Erm, Discovery HD has been known to be false alarm, unless Astro wants to surprise us or something. But maybe it might show up later this year. Astro PR promised at least 10 channels by end of 2010, who knows.

Now we're two Discovery HD channels behind the world. Not one, two.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 29 2010, 01:10 PM

Known issue, volume canot be controlled when audio is output through HDMI. Use AVR volume control.

Iirc volume control only works for optical and RCA.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 29 2010, 01:12 PM

For what it's worth, Astro actually made the right choice to wait it out. In 2006, DVB-S2 was still in draft and HD was done using MPEG-2 over DVB-S which is bandwidth intensive. If Astro had went HD then, they'd have to upgrade again when DVB-S2 and H.264 went final last year. Plus, they also waited for MEASAT-3A to launch first instead of shoehorning the already crowded MEASAT-3. They won't be able to offer more than two HD channels if they use DVB-S and MPEG-2 over MEASAT-3.

Although I'm pretty confused on why Astro only use one satellite for SD and another for HD? Why not let both Measat 2 and 3 carry SD, and let 3A carry more SD channels as well as HD? That's what DishTV and DirecTV do in the US to be able to offer hundreds of channels. For example, use Measat 2 for AOD content, 3 for specific packages and 3A for HD and more specific packages? Then you'll have room for hundreds of channels.

Although, in the US, they have a pretty funny looking antenna called a "SuperDish" when they need to receive from 4 different satellites...

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 29 2010, 03:22 PM

We're so far already exactly that: M3 for SD and M3A for HD... why not stretch the game abit and use more than 2 for SD? We have 3 sats (4 if Measat hadn't sell/rent Measat-1 to Africa). So far only using 2.

Astro should move AOD back to Measat-2 so Measat-3 has more space. With the AOD channels freed up (that's 1-2 dozen channels), M3 can carry whole MTV, Star, HBO and Nat Geo ranges and still have wiggle room to spare.

Better yet, move AOD to IPTV. I notice that even latest SD decoder has Ethernet. Then have room for everything and you can claim that your AOD is true Video on Demand.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 29 2010, 06:10 PM

The agreement is to pay Astro $$$ for using Measat-3A to relay Discovery HD and Discovery World HD to rest of Asia. Whether Astro has to carry the channel was never mentioned. And that stinks. I hope that Astro getting to carry the channels is part of the deal tho. Astro has the entire Discovery SD range so far. It would be a shame if the same is not true for the Discovery HD range. And it's bad enough that Singapore already has Discovery HD before Malaysia.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 29 2010, 10:22 PM

Yet another TVB old shows channel.

Hey Justin, can you ask Astro to do us a favor? Ask them to stop being hypocrites?

You claim all BBC channels shows are old shows (which is a lie, the Dr. Who on BBCE is always the latest season, and Humf was only launched a few months ago and immediately picked up by CBeebies, making it bleeding edge) and that they're tired of it, and yet they bring in another old TVB shows channel. Despite the fact that you already have almost two dozen AOD/ABO channels that sometimes shows that, and a TVB channel that always shows that. And TV2, TV3, NTV7 and 8TV also shows old TVB shows as well. In other words, we have enough old TVB shows channels.

Agreed. Considering that MSI also pulled theirs early (RTFM chip...)

Either case, we're now two Discovery HD channels behind.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 30 2010, 10:07 AM

Alright, I'll back down.

I'm still not satisfied with the fact that it's an error and we're neither getting Discovery HD or Discovery World HD in April tho.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 30 2010, 10:57 AM

+10000

It's saying "This is what even the Indonesians can get, but you Malaysians can't"

Malaysia boleh, eh? Full range of channels pun tak boleh. How to boleh?

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 30 2010, 04:51 PM

Dun want to give us Discovery HD?

Dun expect money from my bill. Expect a termination call instead.

And if you insist on charging me RM300, You will need to talk to my lawyer.

What kind of &^%&%% deal do you need? Just take the &^%*^* offer and sign the a&^*(&) contract. We want the channel, we will pay. Even poor country like Indonesia has Discovery HD.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Mar 31 2010, 10:22 AM

Doesn't change the fact that Astro is monopolizing satellite TV in Malaysia.

Monopoly isn't too bad. It's when the monopolistic company decides to abuse it's status and subscribers that things get ugly.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 2 2010, 03:15 PM

Some shows make it to FTA over here, true. But local FTA has no respect for the content and only care about advertisements. I've seen shows that when they show commercial, they dun pause the show tape, so when come back from commercial or from solat, there's tons of missing scenes. And a particular channel has the worst case of trigger-happy censorship I've ever seen- since when are cartoon pigs not allowed to be shown on TV? In one nasty case, just a pig mask in a cartoon also cut. Yes, a toy that looks like a part of a pig in a cartoon! That also want to cut!

They didn't chicken out, they just failed due to their selfish reasons. Who will pay RM600 for a decoder and RM80 monthly for two only dozen channels at the time where Astro is practically giving the decoders away free?

And at that time Astro still semi-decent.

Right, web.

Nick UK videos: You cannot watch this video because you're outside the UK
iPlayer: You cannot watch this video because you're outside the UK
Nick US videos: You cannot watch this video because you're outside the US
Hulu: You cannot watch this video because you're outside the US
Disney: You cannot watch this video because you're outside the US
Youtube: You cannot watch this video because you're outside the US/UK

Using a VPN: I've never achieved a speed that videos will just play naturally when viewing content through VPN. Plus, Hulu and many other providers are wising up and blocking VPN now.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 2 2010, 04:06 PM

IPTV has nationwide takeoff, since it works out of the box with 1Mbps minimum. DETV actually delivers their decoder through courier, no installer comes to the house. Not sure about FineTV, but I assume the same applies. Only TM-IPTV is not nationwide because the CEO is extremely keras kepala and insist on only offering it to HSBB users.

It is agreed that FineTV makan orang, but DETV is quite reasonable (RM100 deposit for decoder refundable upon return of decoder, RM40 a month for one package or RM70 for both packages currently offered).

But yeah, capping is still a big issue with IPTV. The gomen has no ruling stating that IPTV packets cannot be capped. As a result I was warned by DETV to not use the decoder with P1, DiGi, Maxis BB, Celcom BB, etc.

As for DETV hiding, maybe they're preparing themselves...

Good suggestion. Except that you forget that the gomen will not grant rights to start satellite PayTV. Partly because of Astro monopoly and partly because they blindly believe that IPTV is the future (nevermind that most people in Malaysia still has crappy internet connection. Even DETV has problems over stimix during "internet prime time" (which is around 10:30pm-midnight, when internet is very busy).

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 2 2010, 06:53 PM

Agreed. Why can't Asstro carry full channel lineup? That's my biggest gripe right there.

There is nothing stopping one from recording Beyond Channels through composite/component, but video quality is downscaled to 576i.

If you have the cash and patience, can use HDFury with Hauppage HD-PVR, AverMedia HD-DVR or Blackmagic Intensity Pro/Decklink to capture in HD. Of course, be warned that HD recording requires good CPU/GPU and a lot of hard disk space on a extremely fast hard disk. Cash because the aforementioned devices aren't cheap, and patience because the setting up of the thing requires some Rube-Goldberg complicated style linkings.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 8 2010, 11:52 AM

Rather FatFat-Shortshort than screen burn in. Look up "LCD persistence". Different name, but same problem. If use Pillarbox too much soon screen will have faint bars because the black part will contrast with image part. Not everybody is so rich that they can afford to replace the TV everytime it burns in. As for zoom, tak nak. Cut off the head in many SD channels.

And how many SD channels broadcast letterboxed?

Also, I prefer LCD. Uses less power.

Repeated contents is not their problem, it's the content providers. The problem can be circumvented if Asstro adds more channels. Problem is, they're adding new channels too slowly, and when they do add a channel all it shows are the same exact repeats as other channels (latest case of point: TVB Classic Drama. If half of the stuff wasn't on Wah Loi Toi before, it was on Xing He or RTM...)

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 11 2010, 07:24 PM

*sigh* read the previous posts. Just because a channel is available on Measat-3A doesn't mean Asstro will carry it. Otherwise we'd already have Discovery HD and Boomerang.

Asstro is run by hypocrites that just don't care.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 12 2010, 03:11 PM

I would, except that now they want RM500 if I cancel, say I signed two year contract. My contract was for one year! Even the contract copy I have said 1 year!

Not only the salesperson tell lies to get you to sign, they do trickery to your contract as well and make you cannot cancel for longer than the contract says!

When I sign up for satellite, the last thing I want is local programming. I'm sure there are many who feels that way too, especially expats. It's sad to hear/see that Asstro is still in their little world of their own, and thanks to big daddy gomen's protection, don't have to care if people are angry or not.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 13 2010, 11:34 AM

I'm going to just bite the bullet. Nothing I can do.

I'm done melepaskan geram now.

Sorted out with another call to customer support. Previous cs rep who answered the call is clueless and called out the wrong thing, this other cs rep say I'm no longer under any obligation as my contract has expired and can terminate with no penalty.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 13 2010, 02:46 PM

You Singaporeans have it good. You guys have Discovery HD among many other things. We dun even have Discovery HD....

And oh, our HBO HD is one-hour-delayed for no good reasons (I do not consider censorship a good reason). At least you guys get HBO HD "live".



This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Apr 14 2010, 11:13 PM