29th Jan 2010 : Apply Astro B.yond through Astro website
30th Jan 2010 : Astro called to confirm my subscription
2nd Feb 2010 : Installer arrived, replaced the dish, replaced the old cable with new ones with proper wiring in 30 minutes. Asked us to wait for 1 hour for the proper account information to be updated at their HQ.

Gau Tim!

By that time, it was like 7:15 pm.....first channel to look at is HBO HD, showing the movie Twins. Not convinced at all as they are using SD contents to show it in HD channel , I even have to set the aspect ratio to 4:3 to have a proper viewing condition....Other than that, everything else is fine, Sports Channel looks brilliant.

Oh ya, I asked the installer, they said Astro will be converting all the channels to HD by end of the year...of cos, its not guaranteed..

Well, they said they are just installers, they don't know much, just knew that's what Astro's planning to do...


Yup, i would take option 2 as well.

I'm not optimistic as well....but if they are able to convert some of the hot channels like Wah Lai Toi(311), AXN(701), Astro AEC(301) by the end of the year, then I'm more than satisfied

Wait a minute...HBO HD was a channel that's showing movies rite? And all movies are suppose to be in 1:85 or 2.39:1 aspect ratios rite(i don't remember any original movies showing in 4:3 aspect ratio, even in cinema).

How come they are using those 4:3(which they crop it so that it fits into our 4:3 tvs in SD) version of the movie and play it back in the HD channel???

Felt like being cheated.

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Added on February 3, 2010, 1:06 amOk, for those people who are watching Astro SD and complaining about the lousy PQ going through the HDMI cable.

Go to your installation settings, and change your HD Settings to either 576i or 576p.

Sit back and enjoy the instant improvement in PQ for SD channels in Astro

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Added on February 3, 2010, 1:24 amOMG! I can't hide my excitement...I never thought Astro can looked so good in SD using plasma.

I can even turn of Noise Reduction and see the picture with excellent clarity!

Anyone of you tested it yet? Please give some comments after doing it.

This post has been edited by csng: Feb 3 2010, 01:24 AM

Honestly speaking, I don't see any difference using 576p to watch HD channels compared with 720p or 1080i.

Yesterday when i was watching WWE Raw, using 1080p, the PQ looks grainy, when i switch to 576p, the overall image feels sharper instantly.

Switch to some other channels like Wah Lai Toi and AEC, also looked better.

Guys, Do you know where to send email to Astro that u can suggest for improvement in current services provided?

Just found that B.yond comes with another version of Astro Stock Link(888). In terms of user friendliness and information displayed, it is not as good the the last version.

Here are some of the issues i found out :
1) Prefer the old version as the first page will show Index Summary, Total Gainers and Losers, Top 10 Volume, Total Transactions wherelse the new version needs to navigate to the respective screen to see it(for example, need to select Top 10 option in order to see the Top 10 volume)

2) Old version has got 4 rows for data per page instead of 3 rows of data per page for the new version. Old version has got all relevent data being displayed in each page, wherelse new version has irrelevant data displayed in each page.
For examle,
- old version has got, Buyer Volume, Buyer Price, Seller Price, Seller Volume in 1 page
- new version has got ---------Last, Volume, Buy Quantity---------(1 page) -------Buyer Price, Buyer Quantity, Seller Price------(another page)

3) Scrolling through pages of stocks is troublesome as the 'Page up' and 'Page Down' button is missing in the B.yond remote control.

Well, rain no signal is a technical limitation and that we can understand...but software appearance and functionality is something they can improve on...And in my case, its not as good as last time.

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Added on February 4, 2010, 5:07 pmHmm...found a nice place to feedback to Astro...facebook Astro fan

Seems like many stuffs that people wrote on the wall, they got reply on it as well(whether actions will be taken is another matter)

This post has been edited by csng: Feb 4 2010, 05:07 PM

How are we gonna do that? Start a new thread like 'Suggestions on improving Astro B.yond'?

Wonder how they came up with a conclusion to replace stretch with zoom....bet 100 out of 100 would oppose to it