the improvements are simply better technology. This better technology will certainly give better rain fade resistance.

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Added on December 20, 2009, 10:59 pmAh! I also attempted to explain this in my previous post. http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=30688362

This post has been edited by AstInst: Dec 20 2009, 10:59 PM

House B?

Well, have you remember that they can deactivate your smart card?
Unless u having some "ahem" smart card, where we shouldn't discuss that here.

I started this (calling Astro for HD) with very low expectations and so far they have managed to not surprise me

In fact - they were supposed to call on the 15th, but only managed to on 18th. I am not holding my breath, or have any amount of optimism


One thing I don't get is why people say the disc cannot be shared between two decoders - one HD and one normal; doesn't the SD transmission come down the same dish and cable to the HD decoder?

This post has been edited by SiriuslyCold: Dec 20 2009, 11:11 PM

On the S-video question posed by someone, from the picture of the rear section of the decoder (on the facebook link posted by someone else earlier), only the following connections are available:

- Composite video (lowest analogue video quality, SD only)
- Component video (best analogue video quality, generally up to 1080i, but requires 3 RCA cables)
- Analogue audio (L & R RCAs)
- Digital audio (S/PDIF coax via RCA)
- HDMI port
- One USB port at the rear (another USB port in front) (which means it will use a USB HDD or USB Flash Drives for future recording capability)
- RJ45 network port
- F connector for signal from dish
- DC power supply connector

As S-Video connector is going the way of the dinosaur, the best bet is component video if HDMI is not convenient. Most TVs have component video inputs, and picture quality is better than S-Video. The major issue is component video needs 3 cables alone excluding audio.

My plan is to primarily use HDMI for Astro B.yond, connected to my Yamaha RX-V1900. But when watching regular SD channels and if the SD channels are not upscaled to my liking via the decoder HDMI, I will also leave a set of component video cables connected to the Yamaha as the RX-V1900 does a good job of upscaling/enhancing analogue SD videos (it will just pass through any HDMI video signal without further processing).

My current SD Astro set-up has the S-Video output connected to the Yamaha where the upscaling from 576i to 1080p is done, pretty satisfied with the result when compared to directly connecting the Astro S-Video to my TV. This Yamaha uses Anchor Bay Technology VRS video scaler chip, just the lower end chip but good enough.

they just installed b.yond at my house and all 4 hd channels available even thou i only subscribe the rm55 package (without movies and sports).. or.. is it for the promo period until april 2010 only?

anyway, there is a network port behind the box.. so i just plug it in from my router.. is there any use of it?

AstInst..

Last time ur say Measat broadcast unencrypt data using DVB-SI. What format data actually DVB broadcast? It is video format like MPEG or RAW data?

yes...now free until march 2010
RM20 start charged from april 2010
network port is for IPTV and VOD (video on demand)...but thats for the future
when HSBB is done

they are very smart to consider that, but how sure are they HSBB will be available everywhere? and how sure are they TMNUT will not throttle their connection to deliver such content to astro subscribers? TMNUT enjoys throttling whatever that is against their way lol

TM sure won't throttle becuz IPTV is local....not international
so it can go as fast as possible also no problem
how sure is they HSBB will be done in the next 24 month...this i really dn't know...FAQ says within 24 month
maybe it's KL part only...or they have discussed with TM and maxis and know it will be done
that's why u can see many TM ppl installing HSBB very fast...very less delay like screamyx

ek..ur installer didn't activate urs immediately?

mine was activated as soon as he put it in the slot.

i hope all the movie channel will get the HD treatment really soon...then i will subsribe the movie package..rite now i don't have em but the poison of HBOHD is really getting to me

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Added on December 21, 2009, 7:37 ambut one thing is for sure..once we've seen the HD channels..all the SD channels looks sucky

This post has been edited by PhoenixByte: Dec 21 2009, 07:37 AM

Can you use an unbranded 'ahem' normal old astro remote on the Byond decoder?

I don't like having the new remote to be in the hands of kids given how they love to throw stuff.

I think we cannot use "ahem" remote control with byond decoder...
since their remote still new one... no one have make 'ahem' version of it...
same like astro max remote, i didn't see any 'ahem' version of it in hypermarket or others store...
and when my max remote was broken, i need to buy ori version... it costs me RM50 and need to wait for 1 week for the stock arrive...

This post has been edited by AjkR06: Dec 21 2009, 07:56 AM

Now Astro channals are broadcasting on both verticle and horizontal polarization frequency. Basically some channels are on vertical frequency and some channels are on horizontal frequency. The decoder will send 13V to the LNB for verticle polarization, and 18V for horizontal polarization. Say decoder A is watching channel on verticle frequency, and decoder B is watching channel on horizontal frequency, both decoders will be sending different voltage to the LNB, hence LNB will failed to work. This will lead to blank screen on your tv as the LNB is not functioning.

Earlier thread also mentioned that you can still share a single dish with 2 decoders if you have a LNB with twin output, but the cost of the LNB is costing quite a fair bit.

Sorry me not good in putting words together in explaining things I hope this helps you to understand better

Whereas before this B.yond was introduced, all the channels are only broadcast on verticle polarization frequency, therefore you can share 2 decoders with a single dish.

This post has been edited by attap: Dec 21 2009, 09:13 AM

Anyone with Byond can comment on the reception during heavy rain? Got same issue with loss of signal or has the slightly larger dish improve it?