Is it true that Warner TV channel's exclusive licence with Hypp TV has over? Or you're just assuming?

HyppTV Everywhere? RM1/day = RM30/month? Lol? Nope.

If your contract is over, you may able to keep your Astro STB. If not over, the STB must return.

As for satellite dish, you got the option to remain as it is, or tell them to dismantle it for you.

Astro will for sure ask you the reason of the termination. I suggest that you better give positive/neutral reasons (e.g. no one at home most of the time, having financial issues, temporarily stop for now) rather than negative reasons (e.g. Astro so many repeats and ads, lousy channels, I rather use Internet to watch shows like Netflix/iflix/illegal IPTV services) to avoid any inconvenience they would give you.

Last time there's a case where the customer got to go all the way to Astro centre to return the Astro box (including its smart card, remote control, etc.), otherwise customer got to pay penalty fee. After returning it, then only they will assign an installer to dismantle the satellite dish for you. I can see that Astro is deliberately giving inconveniences to customers to terminate Astro, but 'm not sure if this still happens today.

If you try to convince them (by telling lies) that you might subscribe/reactivate Astro again in the future, they are expecting that you might reactivate Astro again next time, so it is more likely that they will allow you to keep your Astro box and its accessories as well as the satellite dish.

However as a general knowledge for you, according to their policy, if you tell them that you will migrate to other country, then you must return the STB and its accessories for sure. That's because they know that you won't be subscribe to Astro in the future since you won't be in Malaysia.

So as you can see, this is a case to case basis. So, you better come out a good reason. Hehe.

Where did you get this info?

No... Nothing gonna do with 4K TV. No need to think until that far.
It's all about aspect ratio and video quality. Initially the channel is in SD 4:3 but now the channel provider provides the channel in HD 16:9. But Astro still offer the same channels in 4:3 without stretching/remove letterbox, so letterbox will appear at all times in order for 16:9 content to display correctly on 4:3 TV. But it won't look good for 16:9 TVs as viewers will see stretched image+letterbox.

Things become worse when the channel is airing a 4:3 programme in 16:9 HD channel. Pillarbox will be added from channel provider + unnecessary letterbox added from Astro = windowboxed (black bars on top, bottom, left and right sides).

Astro has this hidden agenda to display letterbox for 16:9 content on 4:3 channel is for the sake of marketing of HD service. If Astro transmit the channel in native 16:9 aspect ratio, majority of the customers won't be able to see the difference between SD and HD, making HD service (RM26.50/month) no longer a good selling point, and no longer something that is easier to persuade customers to subscribe to.

You can try compare it yourself with Astro Arena channel. Astro Arena is one of the native 16:9 SD channels on Astro. Make sure you're watching from HDMI. Ask yourself, how BIG is the difference you see between CH802 (SD) and ch802 (HD)? Now you know why Astro is reluctant to display all of its SD channels in natove 16:9? Astro only handpicked several SD channels to be in native 16:9 (NHK World, Bloomberg, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, Astro Arena, Eurosport, FYI) and nobody knows what's the reason behind it.

When it shows letterbox, you will see the difference and having the tendency to subscribe to HD service because of its pictures quality differences. And eventually, Astro earn money.

On Astro, only in SD. But God knows why they still insist to transmit the channels in 4:3.

I was told by Astro via email that the reason why not all SD channels being transmitted in 16:9 is due to customers who still using a selected models of legacy Astro STB will not be able to watch the channel if it is in 16:9 where only the audio will be played but with black screen. However I'm not convinced by this, as they can still choose to transmit the channels in 4:3 but without any letterboxes that is currently added by them.

Surely there's a hidden reason for Astro to do this deliberately, and for sure they do not want the public to know.

Yes you're right.
Not to say no difference between 801 and 802. It's just that the difference is not very obvious for every viewers to notice. Did you know that there are people that cannot differentiate between SD and HD, and they think that both SD and HD are the same thing? Astro aware of this, and that's why they're deliberately find ways to make us customer to be able to see the obvious difference compared over SD and HD. Then only Astro can earn more money mah... This is called, marketing.

You mean pillarbox (black bars at left and right sides)?
If you encounter this, you got to manually change viewing mode by pressing the change aspect ratio button on your remote control, choose LB Expand. The pillarbox added by channel provider (TVB) is meant for 4:3 SD programme to display in proper shape on 16:9 TV instead of stretching it to full screen.
This is all about aspect ratio, nothing gonna do with 4K TV.

But then, 4K TV is worth considering to buy if it's within your budget because 4K TV is the future of TV standards. You should take TV is a long term investment cuz unlike smartphone, we tend to change to new phone after around 2 years of using it, unless it still works fine. You're not gonna change a new TV every few years, isn't?

The 4K UHD content and even HDR 10 bit era is already starting now, sooner or later those will become mainstream. Technology changes very fast...

This post has been edited by joshhd: Apr 26 2017, 08:50 AM

That is called windowboxed, where blacks bars are visible at all corners of the screen. Yes, it is a mistake from Astro side by adding letterbox (top and bottom) of it.

The only solution is change to LB Expand when you see this when watching Xinghe or TVB Classic, at least the picture won't look too small.

The main thing is outdated is Astro still using MPEG2 codec and DVB-S (modulation) for SD channels, which is now consider as obsolete technology just for the sake of the compatibility of legacy Astro STBs but as for HD channels, Astro uses MPEG4 codec and DVB-S2 (modulation). Meanwhile Hypp TV uses MPEG4 for both SD and HD channels.

Both satellite and IPTV has its pros and cons, in terms of reliability and coverage.

True also... 4K TV now is quite affordable already lo. In another few more years will be even affordable.

More or less got difference la...

I understand what you're trying to say. But we as a viewer, can't do anything but only to press "change aspect ratio" button on ur remote control, change from Fit to screen to LB Expand.

This is a video encoding mistake made by Astro, and we can't do anything about it. Even you complain to Astro, they won't listen. I've tried that before.

For sure they're not testing the feature, but I think is at the same time they earn money from it, they also want to see how's the response of the public.

Yay... Finally...
Btw TM deal with Warner TV got expired meh? Or maybe just the exclusive license is being expired but non exclusive license still not yet expire? Hmm

Well, there's a way to make your TV look better on those blur HD channels, as well as SD channels. Which is, make your TV's image quality smoother instead of sharper.

Adjust your TV's Sharpness setting into 0/100. Yes, all the way to 0. You may notice the image quality will look natural sharpness instead of artificial sharpness. Why am I suggesting you guys to do this? Read here: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/turn-down-your-...rpness-control/

Now my TV's sharpness is 0, I am very satisfied with the picture quality. It displays natural sharpness from source (Astro) and I don't want my TV to have image enhancement on it that will make it look unnatural. But it depends, some people prefer to have it sharpen because Astro SD channels will look blurry, but at least the MPEG2 image artifacts won't be obvious.

It's great to have Warner TV on Astro as well as the upcoming tvN Movies. Thumbs up for Astro, this time. 👍

If you can't tolerate the blueness, you can watch FTA terrestrial channels via digital TV instead from Astro.
Because Digital TV in Malaysia uses MPEG4, where the image quality is much better than the one you watch on Astro.

Since newer TVs has built-in digital TV tuner, just connect the cable of your UHF antenna, initiate auto scan and you should be able to receive those channels.

As long you're comfortable with your preferences.
Or maybe for some TVs, putting 0 sharpness will display blurry image (like really blurry), I'm not very sure about it.