hmm ... wondering why astro movies hd (hbo hd and fox premium hd) still lack of subtitles ....

No point because the old astro I think do not support VOD (no ethernet port)

Hmm...

Their website says, only ipad and PC/notebook is available now. Iphone and android phone is on 'coming soon'
By the way, they will broadcast all 31 matches of Euro on the go.

the network connection is also used to download VOD content to the PVR or normal STB with ext HDD

Let complain then

When you mention "download VOD content", you mean the actual video content recorded to the PVR harddisk for movies or live events that are purchased as Per Per View and ... and you believed the broadband network connection to the PVR is used to receive such video content.

The Astro enginneers knows that not everyone nationwide have superspeed broadband such as TM UniFi or Astro IPTV and many only have 1, 2 or 4 Mbit speed. I think you already know whether the TM streamyx broadband speed is fast enough or not for SD and HD content especially when TM throttle the speed because of FUP.

I do believe that Astro will not take the risk of using the internet broadband to download VOD content ! There is no reason why Astro should change when they can so easily record from the actual satellite feed to the Byond box which have very much faster bandwidth speed capable of transmitting 1080i HD video and Dolby 5.1 surround audio content.

Astro also know that there are people who subscribed to mobile internet from Maxis, Celcom, Digi which have data limits between 4 MB to 12+ MB and such people may not know about the heavy usage to download VOD content so connecting the Byond box to such broadband network connections will quickly and easily finish up the quota... and then Astro will get shot with huge complaints !

Yes, I don't actually know but I can believe data for interactive menus, updated VOD info, confirmation of VOD purchase, VOD activation, etc is possible through internet broadband connections because the data size is very small. Its difficult for me to believe that Astro will be stupid enough to use the broadband to download VOD video content. Why stupid for Astro to do it ? For example... an SD movie with a size of 2 GB can take between 4 to 7 hours to download using streamyx 1 Mbit/s speed. What about a VOD movie in HD with a size of maybe 8 to 20 GB ?

Its possible to apply huge video compression to drastically reduce the video data size but this will greatly reduce the video quality very much below the actual quality from the satellite feed. I also know that many people are already not satisfied with the SD channel video quality received direct from satellite feed.... what will happen if the SD video quality is drop further by 50% to reduce video data size to allow faster download on 1 Mbit broadband ...mmm... (answer) nobody will purchase VOD and forget about VOD HD.

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Jun 5 2012, 03:36 PM

I remember what I seen earlier at Astro webpage, they did mention the minimum requirement for the network connection was 1Mbps, and users will have the option to download it for later view, or they can playback while they are downloading (sort of like youtube buffering)

I don't think satellite can offer true VOD experience, because satellite itself is only able to broadcast, NOT multicast nor unicast, the topology I use could be inappropriate but the context is more or less the same, take AOD as example, yes it can rerun the same episode for the entire day, but would we have the FULL control as to when to playback the episode, down to which minute of time we desire? NO, not without PVR.

Now, try to relate back true VOD with AOD, just how many channels already dedicated just to deliver a few TVB dramas currently, imagine the amount of extra channels required to deliver the upcoming VOD content, its almost like one show per channel judging by how they do it for Astro First

this shows that the true VOD experience can never be delivered using satellite alone, because it isn't a point to point communication to begin with

This post has been edited by PhakFuhZai: Jun 5 2012, 03:50 PM

vod is for those with pvr but those without it hv to stream it via their own BB,isnt that so ? I stand corrected. 1mbps or even 2mbps on a busy day and prime time wl be of no use ,

This post has been edited by smileguy: Jun 5 2012, 04:44 PM

no, must have PVR box or normal Byond with ext HDD, need to have recording service aka PVR functionality to be enabled beforehand

Its a bit complicated but I do understand your valid explanation and I have to accept that you are right and I am wrong about the video content download using our broadband connection. I did make a detailed check for more info and found out that Astro have actually chosen to use our broadband to download the VOD video content.

This will cause problems for people who have mobile internet broadband (Maxis, Celcom, etc) and use the mobile telco wifi modem (with ethernet ports) or USB modem connected to wifi router with ethernet ports. This is because of the monthly data quota from such mobile telcos. A fair warning should be announced for such broadband connections. So people... take note of this.

After subscribing at RM 10 per month, there is a waiting period for full download of selected movie/content to complete before you can watch the content. Its not the same as Youtube video streaming with buffering. This is what I understood from the "waiting time period" (Refer below).

Here is the link for the setup requirement for Byond PVR, Byond IPTV and Byond box...
http://byond.digitalfive.com/setup.htm

The setup guide for Byond PVR and Byond is the same. No setup is required for Byond IPTV.

People who are interested in the VOD service should read the setup guide, link here (PDF file)...
http://byond.digitalfive.com/assets/VOD_Connectivity_Guide.pdf

Below is the image extracted from Page 19 of the setup guide which shows the "waiting period before can start watching"...


The normal runtime for a full length movie is about 90 to 120 minutes. Ok, to make it simple, lets say I have a 1 Mbps connection and want to watch a 90 minute SD movie as "Catch Up"... that means after confirming selection, I have to wait about 90 minutes before I can watch it. And that is only 1 SD movie... what about if I want to select more SD movies... then I will choose to pre-select early a few. No problem since I can just leave my modem switched on for many hours to finish download and then watch the next day or later. Just make sure the modem is not switched off during download, because the period to complete will increase.

There are questions that I am not sure of the answer yet. What will happen if a 90 minute movie is downloaded at 20 % and I switched off the modem which breaks the download. When I switched on my modem later, I am guessing that the download will continue from where it stopped, I hope so. If not, a lot of time is wasted to redownload from beginning. What happens if I interrupted the download a few times by switching of the modem a few times ? Will there be a slight possibility that the downloaded video become corrupted ? I think that such corruption is not likely but, still can happen.

Also remember that TM streamyx do have Fair Usage Policy which throttles to snail speed when too much download is detected... and... for many people with 1 Mbps speed streamyx, usually can only get about 70% actual speed. So... the actual time to finish download may not be as good as shown on paper.

From what I understood after reading from the VOD Setup Guide and my phone call to Astro Cust Supp... the Byond PVR, Byond IPTV and Byond boxes uses our internet broadband to download the VOD video content and as I have explained earlier, there is a "waiting period" to finish download before we can watch. PVR recording service must already be subscribed. For Byond box which don't have internal harddisk, either the PVR EASi or WD My Passport AV (320 GB) external USB harddisk is needed.
_______________________________________________________

If anyone find any part of my info here as not accurate, please correct me. Thanks.

I noticed there are 3 option in VOD Settings menu. One of it if we choose, we do not need to wait until download is completely finish to be able to watch. By choosing this option, you can watch while you download it, provided that there is enough buffer. There is no video jerking although I used only 1 Mbps speed.
I did try to disconnect the broadband connection while the download process is still running at ~20% and it stopped. Once I reconnect back, it start downloading again from where it stopped

Because I did not subscribe to Superpack 3 or PVR Service for my Byond (not PVR), I cannot enter into the "Video On Demand" menu. A message appears that says "my smartcard is not authorized for PVR funtion..." Now I know that there's an option to watch and download at the same time. Good news that there is no jerking with your 1 Mbps speed and downloads continue from where it stopped earlier. Thanks for the info.

At last ethernet port at my byond box is useful right now.

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Added on June 5, 2012, 7:20 pmYeah agree with you.. I think, nothing gonna change for a few years later i think.

This post has been edited by minimize: Jun 5 2012, 07:20 PM

There is option:
1. Remind me when ready to play (default)
2. Playback manually
3. Playback automatically - once I press download, after a few seconds it will play the movie. From the download percentage, it is still running.
You should try it.

they feel the pinch from TM HyppTV which also offer VOD service

and now we can also use Unifi to download Astro VOD, for as long as TM doesn't start to implement quota on their existing VIP plans

It can be done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-RCS

Of course, this requires that the decoder is capable of operating in IPTV mode over satellite. Either that or an additional modem device sitting under the current decoder (connected to decoder by Ethernet) and the dish transponder must also provide additional connection for the modem.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Jun 6 2012, 01:19 AM

now my normal byond decoder is updated 7.0, sight, really small notification bar la... why they updated like that?? beside, i have to setting the sub again to BM and English after huge update from 3.0 to 7.0..

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