Astro can't transmit in native 16:9 SD formats because the old decoders can't handle the signal.

The best they can do is shoot in 16:9 and then add the letterbox to make it 4:3

If you own a B.yond box you could then use the zoom feature to make it fit a 16:9 screen.

Oops.... I forgot, because people have such a desire to fill every inch of their tv screen no matter what, the zoom feature is no longer available!

Discovery world HD is launching in India on April 1st.

The commercial must have been from a regional broadcast.

I saw it before it got pulled.

It said Discovery World HD - April 1st

The Astro discovery regional feed censors must have been asleep at the switch.

Great... HSBB will only be available to what 1.2 million households by 2012?

Using the government's assumption that 50% penetration for Broadband in the country....

Broadband = Streamyx 512k Hahahaha up to HSBB

So if a miracle strikes maybe 50% of Broadband will be HSBB

So the math goes like this:

1,200 000 households possible x 50% penetration = 600,000 households

600,000 x 50% HSBB = 300,000

So by TM's best projections there will be about 300,000 subscribers to IPTV by 2012

Is it fair that TM uses our tax money to get exclusive TV deals for a tiny percentage of the population of Malaysia?

Just think what would have happened if TM actually succeeded in getting EPL.

Would have been riots!


Why doesn't astro like FOX?

Just how do residential neighbourhoods even have GDP?

Do residents of TTDI sell nasi lemak on the street corners?

Component / Composite outputs on the B.yond box are SD only

This post has been edited by Arlington: Mar 28 2010, 05:26 AM

Do you really think it's Astro fault? or Malaysia's overbearing censorship laws, and governmental paranoia, which are at fault?

International channels don't want their programmes censored and edited.

Makes me wonder if TM is censoring the BBC and DWTV feeds, or if the government has agreed to just look the other way?

I don't think Astro kicked BBCe out. I suspect BBCe let their contract expire with Astro on purpose so that they could sell their full package of channels to TM.

It really seemed like Astro was caught by surprise by BBCe, and they rushed a replacement channel in to try to cover the hole.

It would be in Astro's best interest to hold on to as many exclusive channels as it could, just to starve the competition.

We've seen this strategy before with MiTV and it worked out quite well for Astro.

Some local productions are already shooting in HD. But these are the ones from producers that actually care what their content looks like. Not your typical Malay dramas or telemovies.

Most of the dramas filmed for Citra are now at least shot in HD.

Sepuluh (Citra), Ghost 2 (8TV), Ampang Medical (ntv7) were all shot in HD using cameras like Sony EX3 or Panasonic P2.

But they're all edited in Apple Pro-Res codec (an intermediate codec - "not full HD") and then down converted to SD for final delivery.

No one edits in full HD because it's bloody massive. You need sustain read rates of about 200MB / sec. To get that you need full on expensive RAID systems.

Nothing made for television in Malaysia is mixed in 5.1 surround.

Nothing is delivered to any station in any HD format.

The delivery of HD content would have to be on HDCam tape and there are only a couple of HDCam recorders in Malaysia at the moment, and no one can currently encode surround audio into the necessary Dolby-E format to be placed on the HDCam tape. Only Singapore has Dolby E-encoders / decoders. I'm not even sure if Astro has the encoders / decoders yet.

When Astro says they need to buy HD cameras etc... they're not talking about buying the cheap H.264 codec cameras, like Ex3, P2 or RED, they're talking about buying broadcast level CineAlta HDCam cameras such as those used to film the new Star Wars.

It's older technology, but the codecs are truly lossless, and these cameras are easily US$100,000 and more, so it will take some time for Astro to shoot completely in HD and will be a huge investment to shoot something with multi-cameras like AF in HD. It will also have a huge budget impact on everything from make-up / set-design / audio / video recording / audio / video editing and post-production. Essentially it will make everything more expensive. If Astro / Television stations don't pay more for the shows (quite likely) the shows will end up in HD but they will look and sound worse than they do now.

I see a lot of people here asking for Chinese dramas in HD. Currently I don't want to see that stuff in HD because I can already see so many problems in SD resolution / Cheap sets / cheap lighting / bad audio recording. HD resolution will just take me out of the show completely and I won't be able to enjoy it all.

I think Astro B.yond should add more information to their program guide.

I would really like them to reveal more about the nature of the HD programming they show.

Something like:

Shot in HD : Edited in HD : Mastered in HD

Then at least consumers will know at what stage the transition is having problems



So local dramas that are shot in HD, Edited in HD but Mastered in SD would be:

H / H / S

Or upconverted F1 would be:

S / S / H


I wish there was some international standard for this like they had for when CDs first started coming out. Remember they use to say A / A / D or some other derivation.