Syok TV approached my wife's business pitching an advertorial package... was not aware of Syok TV prior to this.

they said $$ not finalized yet... but the intent is to compete with Astro's Go Shop

their plan is to have one-click shopping, just press one button on the remote to buy. It sounds like it's using HbbTV services

All channels are broadcast in standard definition 576p 4x3 aspect ratio.

Only exception is Al Hijrah, which is 1080i 16x9.

Not sure if the master is 720p... the quality doesn't look that much different from the standard definition version on Astro. More likely it's just an upscale from 576p considering the image blurriness of the image and how dull the colors are.

Ultimately it's all about $$$... most Malaysians don't really care about broadcast quality, otherwise Astro would've been forced to abandon standard definition a long time ago.

CRTs still have their uses... I wouldn't mind buying a 25" Sony Trinitron tube to hook up some old video game consoles and Laser Disc player.

As far as I can see, 32" LCD TVs are no lower than RM700 (this is from my bad memory walking around shops), which is still a considerable sum for the lower income folks, especially since many have incomes between RM900 - RM1800 per month. I don't know how true this is for the REALLY rural folks, but this is based on my observations in central and south Perak.

On another note, has anyone checked the audio output from Freeview? It is shown as AAC Stereo on my TV, but when I output to ARC to my receiver it's shown as Dolby Digital 5.1 instead of PCM 2.0.

It's clearly stereo audio only, but the signal is being flagged as a 192kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 stream by my Yamaha RX-A3050. Just curious if it's some auto-conversion done by my TV's ARC output or if it's native to Freeview.

Format is not indicative of quality... a high bandwidth uncompressed audio stream can sound as bad as a low bandwidth heavily compressed one if the originating source is shit.

This post has been edited by munchoong: Aug 11 2017, 02:59 AM

DVB-T2 only... older DVB-T tuners cannot decode the signal

That's true.

NOBODY I know is aware of myFreeview and the pending analogue TV cutoff. And those of us here who are participating in this forum are simply interested in the topic... if it wasn't for this forum, I wouldn't even know where to find such information. The myFreeview website/Facebook page don't contain any useful information.

My younger cousins/nephews/nieces couldn't care less because they don't even use TV and rely completely on their tablets/smartphones to consume media. Friends within my own age group are either on Astro or Netflix or rely on their Blu-ray player. Older folks like my parents are content with Astro, and still can barely see the difference between SD and HD.

IMO it's an uphill battle to make people aware of this service, and as long as the viewership is low, advertising revenue will be low, thereby causing the likes of Media Prima not to want to spend too much on this, especially considering their channels are readily available on Astro and NJOI.

And when the analog switch off does happen, who would ultimately care? Who is going to take the initiative to distribute more MYTV boxes, unless it's an election year? Or just wait for everyone's CRT to die (shouldn't be long now, maybe within the next 10 years)? By then all TVs will have internal DVB-T2 decoders anyway.

Need to retune to get new channels, or will they automatically appear? I haven't turned on my TV in 2 weeks....

Can check with your condo management if the master antenna can receive UHF?

I live in 15-year old condo, and have no problems receiving MyFreeview through the wall TV outlet. Neither I nor my condo had to do anything.

Is RTM HD a permanent channel (even though it's testing like TV3 HD), or is it just a temporary channel for the World Cup?

I can confirm the HbbTV service works on LG TVs as well... works without a hitch on my LG OLED65E6

March 2019? Sure or not?
This sounds very rush, and I bet most Malaysians are not even aware of the digital transmissions

This depends on your building's antenna

For me, I just use my building's centralized antenna and I am getting very good digital reception, but some of the other forummers here have reported this did not work for them and they had to buy external antennas.

Just test the centralized building one first, since that is the cheapest method cos you would only need an RF cable to connect to the wall. I only spent RM6 for one in Ace Hardware.

If there is sufficient demand, you can get your apartment management to maybe look into changing the direction of the antenna to point to the nearest MYTV transmission tower?

The fact that you're able to get a reception, even if it's not stable, shows that the hardware and infrastructure in your building is in place, just a matter of adjustment I believe.

How to watch Tonton livestream on TV? Is it via hbbTV?

Older movies and TV series still have broadcasting rights fees to pay... and for some they might not be that much lower than modern content. This is especially true for evergreen titles like Friends, Star Trek, X-Files, Smallville, et al.

Not sure there's much of an audience these days for those sci-fi shows you mentioned above though, since they had difficulties getting people to watch them when they were brand new.

I love Babylon 5 (heck I have the entire show + movies + Crusade on DVD) and seaQuest DSV as much as the next guy, but it's doubtful we will ever see them on Malaysian airwaves ever again.

I am unable to get a signal from 698MHz, only 666MHz

MUX 2 is 698MHz right? I am getting 0% signal from it.

I am getting 60% signal quality from MUX 1, which is a slight downgrade cos I used to get 90%.

I am just relying on whatever antenna is at the roof of my condo block.

I tested MyFreeview audio with my receiver, it got flagged as PCM 2.0.

Yay! Finally able to get MUX2!

Have to say the four RTM HD channels do look good