Having used Sky, DirectTV, FoxTel and many other decoders, NONE of them switch the output to the TV. In ALL cases the decoder is set to one resolution and the chips in the box do the conversion.

One of the biggest criticisms of Digital TV in the early days was channel surf times, the delay between switching channels. If the TV switched modes then this would be worse! Hence the fixed mode output.


Typically, channel surf times become less of an issue as people start using the EPG to find programs, rather than channel surf. Now that Astro B.yond has a decent EPG we should stop being a nation of surfers and become searchers!

The whole point of HDMI (1.1) is that it has HDCP (copy protection), hence the component output is SD only. If Astro were to "allow" copying via HDMI then most HD channels would have to be taken down as the content owners insist that HDCP is present.

Most movie channels also insist that Macrovision is used, even though we know it is useless. Should HDMI with HDCP become compromised the content owners will still insist it is there just to make it either difficult or expensive to copy their valuable HD content.

Sorry to disappoint you but the increase in signal is not a true increase, all that has happened is that the amplitude of the signal has increased.

For satellite signals the most important measurement is "Carrier to Noise Ratio", this is the magnitude of difference between the actual signal and the noise (interference). For example, if you have a signal of 200 with a "noise" level of 20 and adding an amplifier increases the signal to 250 then the underlying noise will have gone up to 25.

What this means is that the signal will appear stronger but as soon as it rains the signal will disappear just the same as with no amplifier installed.

To reduce rain drop out there are four ways to improve the "Carrier to Noise Ratio".

1. Align the dish properly
2. Use a bigger dish
3. Use a LNB with a better "Carrier to Noise Ratio"
4. Run the cable direct to the decoder, no breaks, no splitters and no concealed wiring.

From the forums, it looks like Astro are trying to improve rain drop out by improving all 4!

If anyone has not allowed direct cable to decoder connection or even worse, kept their old dish / LNB then you have really lost out!

Most ppl here seem to get a major improvement in signal strength without an amplifier, whatever your installer says don't let him sell you an amplifier, it amplifies the signal and the noise giving no real improvement other than better numbers on the screen.

The best thing to do is to get the install done correctly and not to let the installer do a poor installation!

Think about it, the installer does a bad install with a poor signal, then he sells you an amplifier!

Remember, if at a later date you decide to add the USB PVR option you will get failed recordings. Also, if Astro ever uses the Horizontal polarization you will get even more problems and potentially blow up the decoder! It would be like connecting the two positive and negative connections together on a 13v and 18v battery! BANG!!!!!

Having a single shared feed to two DiSEqC boxes is a real no no!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiSEqC

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Added on January 6, 2010, 9:39 pmThe installer is telling the truth (and not trying to sell you a dodgy amplifier!).

Concealed wiring is always dubious! You never know the quality of the cable, you never know if there are any dodgy joins and it most probably has a split in there somewhere.

I once worked on a recabling job and found a satellite cable that was joined by twisting the wires together!

Astro seems to be really addressing the rain drop out issue with this new b.yond installation not to mention increasing the number of satellites they can use. Finally Malaysia is getting a dish installation the same as the rest of the world!

The new installation is totally inline with international standards, single feeds direct to the box, no splitter and no "3rd party" cable.

If you have made the installer use your old and very long concealed cable (with the worst signal strength I have seen on this forum) then you can only blame yourself next time it rains!

Sorry for the bad news!

---

Added on January 6, 2010, 9:41 pmThis looks like your dish is not aligned properly. If the new cable is only 10m and direct from dish to the back of the box then you should be getting 250!

This post has been edited by AstInst: Jan 6 2010, 09:41 PM

You need to report the installer to Astro, he is not doing his job right.

With the slightest rain you will loose signal.

45 is terrilble you should get 200+

Some of the less honest installers do a bad install then charge you to come out to fix it! For them it is a nice little business!

Report as soon as you can!

(I am assuming that you did not force him to use concealed cable, if you did then you cannot complain to Astro as the wire is your responsibility)

What you have to remember for any satellite broadcaster like Astro the cost of the decoder is one of their biggest expenses, adding even the most simple connector can cost them millions of bucks!

Typically, the RF and analogue circuitry in any decoder is as cheap as the broadcaster can get away with. I have my decoder connected to an old component convertor, it has S-Video and RF output. Because I was willing to spend a bit more on my convertor it is far better than anything that they would have put in the decoder itself.

One of the reasons broadcasters like Astro like HDMI and digital audio is the circuity costs them nothing and it is digital quality with the least cost!

When I was working overseas I always used my convertor not the built in one as it always gave a better picture.

(I needed S-Video as my AV Amp has a built in S-Video switch)

If you are attempting to put the composite output through an RF modulator then you will get a bad picture. Composite is the worst quality, Sh*t in means Sh*t out as far as your RF convertor is concerned!

I have pointed my PC based analyser at Astros HD broadcast they are on an entirely different satellite to the SD. All the SD broadcasts are on Measat 3 and the HD broadcasts are on Measat 3a.

If Astro were indeed broadcasting HD on the same transponder as SD then they would not have any problem with shared feed systems, this would be the easy option for them, but they have not taken it (surprisingly).

Astros HD picture quality is far better than many HD broadcasts I have seen around the world (especially the USA), it looks like they are using new HD encoders and not just cheap upgrades of their existing system.

The BBC in the UK are broadcasting their HD at the same bitrate as Astro having recently moved to new HD encoders. For results of their independent tests see http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/news...re-quality.html.

Do you really think that Astro is low quality HD, have you actually seen it? Your statement would make it seem as if you have not!

You have many choices, the more expensive the better the quality.

If you have several HD Ready TV's then the best solution is to simply get a second box, but this involves an ongoing subscription.

To feed a second HD Ready TV from the same decoder a HDMI splitter is your best choice, costs about 350RM (5 months subs)
http://www.kvmstuff.com/video-routing/vide...o-splitter.html. You will then need to buy the cable which can be expensive.

If the second HD Ready TV is a distance away most professional installers use a HDMI to CAT5 convertor (this is not IP based, it just uses computer network cable) http://www.svideo.com/ext-hdtv-cat5.html. These are v. expensive and mostly used at large public venues when it is important to have the same picture synchronized on all TV's (multiple boxes would have timing issues creating an echo sound effect)


If the second TV is a large screen SD/Analogue TV then component is the best, once again for longer distances you may need to put a Component to CAT5 convertor. ( http://www.svideo.com/componetcat5.html )

However, the Astro b.yond decoder can only decode one audio stream this means that if you have a 5.1 home cinema system connected to your B.yond decoder then the stereo connectors may be silent only have a signal on them when the transmission is stereo only. If you are using 5.1 sound then you will not be able to run audio to the second TV. If you are using only stereo output on your main TV (even if it is HD) then this is not a problem (there is a message on the audio setup screen explaining this).

The worst way to connect a second SD/Analogue TV is by a RF modulator, but for longer runs over old coaxial cable then this may be your only choice. For smaller screen TV's the difference will be less noticeable.

The other alternative is to use an IP based digitising box and an IP decoder, see http://www.slingmedia.com. If you have a good IP (computer) network then this can work really well but unfortunately they do not distribute their product here in Malaysia.

This post has been edited by AstInst: Jan 6 2010, 10:52 PM

The Lynsat.com site is wrong, I think that they may have picked up some stray DVB descriptors for the HD channels, but there is certainly no video there, if there was it would be of such low quality VCD would be better!

The Measat 3a HD transmissions are as follows:-

Encoding: MPEG4 1080i
Modulation: DVB-S2
Video Bitrate: 8Mbits/s (fixed)
5.1 Audio Bitrate: 0.5Mbits/s
Stereo Audio Bitrate: 0.2Mbits/s

Yes, the old dish will work as it is capable of responding to the 22khz tone insertion to switch the LNB to the high frequency range, at the moment there is no polarity switching as both Measat 3 (SD) and Measat 3a (HD) are vertical only.

The reason for the dish upgrade is for three reasons

1. To ensure the best install with no shared feed (splitters), any second decoder will get signal loss when the B.yond decoder tunes to Measat 3a.
2. To put a better dish/LNB combination as DVB-S2 requires a better signal due to the number of "quadrants" used in the DVB-S2 modulation.
3. Tighter alignment is required to exactly the right orbital position to guarantee seeing both satellites.

So yes the old dish will work but any second boxes will intermittently fail, you may get more rain drop out and some channels may be weaker.

From the measurements I have taken on my old dish and new dish the c/n level improved from 15db to almost 19db, this would indicate that the new dish and installation is giving over double the signal strength. A friend of mine had an old dish feeding 3 decoders using splitters which gave him a c/n ratio of 11db!

If you want to insist that you keep the old dish then the installer is laughing as he gets to keep the better one to sell to someone else!

In the USA Direct TV due to its early step in to HD is using MPEG 2 HD, this means 2 channels per transponder to keep the quality up at about the same as Astro B.yond. Unfortunately not all channels can justify half a transponder per channel so the Americans invented "HD Lite" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Lite ).

Both Astro and the BBC in the UK use MPEG 4 (H264) at about 8Mbits/s fixed bandwidth.

Under DVB-S Modulation a Ku band transponder can carry about 34Mbits/s whilst in DVB-S2 Modulation this increases to about 50Mbits/s. Astro has 5 channels per transponder in DVB-S2.

Astro has really timed it right as DVB-S2 is relatively new as are HD encoders that can do "better than USA" HD at 8Mbits/s. If Astro had done HD a year ago they could only do 2 channels per transponder which I think they would charge us more than 20RM per month! (Sky in the UK have had HD for 4 years, have 30 channels but charge almost 60RM per month and the decoder cost over 1000RM which you had to buy!)

Dolby 5.1 down mixing is very complicated and licensed from Dolby itself on a per decoder basis, given that the stereo audio is only 0.2Mbits/s perhaps Astro has chosen to retransmit rather than license the dolby downmix. This is fairly normal practice as most PayTV operators try to keep the cost per box licensing down whilst the satellite capacity is a fixed cost. (but perhaps I am wrong on this one? )

The diagram you have posted is for Measats "contribution" feed across the region, not Astros PayTV feed to Malaysia.

Measat has many customers, one being Astro. For example, when I was working in Hong Kong we took BBCE as a contribution feed from Measat 3. The contribution feed is C Band, not Ku Band like Astro. The sole purpose of a contribution feed is to distribute TV channels to other broadcasters.

The diagram is basically Measats marketing message to channel operators to get their distribution business.

All,

From my measurements as you change your entry points from #1 to #18 all you are doing is changing the transponder on which the signal strength measurement is taken. Entry point 1 being a Measat 3 transponder and entry point 18 being a Measat 3a transponder.

Every transponder has a different profile and strength, if you measure the transponder of entry point #18 this does not make your signal strength better as the transponder for entry point #1 will always be the same as when you measured it.

I suggest that everyone on this forum should standardize on the two measurements and when we quote a signal strength we should all state the entry point used.

My suggestion is that where possible all of us should quote both entry point #1 and entry point #18 as a minimum this then covers both satellites and both frequency ranges of the LNB. Do we agree?

So for the above readings we have 195@#1 and 217@#18.

If we simply quote signal strength numbers without the entry point then they are meaningless.

That is exactly what I am saying. If Astro do not do a down mix then there is no license needed as the decoder simply passes through the 5.1 bitstream to your home cinema system. It is actually the home cinema system that has the dolby license.

From my understanding, if Astro downmixed on the decoder from 5.1 to stereo then they would need to license the 5.1 Dolby decoder. For Astro it would then be simple maths, pay Dolby per box for dowmix or pay for the capacity on the satellite to broadcast stereo. One will be cheaper, I think Astro have done their maths and gone for the cheaper option which is the same as most other satellite operators, broadcast both!

(but I may be way off on this one, but it seems to add up!)

Update: If you look at the AVS forums ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1146219 ) you will see that the Western Digital WDTV product is the same and the forum concluded the same as we did!

This post has been edited by AstInst: Jan 7 2010, 01:03 AM

I have looked in to this and the Lyngsat site is showing the C-Band contribution feeds, not the Ku-Band Astro feeds.

The C-Band feeds are used to supply content to other broadcasters in Asia. It looks like Measat's C-Band transponders are a mix of HD and SD.

Astros Ku-Band transmissions are listed only partially as "Astro".

This is what is confusing us!

Having seen this elsewhere in the world the cost of upgrading the cameras and the production facility is actually the cheapest part. The cost of HD production per hour is nearly 3 times that of SD due to the extra visible detail. Any broadcaster moving to HD has to retrain all their staff and production standards have to increase to that of a hollywood movie and thats not cheap.

Sets have to be rebuilt, makeup artists retrained, camera men retrained, audio engineers retrained, I could go on and on.

Once the production has been made the editing of the HD and the 5.1 takes about 3 times longer, not due to file sizes or anything like that (HD equipment is as fast a SD these days), but due to the level of detail and getting it right for us to watch. The guys at RTM most probably are still working in mono!!!!

Astro promised some local production this year, it will be interesting to compare the production quality in HD compared to other channels.

All,

I did a post on this some time ago, my post is below:-

---- Post ----
Sorry to disappoint you but the increase in signal (due to an inline amplifier) is not a true increase, all that has happened is that the amplitude of the signal has increased.

For satellite signals the most important measurement is "Carrier to Noise Ratio", this is the magnitude of difference between the actual signal and the noise (interference). For example, if you have a signal of 200 with a "noise" level of 20 and adding an amplifier increases the signal to 250 then the underlying noise will have gone up to 25.

What this means is that the signal will appear stronger but as soon as it rains the signal will disappear just the same as with no amplifier installed.

To reduce rain drop out there are four ways to improve the "Carrier to Noise Ratio".

1. Align the dish properly
2. Use a bigger dish
3. Use a LNB with a better "Carrier to Noise Ratio"
4. Run the cable direct to the decoder, no breaks, no splitters and no concealed wiring.

From the forums, it looks like Astro are trying to improve rain drop out by improving all 4!

If anyone has not allowed direct cable to decoder connection or even worse, kept their old dish / LNB then you have really lost out!

Most ppl here seem to get a major improvement in signal strength without an amplifier, whatever your installer says don't let him sell you an amplifier, it amplifies the signal and the noise giving no real improvement other than better numbers on the screen.

The best thing to do is to get the install done correctly and not to let the installer do a poor installation!

--- Post End ---

Think about it, the installer does a bad install with a poor signal, then he sells you an amplifier!

Doing this serves no purpose all you are doing is pointing the box at a different default transponder, this means the signal strength indication is simply measuring a stronger transponder. The signal strength for entry point 1 will always be the same, even if you measure entry point 18.

It's like saying if you switch the light on in the kitchen the light in the fridge will stay on when you close the door! The two are unrelated!

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Added on January 15, 2010, 11:13 pmThe digital audio connection is for 5.1 and the HDMI is stereo to the TV. No decoder has two HDMI's.

This post has been edited by AstInst: Jan 15 2010, 11:13 PM

I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p there are no 1080p broadcast standards in the world! Are you suggesting that Astro should have adopted a non-standard (therefore expensive) solution that no one in the world has?