For existing Byond users looking for PVR options:-
- Buy a 320GB Hdisk (for RM 300) and pay RM 5 monthly. In the event Hdisk fails, self replace. Since the box is always on, I presume hdisk is always on as well.
- Swap to PVR box for Rm300 (500GB usable) and pay RM 10 monthly. Lifetime warranty including hdisk.

If hdisk does not fail, option 1 will be a better one, however it will be worthwhile if h/disk life is 5 years.

Opinion anyone?

Just got confirmation called from Astro CSR.
He confirmed back my smart card number, IC number, decoder serial number, address and so on...
Installation will be done within 10 working days and before 21 June 2010....
Hopefully....

This post has been edited by AjkR06: Jun 6 2010, 10:50 PM

Do you believe me if I tell you few years back..............when I was watching a movie on TV2 through Astro, suddenly in just 1 or 2 seconds, it showed a naked woman without wearing bra cheering something like that in a beach scene............and then disappeared and return to the movie.............Do you believe me?

Well..........that's what I experienced before.

oo. now only i know that. both the wire same size right?

I was just thinking, in the UK my HDD failed after about 2 years. I could buy the USB HDD and just get a new one every year, keep a library. The HDD is less likely to fail sat on a shelf and only being played once in a while.

The only problem is that when swapping the HDD over to view the library you would have to make sure you had no recordings scheduled, unless it can work on the front USB!!

If it could work on the front USB then I would go for the "plug n play" external unit, it would be an endless library!

LOLLLLLL damn those engineers... they must be stunned at that and accidentally pressed some wrong button...


my experience was when astro WLT showing commercial...suddenly it became the TVB Jade HK feed, showing some tvb drama that i know is now showing in hk...so im assuming it was the direct feed.... for about 1 minute.... then poof back to commercials

This post has been edited by kaspersky-fan: Jun 6 2010, 11:35 PM

Yes, same size and type...

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Added on June 6, 2010, 11:35 pm RTM which is famous for their censorship also can became like that... Haha....

This post has been edited by AjkR06: Jun 6 2010, 11:36 PM

Yeah quiet impress. Only USD10 + USD7 per month. Wow really cheap.

BTW, I think is not fair if we want compare UK/US TV pricing fee using our currency. If here our salary is RM2000, in UK their salary also 2000 pound. Not 285 pound.

I think the DirecTV satellites must be like a football team to cater hundreds of Channels, too many channels in one provider... Until the user had to install 2 dishes for HD and 2 or 3 LNB's

Some people are saying that there's a crawler on Channel V saying that on the 15th of June, they will cease broadcast on Astro, to be replaced with Fox. I was happy with the addition of Fox, but not at the expense of Channel V!

Ya meh?? Then i don't mind losing [V]....

yes its true

this is how the recording works... it records the raw encrypted stream... not the decrypted. So even if you are able to extract the file out to ure pc, its pointless, its encrypted and until you decrypt it, the file is not viewable.

When you play the video, it will decrypt it using some codes from the smart card. Hence when you unsubscribe a package (lets say sports), you can't view any sports recording anymore, because the smart card is updated with keys not including those channels you have unsubscribed (ok im not too sure how here works... but your smart card would not be able to decrypt sports recording anymore after you have unsubscribe sports). Hence, there won't be keys to decrypt the recorded sports clips.

The only time you can break this encryption is if you are able to break the NDS encryption directly. With this said, it is as good as breaking the encryption of the whole system astro is currently using. If you can break this encryption, you don't need PVR anymore. Get a DVB-S2 dual tuner, and you can do whatever crap with it, record endlessly and examine the feeds. Heck you can even record all channels put under the same frequency your tuner is tuning to. So lets say ESPN HD, HBO HD, HISTORY HD, NGC HD and ASSP HD all are under 12.345GHz freq, you are recording all of the content in that frequency. If you have 2 tuners, and each freq has 5 hd channels, at the end of the day, you can record 10 hd channels simultaneously lol.

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Added on June 6, 2010, 11:51 pmNoooooooooo, you can dispose off channel v if you are bringing in channel v hd !!!

Sigh, hope its not true... theres already not enough music video channels around!

This post has been edited by kaspersky-fan: Jun 6 2010, 11:51 PM

Can't imagine how big their HQ office. BTW, HD service for Direct TV is totally free.

They have a few broadcast centers scattered around US... Imagine a operator monitor 100 channels at once...

While I am on Lowyat (I have been busy in South Africa preparing for the World Cup, the 3D is amazing!) I thought I would mention about the Stacker Destacker that we first used in the UK.

See http://www.globalinvacom.com/products/pdfs/StackDestackW.pdf

It allows a two feed PVR to be used on a single cable. It takes two independent LNB connections, combines them on one wire and splits them back out again at the back of the decoder. I lived in a tower block in London and had to pay RM700 for one to be fitted so I could use a PVR (they didn't have the single tuner option we have with the USB HDD).

The downside is that they are expensive and need very good 2 Ghz cable, most concealed cable in Malaysia is 1 Ghz and really only good for TV aerials, this causes more rainfade than the rain!

If you google stacker destacker (http://www.google.com.my/search?q=stacker+destacker) you will see all the difficulties they have had in the UK. Here in Malaysia we are only now just catching up and having a real satellite TV installation that can do multiple polarities and multiple frequency bands, we were about 12 years behind the UK/USA, but it is still a big problem in Asia.

Now I wondering how Astro will install the PVR in Centralised Dish building that already B.yond capable

3D is fantastic. How about it bandwidth?

Yea man, sigh. We're left with only MTV now. hitz.tv doesn't cut it for me.

Depends how they do it, three (or four) competing standards. Some use same as HD, some use a little more, some use a lot more. The more bandwidth the better the quality but many argue that the quality improvements are pointless as your brain cannot process quick enough.

Most are using "split screen" as it is the most compatible with existing equipment and uses same bandwidth as a normal HD channel.

i wonder if our B.yond is 3D capable