thats true overall PQ of assto needs to be improvd. My 46 LCD was on assto thru Yamahaa avr which upscaled the feed and PQ on LCD seemed okay.I just removed the LCD to my room, to use it on my 2nd decorder,and now without avr upscaling OMG the SD picture is so bad while HD is fair,now I realise how much of work my avr has done! MPEG4 feeds of suntvv is okay the worst are our In House channels. astro is Not picture perfect.

His comment was that PQ of HD needs to be improved before SD.

In my opinion the SD is compressed quite a bit, the only external processor that can make it more than watchable is the Lumagen.

The renowned HQV Reon could not. Some of the scaler chips in most TVs do a good job as well. To compare that u shd send a 576i signal from the component output from ur decoder.

smileguy,
What signal did u send to ur AVR to upscale for SD?

Jamesleetech, my friend recommended me to use optical out from my TV and optical in to my BD player?

Can it work this way?

For 5.1 sound:

Beyond --------HDTV via HDMI
HDTV -------HTiB via optical for 5.1

Or

Beyond -------HDTV via HDMI
Beyond coaxial --------- optical HTiB via coaxial-optical converter

What is your TV brand and model? Normally, for bolded statement the audio output from TV should be stereo only.

Panasonic P50ST50k 50" Plasma 3DTV

bro what i meant was my hdmi goes to avr upscaled and back to tv by which i see the pq was far better

From what I can see from manual and search from internet, it cannot connect like that. Maybe others with the same TV can comment further since I am not familiar with it.

From your previous few posts and questions, this is what I already understood on what you want...

1) You have the Sony BDV-E490 (HTIB) home theatre system which you want to use for Byond
2) You want to get 5.1 surround sound from Byond to your Sony BDV-E490

This means you want to try and get the best possible sound from your Byond box for the HD channels, and for Byond, that is Dolby Digital 5.1.

When your HDTV have an Optical Out, of course you can use it to connect to your Sony BDV-E490 BUT there may be problems AND does it satisfy what you want ? Mmm... now you are wondering why I answered in this way.

Okay, let me show you a picture I took using my phone camera for my Samsung HDTV (inside spoilers)...

Here is a portion of my Samsung HDTV Manual...
When the receiver (home theatre) is set to on, you can hear sound output from the TV’s optical jack.
When the TV is receiving a DTV signal, the TV will send 5.1 CH sound to the home theatre receiver.

When the source is a digital component such as a DVD / Blu-ray player / cable box / STB (Set-Top-Box) satellite receiver
and is connected to the TV via HDMI, only 2 CH audio will be heard from the home theatre receiver.
If you want to hear 5.1 CH audio, connect the digital audio out jack from your DVD / Blu-ray player / cable box / STB satellite
receiver directly to an amplifier or home theatre.

My Samsung TV clearly state that it supports Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Pulse. Dolby Digital+ is slightly different from Dolby Digital so will my TV decode the Byond Dolby Digital 5.1 ? I think can BUT I have not tried it yet, hehe. My Samsung HDTV will only output from its Optical Out as * DTS 2.0 for DTS signals, not DTS 5.1 ! No problem for me since most amplifiers support DTS audio.

* EDITED : Corrected some mistakes above, for the DTS 2.0 info (in blue text)

THEN I realised that I have a problem here if I want to get the Byond Dolby Digital 5.1 for HD channels !

If I used HDMI to connect directly from Byond to my Samsung HDTV... my Samsung manual VERY CLEARLY state that ONLY 2 CH will be output from the TV Optical Output !! The manual also says "If you want to hear 5.1 CH audio", I must connect my DVD/Blu-ray player/STB Satellite Receiver Optical Out directly to the Amplfier. BUT in your situation... the Byond (STB Satellite Receiver) DO NOT have Optical Out !!

Your friend's recommendation on "HDTV -----HTiB via optical for 5.1" may not be 100% right because it depends on your HDTV actual specifications for its Optical Out.

You have to find out from your HDTV specifications to answer these questions...

a) Does it have built-in decoder that fully support Dolby Digital 5.1 or does it support only Dolby Digital 2.0 or Dolby Digital+ ?
b) Does it receive the audio from HDMI, decode to 5.1 and pass the audio to Optical Out ? If it decode to 2.0 to the Optical Out, then no 5.1 !
c) Does it support digital audio "pass-through" which means what comes in to the TV goes out to its optical out without any decoding ? Mmm... I have NEVER known of any HDTV that have this so forget about this question.

Of course you can try connecting your HDTV optical out to your Sony BDV-E490 BUT is it really 5.1 sound or only 2.0. Its okay to get Dolby 2.0 this way if you can accept it because the audio is at least better than the analog RCA (red, white) connection. But you will NOT get the "best available" audio from your Byond, hehe.

Answers...

1) Byond HDMI to HDTV... then HDTV Optical Out to your Sony BDV-E490 home theatre > Yes, BUT depend on your HDTV specifications. Advantage : FREE, only pay for cables.

2) Beyond Co-Axial Out... to Coaxial-Optical Converter... then to your Sony BDV-E490 home theatre > Yes, BUT make sure the converter support Dolby 5.1 Optical Out. Disadvantage : Spend $$ lah.

You decide... do it for free, pay $$ for converter or accept stereo 2 channel audio.

You have earlier asked... actually what is the Gefen Translator from the picture I posted earlier. Mmm... a picture is worth a thousand words so here is a graphic I have drawn for you (inside spoilers)...




NEW ADDITION
I took some time to google search for the Manual for your Panasonic P50ST50k 50" Plasma 3DTV but unfortunately cannot find it. It seems difficult to find your Asia model. Maybe I did not search correctly, hehe.

What I did find out is that your TV specifications says that it have internal built-in decoders for "Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby Pulse / DTS 2.0+Digital Out" which means similar decoders specs as my Samsung HDTV.

If I guess correctly, then your TV will also receive the audio from HDMI and then output to its "Optical Out" as Dolby 2.0 only, so no Dolby 5.1. I can NOT be 100% sure without your TV actual Manual.

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Jul 6 2012, 09:20 PM

is there a way to transfer recorded tv shows to pc?

Please read a few pages back or use the search feature

It seems new Software Version 7.0 for Byond (Non PVR) and Version 7.0s for Byond PVR have test Interactive Features which uses our broadband internet connection. I think not available for the old Asto DMT decoder boxes.

Can be any channel (SD or HD).

Use the Remote Control buttons.

1) Press the OK button.

2) Press the Apps button.

NO Broadband Internet Connection

You will see this (inside spoilers) ...

With Broadband Internet Connection (Streamyx)

Now use a network cable to connect the Byond/Byond PVR network port to the broadband Modem Router. Make sure the broadband is online.

Do the same thing with the Remote Control buttons, OK and Apps.

No more "Website cannot be found" and is replaced with the following screenshots below. Actually the size is a bit small so I have to put my phone camera near to my TV top-left screen to take snapshots.

Screenshot 1
This is the first "Interactive Screen" that appeared which shows "Service Not Available Currently". Do NOT exit yet and continue reading.

Screenshot 2
Press the 1 button and the weird message "no key pressed yet" appears.

Now, press the Back button once to return to previous screen. Continue reading...


Screenshot 3
Now press the 2 button and the "Twitter" screen appears. Cannot make any tweets yet.

Now, press the Back button once to return to previous screen. Continue reading...

Screenshot 4
Now press the 3 button BUT nothing happens !

Next, press the 4 button and the "League Selection" screen is displayed.


Screenshot 5
You can use the remote arrows to move between the 4 footbal leagues. I selected "Barclays PL" and pressed OK button and the "Standings" screen appeared. This shows the latest points obtained by different teams.

Screenshot 6
Then I pressed OK button and the latest match results appeared.

Nothing happens for the rest of the other numbered buttons (0,2,5,6,7,8,9). For now, only buttons 2 and 4 have test application screens.

I don't know what "Apps" will actually be launched in future. Will any "chosen Apps" be useful or useless for subscribers ? Will Astro only continue to test and test and then disappear later with "Apps" totally cancelled ??

Is it really useful to "tweet" using Byond ? Will the Byond USB Port be changed to allow us to connect USB keyboard and mouse... and if NOT, then using the Byond Remote to type and for movement (without mouse) will be terrible !

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Jul 7 2012, 03:44 AM

You make me
The only worry i have is, when watching SD channel my family member will ask me 'How come our tv suddenly become so small? Hmm.......can buy a bigger one ah?" Then die lah me.

This post has been edited by enriquelee: Jul 7 2012, 09:21 AM

Waiting for it in Astro is suffering...

Give up also not possible,cos new player does not seem promising,so secretive and only god knows wats happening! So no choice keep begging asstro!

Did u send 1080i to ur AVR? If u did, there is no upscaling...Its only deinterlacing. If u r seeing a big difference, could u let me know what display u hv? And the AVR as well.

Edit : Just saw that u mentioned Yamaha. Again, its the same, if u send a 1080i signal u r only deinterlacing if the Yamaha is outputing 1080p. There is no upscaling involved. Could u pls explain what the differences u r seeing.

This post has been edited by anfieldude: Jul 8 2012, 08:13 PM

According to what I read from your comments here, it is PARTLY correct to say that the Byond PQ become so bad without using the Yamaha AV Amplifier for the 2nd Byond decoder in another room/main room/hall.

This is what I understood from your comments here so please correct me if I am wrong...

a) Have 2 Byond boxes. 1st Byond in your room and 2nd Byond in another room/main room/hall.
b) Tested with your 46in LCD TV on 1st Byond with connection through Yamaha AVR.
c) Took the same 46in LCD TV to 2nd Byond and connect so no Yamaha AVR.

Since you used HDMI connections for BOTH your Byonds, why take the trouble to temporarily move your TV to the 2nd Byond to test ? Just test using the 1st Byond. First test with Byond >> to Yamaha >> then to HDTV. Then second test with Byond >> direct to HDTV. You can test this same way without "moving" your 46in LCD TV to the 2nd Byond box in another location.

Mmm... unless you tell me that the 2nd decoder is the Old Astro DMT box, not Byond, so of course the PQ from the old Astro DMT box is terrible ! If true, its not correct to make comparisons between the Byond box and the old Astro DMT box.

If you used only HDMI connections to test compare, its only PARTLY correct to say that your Yamaha AVR improved the PQ a lot by "upscaling" the SD channels.

Video Scaling
Refers to resolution used such as 576p (852 x 576 px 4:3), 720p (1280 x 720 16:9) and 1080i (1920 x 1080 16:9) for Byond. Actually 576p is generally not regarded as HD and the 852 pixels may be slightly different for different video standards.

Video "Upscaling" means changing from lower to higher resolution which may include changing from 50Hz to 60Hz. Example... Upscale 720p original video ratio to 1080i resolution. I think (not sure) that upscaling can also occur from the source player (such as the Blu-Ray player, Byond, etc) when the source player setting is changed.

Video Processing
Refers to the video processing by different video processor chips. The processing includes controlling the Brightness, Contrast, Colour, Sharpness, White Balance, Colour Space, Gamma, Black Tone Levels, and others. The better the quality of such processors the better the PQ and the higher end ones also allow users much more control to adjust the settings. Because of the wrong factory adjustments and lower quality video processor chip used in many budget HDTVs, this is where the Professional Calibration person come in, who used specialised devices to fine-tune the HDTV to achieve the best optimum PQ. One among many video calibrator devices used is the Spyder4Pro which I really don't know whether it is the best or not. Hehe... to "Anfieldude"... did I make any mistakes here ?

Here is the interesting thing about the Yamaha AV Receiver Amplifiers which have HDMI... I am quite sure that almost ALL such Yamahas do NOT upscale any video connected to its HDMI Input. My present 2 Yamaha AVRs are the 3rd and 4th ones after replacing the previous ones. My Yamaha AVR Manual definitely states this clearly.

You can test whether your Yamaha AVR actually "upscale" the video or not... just by looking at your HDTV display Info.

I am absolutely sure for my Yamaha AVRs, RXV-1900 and RXV-3900. Here was what I did. Byond HDMI out to Yamaha... then from Yamaha HDMI out to my Samsung HDTV.

On my Samsung HDTV Remote, there is an "INFO" button which when pressed, will display on the TV screen the Video Resolution received from its own inputs.

With my Yamaha HDMI Output still connected to my Samsung HDTV, I then changed my Byond HD Settings to test...

1) Byond 576p setting... my TV info shows 720 X 576 @ 50 Hz.
2) Byond 720p setting... my TV info shows 1280 x 720 @ 50 Hz.
3) Byond 1080i setting... my TV info shows 1920 x 1080i @ 50 Hz.

* 50 Hz because our Malaysian TV system is PAL.

As you can see, there is absolutely NO UPSCALING from the Yamaha AVR when HDMI is used (from Byond HDMI to Yamaha). IF there is any upscaling, all three Byond settings will show on my Samsung HDTV as only 1920 x 1080i @ 50 Hz BUT its not.

So, part of your comment "was on assto thru Yamahaa avr which upscaled the feed and PQ on LCD seemed okay" should be corrected to "was on Byond which feed HDMI to Yamaha with better internal Video Processor improved the PQ which seemed okay".

I do understand what you mean about the Yamaha which improved the PQ. My Yamaha have the Anchor Bay video processor chip and Burr-Brown audio processor chip. It seems the Marvel QDeo Video Chip used for my Oppo BDP-93 is much better than Anchor Bay. Denon AVR usually used Audyssey Video Chip.

I admit that I am a bit picky on the "upscale" word that you used to describe PQ improvement. PQ Improvement is NOT because of "upscaling" from HDMI. Actually the Yamaha video processor chip do improve the PQ slightly because of better noise reduction, colour interpolation, etc.

My apologies if I have offended you.

I can suggest that you can test with Component Video (Red, Green Blue) connection to see if your Yamaha improve the PQ for upscaling from Byond 576p to 1080p. Test using only the Byond "HD Setting" at 576p. First test, connect Byond Comp Vid directly to HDTV. Second test, connect Byond Comp Vid to your Yamaha AVR, then from Yamaha HDMI out to HDTV... your Yamaha will now definitely upscale the Comp Video Input to HDMI Output as 1080p. Must make sure your Yamaha internal settings set to (1) Video Converter... ON (2) Component I/P... ON (3) HDMI Resolution... 1080p so correct it if necessary. Now, at least you can make a more fair comparison of upscaling improvememt to PQ.

Actually I don't know what cable connections you used for your PQ tests so I assumed you tested with HDMI connections only.



EDIT : Corrected some parts to remove repeated explanations and to make it more clear, hehe.

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Jul 8 2012, 10:33 PM

Agreed for the older Yamaha AVR. The newer ones does SD upscaling from HDMI inputs which benefits low end LCD TVs to some extent since these TVs generally just double up the SD feed to match their native resolutions.

Not holding my breath for CN HD. We all know from history that Assteruk doesn't care about kiddie channels.

This post has been edited by RAMChYLD: Jul 9 2012, 12:37 AM

I stand corrected because different AVRs either have or do not have video upscaling on its HDMI input. I am aware of that. So this depends on... different AVR brands and models... budget or high-end AVRs... and older or latest models. For example, it is probably true for the higher-end Yamaha Aventage A3010. I cannot check each and every different models and brands, old or latest models included.

Because Smileguy only mentioned that he used a Yamaha AVR without stating the model, I think readers here need better clarification that not all AVRs do upscaling from HDMI connection so this was why I posted my previous explanations here... and this was why I requested Smileguy to retest and check his HDTV display Info as I had described and outlined earlier. I did not deny that better upscaling capability will give some measure of picture quality improvement... and by how much will depend on each different AVRs. I have always accepted that Smileguy have the right to give his opinions on whether his AVR improved the PQ due to video upscaling. Since I don't know which Yamaha model he used, my earliear explanation was merely to make sure that his AVR have or don't have HDMI upscaling from HDMI Input. This was why I mentioned the tests from my Yamaha RXV-1900 and RXV-3900.

I do not dispute and will not disagree with Smileguy's opinion that his Yamaha AVR "upscaling" improve the PQ of Byond a lot BUT this is not correct IF his AVR do NOT upscale from HDMI input, and HDMI connections were used. My earler suggestion was to make sure "HDMI to HDMI upscaling" is available for his Yamaha AVR in order to be more accurate before giving his respected opinions on PQ.

By the way, better video upscaling for better PQ will depend on the quality of the AVR Video Scalar chip used, so, as I have mentioned before, will improve the PQ of Byond (for HDMI connection) but how much improvement will ultimately depend on which Video Scalar chip in the AVR. Hehe... which Video Scalar chip is better... for my opinion only... I have to see with my own eyes to compare.

Ultimately, its the AVR Video Scalar Chip that determines the improvement of PQ from Byond because that scalar chip handles the upscaling, resolution interpolation, etc. Therefore, its not correct to only mention that "upscaling" improved the PQ, it should be corrected to mention that its the combination of the AVR Video Scalar and Video Processor Chips which improved the PQ and which I, of course, do agree.

Appreciated your feedback and correction.

EDIT : Made a mistake again... I did a quick google check. There are Video Scalar Chips such as the Silicon Image Products - ABT1015 Video Scaling Chip which handles upscaling. So better AVR Video Scalar Chip do affect the PQ too. I corrected parts of my above reply to mention the Scalar chip. One thing I am not sure is whether its possible for the Video Processor Chip to handle the upscaling if no Video Scalar Chip is used.

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LATER ADDITION 09-07-2012
I am continuing my comments on AVR video processing because its related to improving the Byond PQ. My apologies if I may seem to be out-of-topic here.

Phew ! Its seems I have forgotten about my Yamaha RX-V3900 AVR specifications because I have been using it for so long. This is always connected to a blu-ray player which don't need any HDMI upscaling, hehe.

Getting too long so the rest of my explanations inside spoilers...

I repeat... if Smileguy Yamaha AVR video processor chip cannot handle upscaling from HDMI Input, then he cannot use HDMI to HDMI to test upscaling.

Hehe... sometimes when I try to help others with what I know, I also learn from my mistakes by doing more digging for info and "research".

This post has been edited by jamesleetech: Jul 9 2012, 05:21 AM

So, is it available here also?