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.

I was watching the TV just now and surprisingly, I saw iPhone 3GS TV ad by Maxis during the commercial break. We don’t really see a lot of tech related TV ads here in Malaysia and Maxis brought it to us. It’s cool man.

I was in Kuala Lumpur last week and I saw the Samsung was having a roadshow there about their TVs. There’s a wall hanging 9 new Samsung LED TVs and I feel it’s so cool with the orientation. The new LED TV is so bright and the TV panel is seriously thin but still not thiner than a OLED yet. It’s great but then the price is still high. Hopefully the price will drop very soon.

My brother just came back from Singapore and he bought home all of his gadgets and only left a Dell 22″ in his dorm in Singapore.

A powerful business Vaio SZ. Lightweight, powerful, high performace and beautiful.

An Asian version of PlayStation 3 40GB. I am not really interested with the games, he got Grid, Assassin Creed, Dragonball, Civilization, Tom Clancy:Hawk, Fifa Street 2, Army of 2 and Lumines Supernova and Flower in the hard disk. I like Flower and Luminues Supernova, it’s mini game and simple which = to fun.

The TV is a Samsung 32″ 720p HD TV, unfortunately it’s not full HD.

White 2.4Ghz MacBook. It’s an all time beauty. I love Mac but I am still waiting to get one. Perhaps I will have one when I go into college next year. The clock is a Pixel Saturn II clock what I bought in Guangzhou for 190RMB. Pretty right?

This Apple TV commercial which introduces the Macintosh in 1984 is still looking very cool even it’s already 21st century right now with all the high def video out there. The 80’s really have a very creative mind which created such interesting TV commercial. I like it!