Nice receiver. Not many receivers can show DD/DTS metadata.

The History HD channel use the UK feed, at least for Cities Of The Underworld. In the SD version, the host that goes underground always narrates the VO (two different guy hosts). For the HD version, a woman with a British accent narrates the VO. It makes the series feel cheap and lack credibility, since the woman didn't go through the trouble of going underground.

Two things about HDTVs:
1) if your HDTV have a picture mode that can show the full 1080 pixel, use that. Or at least use it to compare how many pixels you are losing out.
2) Calibrate your HDTV to the best of your ability. None of the presets give you the best that your TV can do.


fuad

I don't think you can see the scan lines on all channels. None of the SD Learning channels have that. But then again, that's what I mostly watch.

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Added on January 30, 2010, 10:36 pm Not that I've seen. If you're in the market for a new receiver, get one with DTS HDMA and Dolby TrueHD. With those receiver (the cheapest is about RM1999), you can use HDMI to deliver DD audio to your receiver and make it act as a HDMI switcher as well.


No. The best you can do is to get a HTiB for the bedroom and split the coax digital into two and hope that the signal doesn't degrade.

Another option is to get a HDMI HTiB and a HDMI splitter.

Right now the HD channels are louder. It's the Astro setting.


fuad

This post has been edited by writesimply: Jan 30 2010, 10:36 PM

The HD broadcast rights haven't been finalized yet.

Too bad the Grammy's is not in HD. Astro should try to record HD feeds of certain musical events and air it on a channel that can highlight HD PQ and sound.


fuad

Are you sure it's not your TV or the decoder or your receiver?

Scan the ad and post the pic here. I'm using the cheap HDMI cable and it's fine.

Upgrade if you want but don't spend more than RM50 on a HDMI cable.


fuad

Anything after 12 hours, don't wait. Call.


fuad

As noted before, some HD channels will have 5.1 audio while others will be in 2.0 but BOTH will be in Dolby Digital.

I watched that too and I got the full 5.1 effect.


fuad

Only if it's DVI/HDMI port is HDCP compliant.


fuad

Actually, Astro Ceria is the highest rated kids channel in Malaysia. Meaning a lot of Malaysian kids actually watch it. So I don't think they'll cancel Ceria.

What Astro can do, with any one of its channel that is on down time a lot, say ESPN HD, is to run calibration programs so that people can properly calibrated their TVs.


fuad

Somebody else said it before. The equipment outlay is a one-time cost (sans maintenance and tape costs). The real cost of HD is in fixing the makeup, wardrobe and sets. That's because the production has to be of movie-set quality. You made me look at the HDW790. Yeah, it costs US$60,000.

But if you're a production house or starting one, I think investing in about 4-6 RED One cameras are better at US$18,000 per body. You do have to rent the lenses but at least your footage can be up to 4K and higher than 4K Digital Cinema standards; of course you can shoot in HD too with RED One. Lots of films were shot with RED One cameras, including The Informant, The Book Of Eli, Knowing and District 9. So practically, you're shooting your project at a very high quality. AND you could buy a mount that, combined with two RED Ones, will enable you to shoot in 3D.

Anybody who's thinking of buying a Betacam HD is thinking about quality issues. Handycams are great for non-professionals or when you want a HD footage but not having the insurance to put a BetaHD cam in the danger zone. There's a slew of settings you can play with on the more expensive cameras than you could with a consumer grade camera. You get what you pay for.

By the way, I heard that the Astro site visit was canceled because of lack of attendance. I would suggest that the organizers ask Astro for a rescheduling prior to the World Cup HD broadcast can be scheduled. That way people can see how they handle live and taped feeds.


fuad

Resolution-wise, it's the latter. 4:3 TV would be SD while 4:3 EDTV (Enhanced Definition TV available only in the US) wouldn't give you the full HD resolution. As far as aspect ratio is concerned, both are acceptable so long as the content is shown in its OAR.

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Added on March 24, 2010, 11:37 pm I don't follow True Blood but I saw a bit of it on HBO HD yesterday. Unfortunately, the master tape that HBO use is not in HD so True Blood on HBO HD is upscaled. There are several movies that are upscaled on HBO HD include Made of Honor.

Hopefully when they air The Pacific it would be in HD and they would minimize the censorship and have correct 5.1 audio. If not, it'd be a long wait until I get my hands on the BD box set later this year.

Good to hear about Discovery Channel. I do hope that we get the US feed like NGC. Really dislike History HD because of how the UK version destroys the feel of Cities Of The Underground. Too bad we'll miss out on the broadcast of Life, which is something like Planet Earth, Discovery's co-pro with BBC.


fuad

This post has been edited by writesimply: Mar 24 2010, 11:48 PM

No it isn't, lazy bones. Resolution wise, they should be exactly the same; a 1080p plasma would have the same resolution as a 1080p LCD. It is about how comfortable you are with the picture of LCD/plasma. Some older plasmas have pixel structure that is visible within 2 feet and some people don't like that; the solution to that is get the higher end plasmas. LED LCDs give comparable black levels to that of good plasmas but of course, that also affects the price.

Buy a TV that fits your budget, gives great quality picture (when all the enhancements are turned off), and has a design that you like.


fuad

I think Mythbusters start shooting in HD in Season 4. The earlier seasons were in SD so if you see those on Discovery HD, just know that they are upconverted. The same thing happened with Dirty Jobs. I also hope that the agreement means that Discovery Science HD would be part of the HD channels included.


fuad

I'm quite surprised when I saw that link. HBO Signature, Hits and Family are also available in HD but not on StarHub.

Great news on Discovery.


fuad

You may have set your Zoom setting to "Zoom" or "Zoom 2". Try turning it to "16:9". Of course, we assume you have B.yond.

By the way, let's keep HSBB talk in its proper thread. This is about b.yond.


fuad

This post has been edited by writesimply: Mar 28 2010, 10:45 AM

OFF TOPIC discussion...

I don't know about the other two but REDcode is not H.264. It's a form of wavelet codec though it is lossy.

Buying CineAltas for studio shoots is a rather waste of money but it's their money. If they are buying a bunch of them for feature shoots, then I understand. But then again, Japanese studios have been using HD cameras including HDCAMs, tweaked specifically by the OEM, to shoot their movies as a cheaper alternative than 35mm, for example the Death Note trilogy.


fuad