Ned,

B.yond box being hot is a good thing. That means the heat is dissipated by the box's surface effectively. Just ensure that the box is not enclosed in a closed box.

Thanks!

hot is good? if you said so

on my book, running hot in standby is bad

i think it's bad too. it uses about 18W of electricity in when it is in standby mode.
to me, that is not really standby mode, whereas most things uses 1-2W only.

18W... what?...

yes, 18 watts, i use one of those electricity metering plug to measure it.

Like that, meaning we are just wasting a lot of energy.

wish i cud change to other decoder that is better.

put fan behind or make sure the air sirculate well...

That b.yond thing got lifetime warranty lah.

technically we dint own it, and no point of owning it unless you want to reverse engineering it or what-not

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Added on December 22, 2010, 11:27 pmbtw, 6% increase on the bill starting next month due to service tax being implemented. thoughts? i dont mind paying if their service is good and less rain fade issues though, but that's not the case now

This post has been edited by l_berd: Dec 22 2010, 11:27 PM

can i apply for new astro and get byond straight away? or they will give the normal astro and upgrade byond later?

You can apply for new Astro B.yond and get B.yond straight away.

Why would you even do that? Astro SD channels are more crappy on B.yond decoder, When I first got my b.yond, they turned on to SD channel first, and I was like

really?? sd channel even worst on byond? i thought its better because it uses hdmi . the tm iptv sd channels look way way way better than the normal astro

Thats the truth! the claims are all bullshit.Thank god our TV's are doing a great job to improve the PQ. They claim Beyond improves PQ just to promote all to switch to Beyond. Astro is best viewed on CRT,
Merry christmas to all forumers and friends, May the good spirits of love and goodwill among us continue !!

Are sure about this new B.Yond? Can show us the link? Because whenever the SD decoder broke, we have to pay for repair ourself.

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Added on December 23, 2010, 7:12 amYap. Totally agree. I saw a shop with B.Yond on a 29"(?) LCD. But my SD Astro on my old Sony CRT picture quality is far far better.

This post has been edited by Optiplex330: Dec 23 2010, 07:12 AM

SD on a HDTV depends on the quality of the scalar. To tell u the truth, on a 34in CRT, if u really pay attention u can actually see the amount of compression on the SD channels. So on a bigger display it will be more apparent. Some good HDTVs have good scalars, the picture is actually pretty good.

Another thing no shop wld display Astro,the reason as one dealer told me "if I display astro nobody wld buy this TV they wld think the TV resolution no good" thats the name astro has earned. Even thier HD more then 50% of programming seems to be upscaled fare!

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Added on December 23, 2010, 9:02 amSo bro, can we presume that the credits go to our TVs and not Astro and thier claim that thier SD channels hv improved is false.

This post has been edited by smileguy: Dec 23 2010, 09:02 AM

You see, the B.yond box on standby mode is not the same as per the old boxes. a B.yond box on standby is still ready to instantly records program once they started. In the near future when it's working as a hybrid box (Satellite and IP based) during standby, it'll be able to download movies in teh background and have a wake-on-LAN capabilities for some cool features.

If you guys look at the PS3, it has two standby modes. 1. Normal standby with in 1 watt usage. If you set the ps3 to have a wake on LAN feature, it instantly uses approx 18-20 watt of electricity.

It's the standard for the current technology. Something we need to have for future capabilities. ButAstro better get the B.yond platform deliver all those faster or it will backfire them.

Guys, Let's all shift the angriness to the 'masses' who consumes TV like food for the Tax imposed on everyone. You see, Astro services is not a necessity, it is a want or dare I say it....semi-luxury item/service. Prolonged or uncontrolled usage will lead to life being lifeless.

I think, that is why the govt decided to impose service Tax as it looks like 50% of the household in Malaysia Consumes Astro like they consume food. Maybe by having to pay extra we all will realise that watching too much TV is bad. And the govt on the on the other hand think that this is just easy modey. Imagine if Astro have 1 Bil Revenue, it's an easy 60 mil revenue for them.

Confirmed, anything wrong with the box, a tecnician will come and repair it for free. no more RM50 service charge.

In my own opinion, the Beyond box seems to put out better SD than the older Philips box that I had. cannot attribute it solely to HDMI so I'm unsure. I have not however. tried the component out to my display or my Reon equipped AVR to see if it is better on component, since its easier for me to use HDMI. Also, with the bitrates at 8mbs for the hd channels, I hardly consider that as anything deemed as critical viewing material. But u're right, SD processing is still mostly done in the display rather than the box. Remember that the box is intended as a sat box and not necessarily as a upscaler. As long as the box is doing the colour space conversion correctly its more than a bonus. This is one area that the current Pace box is good. It outputs in YCbCr 4:4:4 8bit compared to some boxes (even in the states) that output in RGB pc levels....So in my opinion, its a good box.

Don't confuse marketing with technical data. That's just how marketing goes.