On the 720p vs. 1080i topic, my take is this:

Watch in 720p if the programme material contains fast moving scenes, eg. sports coverage. You will get more vertical resolution for rapidly changing scenes with 720p.

Watch in 1080i if the programme material contains mostly stills or slowing moving scenes, eg. some documentaries. The final resolution of 1080i is full HD 1920x1080. And with the transmission at 1080i 50Hz, it means a frame rate of 25Hz, and most TVs can do a really good job of deinterlacing nowadays, no comb effect, and minimal blurring of images. Of course this is also helped by the motion compensation algorithm (known as 100Hz lah, 200Hz lah and whatever the manufacturers wanna call those).

For a quick test, just do this:

Press the Home button on the remote to bring out the menu. This will resize the video to a small screen near the top right corner. The video can be of any channel, SD or HD (can use SuperSports HD). Observe the video while in 1080i mode. Then do the same thing again but with 720p mode. In my case I found that even the small words on the video screen is still crisp and clear at 1080i, but not so sharp and slightly blured at 720p.

This post has been edited by LCP: Jan 1 2010, 01:59 AM

Many old movies are available on blurays these days as long as they were shot on real film (not video tapes). The resolution of films is always higher than full HD and thus the film can be converted to blurays and still able to show more details than on DVD previously, not to mention with better colour rendition too.

This post has been edited by LCP: Jan 1 2010, 01:58 AM

There are four codes for Pace satellite decoders on my Yamaha AV Receiver's remote, none of them worked, so I spent half an hour that day making my Yamaha remote learn the Astro Byond Pace DS-830NA remote code... it's like getting two rats to mate using infra red... phew...

This post has been edited by LCP: Jan 1 2010, 11:54 AM

Yep, same here, press once and many times the decoder will think that you have pressed twice... They need to improve on the "debouncing" circuitry on the decoder, I hope this can be software-programmed, else (most likely) if it's fixed by the hardware circuitry, we have to live with this design flaw...

It only works for the analogue audio RCA left and right outputs, that's if you are using that. But the volume control on the remote can be set to control the volume on your TV set. Read the instruction manual.

Actually the learning part is not that difficult, deciding which key on my Yamaha remote to assign so that it's ergonomic to use is the problem, have to think a bit...

I dont use fav, but I think can be easily done, someone explained back in the original thread, but it's best to read the manual.

Here, manually go in to set it here on the screenshot below, a lot of things are still not working, Astro promises to make them work starting from this month... extracted below items from V1 of the thread...

You can go change from pillar box to stretch on this screen, somewhere in the Installation Settings menu...



Personally, I prefer pillar box rather than seeing distorted human bodies...

Haha... yes indeed, the proper way to adjust volume must always be right at the end of the chain, the TV in this case. Previously, the SD set has analogue output, so if it's set soft and the TV volume is turned up all the way high, you may get hissing sound if you put your ear near the TV speaker, a sign of poor signal to noise ratio. The situation won't be so bad with digital but if the volume control is implemented for digital (currently not), and it is not done correctly, you may lose resolution instead (from 16-bit to much less), making the sound dull at low volume. So, bottomline is to adjust the volume at the audio amplifier (TV, AV Receiver, pre amp, etc...) to ensure sustained sound quality even at low volumes.

Set to Just Scan, or whatever Panasonic's equivalent words that carry the same meaning...

This mode will ensure a pixel-perfect mapping, so if it's 1080i, every pixel on the signal will map exactly to the same physical pixel on the screen, with no overscan, etc.

Overscanning is a relic from the days of CRT TV where the actual edges of the picture is off the screen so that the screen can be fully filled.

Samsung LCD TVs have non-overscan mode also (and for some years already), just need to use the aspect ratio button to set to Just Scan, and this mode will only work at 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolutions. I have a HTPC outputting 1080p via HDMI, can see exactly 1920x1080 on my Samsung TV without any cropping of the Windows desktop edges, pixel perfect mapping.

Btw, are there movies in 1.85 AR? I think not many, most movies are in 2.35:1 AR, that will always result in two huge black horizontal bars. Popular shows (and some made for TV movies) recorded off HDTV broadcasts are all 1.77 (16:9) AR. But I believe I could have seen movies with thin black bars on top and bottom of the screen, just can't remember which one.

On the 720p vs 1080i, in my case too, 1080i is definitely more detailed. I think this is because most TVs these days can do a good job of deinterlacing without losing resolution, also helped by whatever motion compensation feature that the TV has (100Hz, 200Hz, etc). The real test will be pictures with a lot of movements, like a football game where the ball is always moving around on the screen, if the ball is clearer with 720p, then only you might wanna consider switching down to 720p, else I'll say just set it to 1080i and enjoy!

I think the Pace DS-830 series decoder is marketed as a "single chip" satellite decoding solution, must be one of those system-on-a-chip IC that integrates as many things as possible. There will still be some peripheral chips, but until someone voids his/her warranty and opens up his/her Byond/Pace DS-830NA and posts pictures of the circuit board, then only we can be sure of the design.

Speaking of opening up the decoder, I noticed the screws are not the regular allen key screws, but some multi-angled "security" screws, I think it is still possible to get those 30-in-1 screw driver set that has this combination. Take a look at the close up photos of the rear and observe the type of screws used...





Edit: One more photo to show the screws at the side...



This post has been edited by LCP: Jan 2 2010, 02:28 AM

I guess the only way to record the raw digital stream is to hack, but knowing Astro, it will make this difficult...

From what I understand, Astro will enable the user recording feature soon, via the USB ports. Apparently the encrypted recording can only be played back on the decoder that it was recorded on. Astro will also list out the specification of the devices that can be used on the USB ports, eg. HDD specs, etc., when they launch the feature.

Currently, poking a USB flash drive into the front USB port of the decoder does nothing, the set didn't even attempt to read the USB device. Looks like they can also enable/disable the USB ports from their control centre, just like the HDMI port as someone found out...

Try asking fellow forumer prasys, looks like he's the expert on Linux boxes like this decoder...

On the 1080i60 pull up request, I don't think Astro will entertain that, especially if they somehow figured that the intention is to record off HDMI...

I believe that it is possible that up to 70% of the world population has PAL 50Hz transmission, so the 60Hz (59.94Hz to be exact) community is a minority but they like to think that they rule the world... Pulling up a 576i (50Hz) transmission to 1080i60 at the decoder is going to cause a noticeable blurriness effect every few frames, same with 1080i50 going to 1080i60.

When I was in the US for work years ago, I knew I was not impressed by British shows on cable there that has been converted from PAL 576i to NTSC 480i (fully SD back then). In fact, the picture looks much better the other way around: NTSC 480i shows converted to PAL 576i as being done by all our local TV stations, Astro included.

Anyway, so is it true that the 1080i50 broadcast is actually derived from 1080p25 feeds, if it is, it helped explain the lack of deinterlacing artifacts, and the resolution is a perfect full HD. This is the way to go...

Actually, compared to native 576i shows (studio news, local/HK/Singapore series, etc), those US shows converted from 480i still sucks big time, but there's not much we can do as an end user (except complaint of course). Yes, I have seen plenty of 480i music videos ripped in a 576i country, some have ghosting effect, others are just plain jerky, while the good ones must be the ones that have gone through the inverse telecine method. But, when converting from 23.97fps to 25fps, can they repeat a frame every 24th frame to avoid speeding up the video? There will be some jerkiness, but at least the audio note won't change. If I'm not wrong, speeding up the audio will entail reencoding/resampling the audio again as the sampling rate of 48kHz must be maintained, of course audio resampling is less processor intensive than video processing.

The closest I have for a 576i converted to 480i is a F1 race telecast that I missed and had to grab it from somewhere, my HTPC was set to 1080p60, but the movement is still not smooth either, very annoying, must be my HTPC. I should have tried setting the output to 1080p50 but I forgot.

Well, the world is never ever unified... but we're getting there, very slowly... the frame rates are still not the same and will remain that way for quite some time.

You will lose EPG. I think we are supposed to stick to #1. The signal doesn't matter as long as the quality is 100 (0 BER).

I tried each and every one of the transponders as entry point, #2 and #5 (both Measat 3) won't allow me (signal became unlocked), and #13-17 (Measat 3A) won't allow me either.

The rest allowed me to, #1 (default) and #3 gave me the lowest signal (198-209 depending on whether night or day), the rest gave me higher, from 214 till 244, varies for each entry point. #18 gave me 225-228.

Anyway, I think it doesn't matter so long as you can watch all the channels you subscribe to without any problems, the channels are all split over the many transponders.