One word to add to the 1080i vs 720p debate.

If u have a good deinterlacer 1080i can produce a stunning picture as well. Deinterlacing 1080i is not as easy as it seems. Given a good deinterlacing chip (ie, ABT2010, HQV Reon) you would be hard pressed to tell which is better. Where it is normally seen as better for 720p broadcasts would be for fast moving sports. For movies, if your display has a good deinterlacing chip, u shd be good to go. Or of course if u have a AVR or external scaler/deinterlacer (Lumagen, Crystalio, DVDO) it would yield very good results.

The main problem with all HD broadcasts are bit rate compression. That is what you guys/gal shd worry abt. Astro is notorious for that....

Very true. However, not all have good deinterlacers.

One good example would be the Panny X and S series. They do not handle interlaced signals well....And most people in Malaysia have these sets and will complain when they get the Astro HD saying that the image is not as sharp as the expected....

ar188,

Most is correct. However, some entry level displays do not have decent deinterlacers....eg the Panny that I mentioned...

I think the pv80 was better at deintelacing.

Also, I don't think people shd skip it. It is still a big step up from the less than 576i that we get from Astro now.

What I was trying to get across was that the difference between 720p and 1080i has more to it than the i and p and the 720 and 1080. It depends on your setup and more importantly how Astro is going to compress the bitrates. That will be more important that the i,p, 720 and 1080 debate....

I thougt the PV80 shd have a "Just" mode that does the stretching quite well to fit the screen. As long as you do not select the Full Mode u shd be fine.

Initial Impression

Got b.yond hooked up at 11pm last night. Yup, installer working very late as there are too many installations in Penang.

The STB outputs in 4:4:4 Colour Space, 8bit. Looks correct to my eyes on the HD channels. However, the I am unsure if the SD PAL colour space is converted correctly as yet. At 1st look, there might be some errors but I need test patterns to confirm. Will have to make a request to Astro to see if they will be broadcasting test patterns for calibration as is norm for all HD broadcasters. If they do I will confirm if the colour space conversion is done correctly.

HD sports channels would require you to get your display to output in 100Hz to reduce judder and artifacting. 50Hz refresh causes some judder and I see some artifacting (u shd be ok for displays below 50in).

Now for some not so good stuff. The STB only outputs in 1 resolution (ur choices are 576i, 576p, 720p and 1080i). This is a problem. the scaling done by the STB on the SD stuff is not that great. My display does the scaling of 4:3 to 16:9 better, however, there is no native resolution option. So you either get the SD automatically upscaled or the HD downscaled if you wanna use the scalar on your display. I hope they fix this in a firmware later. The positive part of this is that there will be no additional HDMI handshaking if u change the channels from HD to SD. The bad part is the scalar chip is not that great.

Now, the quality of the 4 channels are pretty good. If I were to estimate the bit rates I would say in the mid to low teens. I would need to find a way to check this later.

NG HD seems to be pretty good. SuperSports HD as well (though I would advise u to refresh at 100Hz if ur display lets u for smoother motion). History good. HBO HD, I need to spend more time with to comment. Last night Batman was on. It was good, but as we know the transfer of Batman to HD was not that great anyway, so I will check on some newer content.

All in all, I think this is a step in the right direction for Astro. Hope they don't start compressing the bit rates too much when they add channels (BBC has done this...so I hope Astro do not follow).

BTW, I was told that Astro does give priority to the installers to arrange the installs and he was unsure of how the selection was made. He suspects that it matters how long u have been subscribing as well.

I will post more as I spend more time with the broadcasts.

I believe if u use digital out only, there is no audio thru HDMI.

DD5.1 working but not well, there is some downmix of the centre channel into the L/R channel which I believe they are looking into.

Also the issue of the not scaling 4:3 material that I had seemed to have been resolved after I reboot the STB.

So now 4:3 is pillar boxed and 16:9 is presented correctly.

Thus I can apply the scaling by my display shd I need it.

Based on my observations, HBO HD does not seem upscaled. Remember that these are shot on film and not HD cameras. Hence the 'softer' look. NatGeo and History HD are specifically shot on HD cameras and are meant for broadcast, thus they will seem sharper to the eyes. Sports are also shot on HD cams....

Question: I searched the thread but could not get a definitive answer.

How do you get the satellite signal page on the decoder?

Also what is the typical signal strength?

Thanks.

I remember going there and not seeing this page. Will check again tonight.

I am using the dark grey dish, signal strength is ~80, and the other bar on the right is at 100. The signal below indicates 215-218.

HD broadcasts are definately not the same as HD from BD sources, or downscaled 720p from the HD masters. To be fair, at the moment, I don't believe there is too much bit rate compression applied. When there are more channels, there is bound to be. Same here, same overseas (BBCHD is one fine example).