Here's an article by Lowyat.net that has published just now about Astro Ultra Box.
https://www.lowyat.net/2019/198955/astro-ul...nds-on-preview/

You can upgrade it regardless of which Astro box you're using now. (Except Njoi ones of course)


Assuming you're not living in MDUs (apartment, condo) that uses the outdated centralise dish system, you can proceed to upgrade.

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To enjoy this, here some conditions you need to know:
1) Must subscribe to HD-PVR service (worth RM25/month if a-la-carte) to watch any 4K UHD channel. If you've already subscribed that, then there's no additional monthly charges.
2) Must have UHD TV to watch any 4K UHD channel (e.g. ch780).
3) >10Mbps Internet connection is required. Otherwise, some functionalities will not be available, such as cloud recording, Video On Demand, "Play from Start" feature... If your Internet is slower than 10Mbps, slow loading, buffering and poor streaming quality issues may occur.
4) 24 months contract applies, or up to RM1600 penalty charges if terminate within contract period.

More info: https://www.astro.com.my/ultra

Situation:
i) Don't have 4K UHD TV:
When tune to any 4K UHD channels, only the audio from that channel can be heard, and the screen will appear black and HDCP error message will show on screen, exactly like this:

You can still can access to SD and HD channels as what you have now.

ii) Don't have Internet, or not connected to the Internet (either via WiFi or Ethernet):
Features as cloud recording, Video On Demand, "Play from Start" feature, will not be available.

iii) Internet slower than 10Mbps:
When you stream Video on Demand content or use Play from Start feature, you might experience slow loading, buffering and poor streaming quality issues may occur.

Yes you're right. From now onwards, they'll only use the dCSS LNB type, no more Universal LNB type.

Woahhh....
Astro finds that if customer terminate its services, it costs them too much.
Therefore, they "cost" the customer back even more
Just the cost itself still not enough, still want to make the termination process harder, troublesome and time consuming some more.
So much of a hassle until they expect you to give up terminating the service and continue pay them every month.
Astro, saving cost to the very maximum possible?

Those people from Astro marketing team ah, last time which university they've been to?
I wonder ah, their marketing course teach them to con people's money until this extent, think of many strategies to make Astro survive until they don't care their customers anymore.
It may look like they're loyalty to customers from the outside, but on the inside, they're just sh*ting on you.
To them is like, if you want them to "care" about you, you pay extra money to "care" about you.
Very efficient indeed.


Wahh this one even more cut throat. Just imagine how much hidden fees there is....
They're like "as long you pay more than RM100 for the next 24 months, Ultra HD service is free for you."


Swap back to PVR? Sounds like they'll use refurbished units to me

RM360? What packages do you subscribe until RM360 over?
Even Super Pack Plus 4 + one Multiroom subscription also won't cost that much... :shocked:

Btw yes. You can upgrade both to the Ultra Box. Ni additional monthly charges, and no installation fees.
The dish remain the same, but they'll change the LNB on the satellite dish.


https://www.astro.com.my/ultra or their customer service hotline.

Yes, you can use the 'Play from Start' and it loads the channel using Internet, and you can fast forward until almost the same point as live TV.

Cloud recordings means the recording is being done from Astro side, not on your Astro box. That's why you can perform unlimited number of simultaneous recordings, no more the 'only 2 max channels can be recorded simultaneously'.

When you schedule a cloud recording using Astro Go, and you can watch it on both Astro Ultra Box and your devices on Astro Go right after the programme has finish recording on 'My Library'. So you no need to worry like hard disk inside your PVR box is faulty and lost all recordings, or your Ultra Box is being replaced, all your recordings are still safe on the cloud.

Now when you say this, I start to suspect that they "smoothen" or "add blur" on the display output on HD and PVR box software, like make the original picture quality look slightly 'blurrer', not so sharp, and not the exact original picture quality from the source. So that viewers won't see the picture quality artifacts that obvious due to the use of lower bitrate all this while, or recent change of even lower bitrate to accommodate more HD channels in one transponder.

But when it comes to Ultra Box software, perhaps they forgot or didn't "smoothen" or "add blur" to the picture output onto the software, which explains why Ultra Box users now can see all the artifacts clearly.

Basically, it's kinda "cheating". Maybe, Astro don't want to tell customers that they reduce the bitrate because they know we all will go outrageous.

Astro Ultra Box actually have dual tuner (as you can check it on Satellite Settings), but it only works with either dCSS or SatCR LNB, and can't work on dual Universal LNB like what PVR box does, that's why you only see 1 input F connector port on Ultra Box.

Which means, if local recording to external storage were to be available in the future, then it'll still be the maximum 2 channels can be recorded simultaneously just like the PVR now.

With cloud recording, you can record unlimited number of channels simultaneously because the recording is being done on their servers, not your Astro Ultra Box. Basically when you press cloud Record or schedule cloud recording, it's just that your ultra box send the instructions to their server through Internet, and the server are the one that do the recording. This also applies the same as performing cloud recording on Astro Go.

How did you contact Astro to check on that?
Do you call to the 03-74908000 to ask, or the usual customer service at 03-95433838?

Do note that Astro's 4K UHD channels comes from satellite, not from internet streaming. It'll use Internet when you're browsing/streaming Video on Demand content, 'Play from Start' and cloud recording.

You're using the ADSL one, or VDSL 10Mbps?
If you're on the VDSL 10Mbps (Unifi Lite), it should work fine.
If it's 8Mbps, it might work fine if no one is doing heavy downloads for long time
If 4Mbps and below, either you'll experience poor SD video quality (similar like 240p or 480p quality), or you might experience buffering issues.

Most importantly, as long the network is stable, doesn't matter from Streamyx or 4G LTE network, then it shouldn't be a problem.
Still using Streamyx? If your area has either Unifi Air or Unifi Fibre, it's time to upgrade lor...

Now if you perform speed test, can it reach 7-8Mbps download speeds? On LAN cable connection too?
Well, not until the point of stop working la... "Drop in performance", as in slow in loading Video on Demand content library, then yes if your internet connection is not delivering near 8Mbps speeds.

If you're using PVR box and no issue, then ok la... It's likely that you won't face major issues when upgrade to Ultra Box.
But do note that you'll lose all recordings that you've made on your current PVR box once upgrade to Ultra Box, cuz you'll return the PVR box back to Astro.

Why you want to upgrade to Ultra Box? You want to experience UHD channel?

Nope, I'm not using Streamyx. I'm on fibre.

This post has been edited by joshhd: Nov 16 2019, 10:07 PM

Yes

It is upon customer's request. If customer want all boxes (including Multiroom) to upgrade to Ultra Box, then they'll upgrade it for you.

There's a way to avoid that RM199 installation fee.
Simply choose a combination of any packages/services you want (e.g. Sports, Movies pack), just to make it reach RM100/month mark (excluding SST). Once upgraded to the package, after 1 billing cycle, tell Astro to upgrade to Ultra Box with no installation fees since your subscription appears to be above RM100/month.
Once you've upgraded to Ultra Box, then you downgrade to the packages that you previously had that costs lower than RM100/month. No penalties will be charged for downgrading packages, as long you don't cancel HD-PVR service or terminate entire Astro the service.

There you go, cheaper way to avoid paying RM199 installation fees.

They don't know what is OLED TV? Normal lah.
People who do in sales, doesn't mean they are expert and always up-to-date about the information.
Same goes to direct sales agent from Astro. They only familiar with subscription packages, like how much to pay, what does the package includes, payment stuff, etc.
They're only interested to earn your commission.
If you ask those people at the Astro Ultra Box roadshow in Sunway Pyramid about technical stuff, basically no one there knows about it. Some would explain it to you, but the info they give you may be inaccurate, and you will (not would) get inconsistent answers as you talk with different sales agents.
I mean literally, no technical persons standby there in case if there are customer asking deep technical questions.
All are those Astro direct sales agent only. It's like they're only interested in new/upgrade application and nothing else.

Example, one of the agent says that as long your TV supports UHD, you can watch Astro's UHD channels.
Truth: Just because your UHD TV is newly bought, or so new until it is a 2019 model, as long it doesn't support HDCP 2.2 copy protection, GG la you...
Yet that Astro direct sales agent tells you 'any UHD TV then can already', double GG la you... Not only no UHD channel for you, yet you feel like got cheated by the agent.

Even if most newer UHD TV models do supports HDCP 2.2, but better double check before you buy one. In fact, HDCP don't care what type of HDMI cable you use also.

When you ask 'Why if use Full HD TV can't watch Astro's UHD channel at all?" They say because your TV simply just 'can't support'.
Duh, there is something called 'down-scaling from 'Ultra HD to Full HD'.
Btw I tried changing the output display resolution on Ultra Box to 2160p to 1080p and go to CH 780, no problem, still can watch.
This is like the same scenario as this:
Customer: "I'm using CRT TV and connected to RCA composite (yellow, red, white) input. Am I able to view Astro's HD channels?"
Astro sales agent: "No, it will show black screen when you watch HD channels because your TV can't support".
What kind of nonsense is this?

All I can say is, "Sales agent will just be a sales agent." Giving wrong technical info to customer like this, is a hard truth that we all have to accept.
If too technical stuff, either nobody there can answer you, or "don't know but pretend like they know to give you answers" because they have to look professional.
Those who pretend to know ones, are really damaging Astro's reputation for nothing. It seems to me that they're either misinformed, or misinterpreted by the information given by person-in-charge during product meeting, or they just don't care and just want to earn your commission.


So far there is only 2 UHD channel appear on Astro Ultra Box, which is CH780 (Astro UHD) and CH498 (Astro Best UHD).
CH498 is currently showing Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie, in UHD quality. It is a pay-per-view channel from Astro Best, so you need to pay to watch that, which is something that I won't do.

UHD TVs will become cheaper and cheaper as time passes. In fact, now you can get a UHD TV with HDR for around RM2k... In my opinion, it's considered 'affordable'...

The 24 months contract refers that you cannot terminate Astro or switch back to the HD or PVR box or cancel 'HD-PVR service' subscription within the contract period.
You may contact Astro to double confirm if you want.

Received an SMS not long ago. Hah, so late inform...

Wahhh... So to all beta testers out there, if you're not interested to pay additional RM15/month for 1500 recording hours of Astro cloud storage (4TB), remember to contact Astro to revert to the default 200 hours (500GB) by 13 Nov 2020.

Astro very smart wor... They're like expecting you to forget that you got 1500 hours of cloud recording storage 1 year later, then continue pay extra RM15/month. Let's see if they would send out a SMS reminder to all beta testers by 13 Nov 2020 to remind that they'll be charged RM15/month if they don't revert to the default free 200 hours. But till then, I'll just enjoy my 12 months of 1500 hours then.

I better create a reminder on my calendar app... 😂😂

When it's on 1080p, I still notice some 'extra' sharpness and better picture quality on CH 780 if compare to the usual HD channels, and that's if I stand and stare at my TV screen very closely. Normal lor, downscale from Ultra HD to Full HD... Plus, UHD channel uses much higher bitrate compared to HD channel.

But the UHD picture detail is not that crisp anymore. But from far, it still looks "sharp enough", and you got to be a very detail oriented person to notice the difference.

But in reality, if your TV size is 55 inches or smaller, you'd hardly see significant difference compared to watching HD or UHD channels especially when you sit far away from TV. You would likely see significant difference comparing HD and UHD content if you have a 65+ inches TV. And even if you notice the difference, it's likely that you wouldn't bother much about it when you're focus watching the UHD content.

You can double confirm by contacting Astro again.

It is the same even if you have free installation... It doesn't matter whatever circumstances, you can feel free to downgrade your packages even lower than RM100/month at any point of time, as long you didn't cancel the HD-PVR service.

Basically also means, you're not committed to maintain above RM100/month for the next 24 months to have Astro Ultra Box.

If you still have any doubts, feel free to contact Astro.

I'm referring to the display resolution mode from the Ultra Box, not the actual channel itself whether is 1080i or 1080p.

Example, just because you choose 2160p 4K UHD as output resolution from Ultra Box, that doesn't mean when you watch SD quality channels, that SD channel itself has become 4K UHD.

Get what I mean? Don't confuse oh...