1914 replies to this topic

[davmel]

Gremlin, on Oct 30 2009, 10:29 AM, said:

I've been watching a fair bit of Nat Geo HD on Starpics 2. It may not be HD, but it does have 5.1 audio. Look forward to that arriving full time next year.

Starpics 2 does not have 5.1 audio. It's a bog standard MPEG-1 256kbps 2 channel audio. You only get AC3 5.1 audio on the real Nat Geo HD channel.

[Jason_dinAlt]

Starpics2 is in 5.1 according to my yamaha 2700B

[Gremlin]

davmel, on Aug 1 2009, 03:18 PM, said:

Pigs will fly if the MyStar HD is launched before Feb and even if it is at the last minute only a handful of people will have the pleasure of being beta testers in having it actually installed before the olympics.

Looks like those pigs ain't far off now hey Davmel!

[michaelmac]

I scanned the new channels in last night. Just turned on my system to austar now and it looks like it has reset back to way it was, probably overnight

[davmel]

Jason_dinAlt, on Oct 30 2009, 04:34 PM, said:

Starpics2 is in 5.1 according to my yamaha 2700B

There is either something wrong with your Yamaha or the MyStar is screwing up by converting the mpeg sat stream into an AC3 feed.
There is only an mpeg-1 audio stream for that channel so your equipment is not giving the correct details.

[davmel]

Gremlin, on Oct 30 2009, 04:53 PM, said:

Looks like those pigs ain't far off now hey Davmel!

Yeah, only a few sleeps to go before launch and Austar still haven't got the units out the door. Looks like only the beta testers will be watching HD for some time after launch because Austar has no hope of installing/shipping large quantities now to meet the launch date. But then Porter did say that Austar customers mostly weren't interested in HD so maybe this is his way of proving himself right.

[Gremlin]

davmel, on Oct 30 2009, 07:29 PM, said:

There is either something wrong with your Yamaha or the MyStar is screwing up by converting the mpeg sat stream into an AC3 feed.
There is only an mpeg-1 audio stream for that channel so your equipment is not giving the correct details.

I stand by that channel being in 5.1, as was Showtime Action from memory. I think you have got it wrong again Davmel.

[davmel]

michaelmac, on Oct 30 2009, 05:37 PM, said:

I scanned the new channels in last night. Just turned on my system to austar now and it looks like it has reset back to way it was, probably overnight

Hardly surprising given that MyStar's do a reset every night and when it did you had the card left inside it didn't you?

[davmel]

Gremlin, on Oct 30 2009, 07:36 PM, said:

I stand by that channel being in 5.1, as was Showtime Action from memory. I think you have got it wrong again Davmel.

I suggest you don't think/guess what the actual stream is.
Here is a list of the PIDs on that channel:
http://img4.imagesha...arpics2pids.jpg

Any DVB scan software will show the same thing. There is only MPEG audio on that channel, but all you're doing is looking at the output from not one but two decoders (any one of which can mangle the original 2 channel MPEG audio into an AC3 stream with incorrect 5.1 flags).

[Jason_dinAlt]

Thats funny, because a mate with a dreambox with a fox card says starpics2 is in 5.1 according to his pioneer receiver. starpics1 is just stero on the mystar and his dream

[nutmeg1]

It seems austar don't want you to see the new channels yet so reset the boxes so that any one who

is naughty enough to find them will have to find them again.Why the resets as the EPG  is useless

and takes longer than the 20 seconds to catch up .

[DrP]

Austar resets its STBs overnight (or at even more inconvenient times!) as a matter of course.  This was happening long before the my-disa-star came along and has more to do with amazingly crappy firmware than 'changes in configuration of the satellite service' - which is the official line.

[Jason_dinAlt]

yes, even the mystupids reset every day, Ive seen it happen and had to do the pull the card out and reset/scan trick every day now

[OzyDave]

Jason_dinAlt, on Oct 31 2009, 05:50 AM, said:

yes, even the mystupids reset every day, Ive seen it happen and had to do the pull the card out and reset/scan trick every day now

I have to do a supplimenatary reset most days to recover the MyDisaStar anyway. Latest bug is when deleting a viewed program from the planner, the machine semi freezes up with the blue star picture. If I exit the planner to live tv, all I get is a black screen. Toggle power with the remote and the live tv returns. Go to the planner and the deleted program is still there. The program cannot then be deleted, with the same sequence of events suffered until I reset the box.
I may get the HD version just to be rid of this rubbish product. Austar will then be hearing from me every time the HD box fails in any way. I am not putting up with the same situation again.

[ozbrit]

Jason_dinAlt, on Oct 30 2009, 09:52 PM, said:

Thats funny, because a mate with a dreambox with a fox card says starpics2 is in 5.1 according to his pioneer receiver. starpics1 is just stero on the mystar and his dream

The audio on this channel was messed up on the program I tuned to.  Despite DD 2.0 showing on my Yammy, the main speech wasn't being channeled through the centre speaker as is per normal when synthesized by dolby logic but instead split between the left and right speakers.  Not a good sound at all.

The 5.1 on Showtime comedy and drama are both good   but intermittent on action.

I've re-checked audio on Starpics channels since I posted the above observations and we have The Simpsons on Starpics 1 (415) with 2.0 audio which seems to be quite normal (speech from the centre speaker) In fact, I believe this to be a test for Fox 8 HD.  Starpics 2 on 416 is in glorious 5.1 but this channel is actually National Geographic with HD showing in its logo.

Edited by ozbrit, 31 October 2009 - 08:29 AM.

[Gremlin]

ozbrit, on Oct 31 2009, 07:28 AM, said:

Starpics 2 on 416 is in glorious 5.1 but this channel is actually National Geographic with HD showing in its logo.

shhh.... don't tell Davmel.

[sccs]

You can get a Video Enhancer from Jaycar and probably Dick Smith/Tandy. About $110 to $130. That plugs in between MyStar and your DVD and you can record shows when you are playing them on MyStar.

dmudgeau, on Nov 22 2007, 11:11 AM, said:

Yes please I would also like to know if backing up to DVD is possible.

Are you able to just output the box via compsosite or soemthing to a DVD recorder and playback your recording in real time and record it to you DVD Recordwr?

Or is macrovisioned or something?

[sccs]

I've had nothing but trouble with MyStar which started when StarPicks came on line. Free to air channels disappear from time to time and often turning it on in the morning I find the Blue Load Screen is frozen - apparently since the nightly EPG upgrade. Too bad if you had a program set to record at 4AM.
I don't know whether the HD system will fix these problems so not sure whether to try it or not.

OzyDave, on Oct 31 2009, 06:03 AM, said:

I have to do a supplimenatary reset most days to recover the MyDisaStar anyway. Latest bug is when deleting a viewed program from the planner, the machine semi freezes up with the blue star picture. If I exit the planner to live tv, all I get is a black screen. Toggle power with the remote and the live tv returns. Go to the planner and the deleted program is still there. The program cannot then be deleted, with the same sequence of events suffered until I reset the box.
I may get the HD version just to be rid of this rubbish product. Austar will then be hearing from me every time the HD box fails in any way. I am not putting up with the same situation again.

[nutmeg1]

Does any one else find that when you set up a programme to be recorded and you are recording at the time that if you set the  programme
to be kept or series linked it takes forever to show and if you hit the button in frustration that you can turn off what setting you had set.

Will the new HDD boxes be using similar architecture as the my***t boxes, or are they different like the standard box is different from my***t boxes ?

[oz_wide]

nutmeg1, on Oct 31 2009, 04:07 PM, said:

Does any one else find that when you set up a programme to be recorded and you are recording at the time that if you set the  programme
to be kept or series linked it takes forever to show and if you hit the button in frustration that you can turn off what setting you had set.

Will the new HDD boxes be using similar architecture as the my***t boxes, or are they different like the standard box is different from my***t boxes ?

I have to start swallowing some pride and start agreeing with you folks on the mystar issues. I have in the last week had that many issues where it has been embarassing to attend a customers residence because I can not for the life of me offer a fix reason. I have replaced that many decoders that had great signal levels (15+ MER with 68-75 DBuV) on avergae across 3 transponders yet these still failed. WHAT THA !

Yet  have been told by a few guys (and gals) that have been beta testing the HD boxes that they are fantastic. NOTHING like the mystars. Lets hope that this is true. (And being a tech I still have no idea when we are all getting the HD boxes for trial before fire.) Download shows, save some money and headaches is my new train of thought !

[ozbrit]

sqibby, on Oct 31 2009, 08:49 PM, said:

I have to start swallowing some pride and start agreeing with you folks on the mystar issues. I have in the last week had that many issues where it has been embarassing to attend a customers residence because I can not for the life of me offer a fix reason. I have replaced that many decoders that had great signal levels (15+ MER with 68-75 DBuV) on avergae across 3 transponders yet these still failed. WHAT THA !

Yet  have been told by a few guys (and gals) that have been beta testing the HD boxes that they are fantastic. NOTHING like the mystars. Lets hope that this is true. (And being a tech I still have no idea when we are all getting the HD boxes for trial before fire.) Download shows, save some money and headaches is my new train of thought !

There doesn't look as if there will be a trial, they're going out to the public during second half November, I heard CEO Porter stating this on the media watch program on the Business channel only a couple of few weeks ago, so no time left for installer tech trials.

Don't hold your breath hoping the HD box turns out to be more reliable. Austar is a company built on BS.  Did you see the claim by the company in their recent flyer, that they (Austar) have launched a satellite to bring us more channels.  Yeah Austar did this. Some of us know they couldn't have done anything of the sort, Austar are only on-sellers of paytv to regional Australia.

The satellites that bring Austar TV to our homes are owned by Optus and Austar/Foxtel/ABC etc pay them for transponder space. Austar clearly believe the public are up for BS'ing.

Back to the Mystar, you should know better than us about how highly Austar regards their super inter-galactic soaraway miracle Mystar with its four tuners.

Edited by ozbrit, 01 November 2009 - 11:30 AM.

[nephi66]

Jason_dinAlt, on Oct 28 2009, 06:50 AM, said:

OMG this actually works! Im currently watching bbc knowedge!  but selecting a channel by the ipop up doesnt wotk, i have to manually enter the channel. also, on a couple of channels it asks for a pin! WTF!

I tried it and could not believe that it actually worked, nice, no pins and the i pop up works, I can scroll and go to the channels, I notice that CBeebies isnt there though, my bub would have liked that, could have given it a trial run with her, but hey, eurosports etc works, only movie channels not working are FMC and starpics 1 and 2, so not bad......cant wait til the 15th, and of course getting a bloody mystar HD.

[Jason_dinAlt]

this release of HD on the 15th is a farce. I have rang several times now to be told they dont know when (or if) i will get a HD mystar. How can they say HD starts on that day if no-one will have a box to wwatch it. its absurd! Did anyone else notice the blatant false advertising in novembers printed guide? page 58, ford ranger cup, big red circle with letters saying now in HD, down below sth aust vs vic live nov 4th on fox sports 3 HD. how can it be "now in HD" on the 4th if HD doesnt start until the 15th?

[oz_wide]

Jason_dinAlt, on Nov 1 2009, 07:14 AM, said:

this release of HD on the 15th is a farce. I have rang several times now to be told they dont know when (or if) i will get a HD mystar. How can they say HD starts on that day if no-one will have a box to wwatch it. its absurd! Did anyone else notice the blatant false advertising in novembers printed guide? page 58, ford ranger cup, big red circle with letters saying now in HD, down below sth aust vs vic live nov 4th on fox sports 3 HD. how can it be "now in HD" on the 4th if HD doesnt start until the 15th?

We as installers are getting an order prior to the 15th of November for installation on the 15th. Not everyone will get theirs on the 15th obviously though unless ATS put on another 2000+ installers for the day !

[Jason_dinAlt]

really? thats interesting. the 15th is a sunday. are the installers working on a sunday now? or will we have to wait until monday, hence being HD on the 15th is still a farce

And I wonder why the poor drones on the sales desk dont know who will get one, whats the point of "expressing your interest" if they cant tell you whether you were successful or not Im going to ring every bloody day until I get an answer, obviously if I still get a dont know on friday the 13th   then i missed out.