After watching blurry image of Thomas and Uber Cup on a big 55″ LCD TV, daddy finally can’t tolerate with the blurry image and subscribed to the only HD package in Malaysia and that is the Astro B.yond HD. With additional RM20 on top of current subscribed package of the Astro satellite TV, you get to watch 5 HD channel and 3 more coming soon.

There’s no charges for converting to HD, you only need to pay the monthly while the installation and set top box are free, provided you return your old Astro decorder.

I called Astro like 2 weeks ago and took them 10 days process my application, only then they send their cable man to install the new satellite dishes and the set-top box.

I live in an apartment and was using centralized satellite system, we need not to install a satellite dish for standard definition Astro, but the new HD need a new satellite dish. Since my apartment has not install the new satellite dish for the centralized thingy, the cable man has to install one for us. The new satellite dish is slightly bigger than the old one and is black in colour.

The new Astro B.yond HD has a new UI, the remote and response are pretty fast and output is HDMI. It’s only HDMI that can output to HD while component cable only can output to standard def. The cable man took a short time to set up the system, the new smartcard activated within minutes and I am so ready for HD.

There’s an EPG (Electronic Program Guide). It’s so much better and smoother than the Guide system in previous Astro.

There’s a new remote too. It’s white in colour. Lots of button and there’s button for PVR (Personal Video Recorder), the play, pause, record and rewind button. Unfortunately, for current B.yond subscriber, we have to pay RM5 to activate it and monthly for PVR service, you have to buy your own HDD though. Or on the other hand, change to the new B.yond PVR decorder (need to pay RM400), then RM10 per month for the recording service. Sucks a bit right? PVR is suppose to be free! Just like Tivo! I not very interested in PVR at the moment though. =)

So is there any difference between HD and non HD? Yes, there’s big difference. The 5 channel, ESPN HD, Astro Supersports HD, National Geographic HD, History Channel HD and HBO HD are super sharp.

High definition.

Standard definition.

HD channel output via normal AV cable. It’s letterboxed.

Now I really hope for more HD channel. The next 3 channels updating soon are FX HD, AXN HD and Astro Zhizhun HD, a Chinese channel. Excited. I’m looking forward for Discovery HD, Star Movies HD, CNN in HD and of course, the Hong Kong’s TVB series on Astro On Demand in HD. Come on, faster bring them in!

One more thing, I need to look for coaxial to Toslink for the digital audio output because my amp at home support Toslink input only.

Though, things don’t come to an end so fast. I have actually found guide on the net on how to watch MKV video on PS3. It’s pretty simple, convert it to a PS3 compatible format then transfer it to the PS3 then you are ready to go.

Some people are worried of video quality would be downgraded during the conversion but if you use the right software, it won’t. So the software is called mkv2vob, it’s a freeware, download it, convert it, transfer it.

Browse for your MKV file and select your destination directory which is also the output folder.

If your PS3 doesn’t connect to a amplifier via S/PDIF digital cable, you may not hear DTS surround sound, so you have to CHECK “Always Transcode DTS”.

On the other hand, if you want to transfer your file via a flash drive or portable HDD, you need to split your file. Sucks right? It’s because that PS3 only recognizes FAT32 format and the problem is you can’t transfer any file larger than 4GB into a FAT32 formatted HDD.

Unless that you have your PS3 connected into your network, you need not split it, you can just stream directly or just copy from your network.

As for me, my PS3 is not connected into my home network, my house runs wireless and it’s not capable for HD streaming. My method of watching MKV video without splitting is by burning the converted video into a dual layer 8.5GB DVD+/-R.

Oh my god! This is too good to be true, but don’t be happy yet until the real thing is out, at least on their website first. I read the news today and it’s about Astro CEO talking about the HD content for Astro, the satelite TV in Malaysia. I felt bullshiting after reading the news, because she should had said all these 2 years back. What’s the time now? It’s almost 2010 and Hong Kong and Singapore are so ahead from us on HD content. Not good to be mad though because we have to accept the fact.

So, Astro will launching their high-definition content next month (it’s from the news) and will releasing a new PVR (Personal Video Recorder) next year, hopefully it’s something on par with the Tivo or better.

According to Astro, the HD set-top box will be available by year-end, and an external HDD for PVR can be added optionally, meaning that they will not be releasing a HD PVR set-top box by year end.

I personally think that HD content is good, I would definitely switch to it, but somehow I don’t really watch HD sports because I am not into sports, documentary in HD maybe cool etc. National Geographic HD, and I wouldn’t want to watch delayed American series because I am following what’s showing in the US, downloaded directly from the net, so guess if the HD is here, I would probably watching Hong Kong’s TVB drama in HD. That’s all.

Interested in HD, or not?

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Was looking around the web and found out from a Tech enthusiast’s blog at Cnet about him beta testing Maxis FTTH (Fibre To The Home) service. So it seems like another FTTH provider is coming soon competing with TMNet and other little FTTH provider.

Looking at the download and upload speed, it’s fascinating and I love that. Unfortunately, all these sweet talks are just, er, sweet talks. Still haven’t see an official rollout of the service yet. Maxis was into broadband but looking at their 3G wireless broadband plan when compare to other service provider like Digi and Celcom, I would rather go for other because of the pricing.

More to come, as Maxis will be providing an IP phone for testing calls. Astro and Maxis are going to do a tie-up to provide HDTV through the optical modem. Finally, justification to buy an HDTV!

As for the HDTV, it’s mentioned from the BETA tester blog that it will be streaming through the Internet. Great! I care about HDTV in Malaysia more because we are so so lagging behind. Having a widescreen full HD tv at home is just useless without any HD channel. So let’s wait and hope it will come very soon.

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How do I connect a White Macbook to the Samsung 32″ HDTV without DVI cable but HDMI cable?

It’s all done with 3 things. The Display Port to DVI adapter, then the DVI to HDMI cable and in the end the Belkin HDMI cable which connect straight to the TV’s HDMI input.

It’s running like a charm without any setting. There’s no need any setting with the Macbook. One of the good of the Mac is it detect external display automatically and no need to change the display setting. I now watches high def MKV movie with VLC Player on via the Mac on my TV, running at 1368×768 resolution. Pretty!

After experiencing with the Samsung DVD 1080PK player for a few weeks, I am liking the player because to me, I uses a Samsung LCD TV and with its remote, I can control my TV and player at the same time. So, there’s no need to use 2 remote control for 2 devices.

All latest Samsung DVD player’s remote controls are capable of doing so. So if you have a Samsung TV, it’s good to get a Samsung DVD player too.

Don’t classified me as a Samsung fanboy, it’s just a coincidence that I am using a Samsung LCD TV and I got to review the Samsung DVD player. Of course, I love my TV and the player too.

Setting up the player is pretty easy, just a HDMI cable will do it all. Though, you might want to tweek with the sound output because you don’t want your sound to come out from the crappy TV speakers unless you got a HDMI amplifier at home.

I connected the DVD player via HDMI cable to the TV, then I muted the sound on the TV. As for the sound output, I uses left and right channel to my Panasonic DVD Home Theater system. There’s actually output for rear, subwoofer and center speakers, I don’t really know where it connect to, speakers or an amplifier. But whatever it is, I can be sure it’s for providing a home cinematic experience.

Although it’s not digital output, I manipulated the left and right channel output to a 5.1 Dolby Digital channel and it sounds good with the rear and all the speakers working. It’s just not as loud as DTS.

For first usage, remember to change the display setting to a 16:9 if you are on a widescreen TV, I bet most of you are already on a widescreen HDTV. Then video output should be always in Progressive Scan mode. When these are done, you are ready rock your DVD.

I was watching Traitor on this player with upscaling on. What I saw was the picture quality it’s just okay, not as good as a Bluray. When you go closer, you can actually see that the picture when pixelated or sharpen because of the upscaling. I’ve test on both machine, one with upscale and another without, there’s indeed a little bit difference. Pictures are sharper with a HDMI cable than component cable.

Though, there’s not much significant difference when watching a DVD on your comfy couch far from the TV. If it’s a Bluray player, then there will be because I’ve tried Bluray before and the quality was superb. Samsung should have send me a Bluray player instead. Haha.

Anyway, I do like this player in term of it’s HDMI output and design. The setup menu is a bit slow but that don’t really bother you a lot. There’s extra feature like CD ripping to flash drive and karaoke mic input which I haven’t tried yet, but the main feature of this is still watching DVD.

To improve this, make it a Bluray player. =)