1914 replies to this topic

[whispa1970]

So what does everyone think of MYSTAR now you have it.

I think it is great, probably because it's the first PVR I have ever owned, apart from a PC with digital TV tuner.

I have had issues with the EPG not loading,

for some reason the EPG is not loading past 11 AM.

Edited by whispa1970, 17 November 2007 - 07:14 AM.

[optima]

WELL I THINK THEY SEEM TO BE OK  AT THE MOMENT,  BUT IS THERE ANY WIZZ PERSON OUT THERE THAT CAN  DOWNLOAD THE FILMS FROM  THE MYSTAR BOX TO DVD,

[techdribble]

So far so good no major issues. Picture quality improved over my old box. A recording so far has been straight forward.
The one minor issue is not being able to tune the 2 local commercial stations which Austar are saying is a problem their side and because my tv has a built in HD tuner doesnt affect my viewing of FTA.

[Chappas]

I had mine installed yesterday. YIPEE!


I'm having the 11am issue as well Whispa. The only thing I can think of thats causing this is that 11am AEDT time is UTC +0:00 because NSW is in the +11:00 timezone and the timestamp on satellites around the world work on UTC time. I got this same problem on my Atlas the first time the new EPG was released and then it went away suddenly with a RESET at 5am and newer version of the EPG.

Your Austar decoder timeshifts the time in your EPG depending where you are in the country and what timezone you select in your DECODER settings.

[ozbrit]

I like it as well. Had an Austar techie around yesterday and he took notes.  Probs with the EPG downloading not neccesarily at 11am but intermittent at any time of day - the smooth background music continually breaks up as well.   The fta tuners only give 7,9 & 10 but no channel 2 which is broadcasting a dolby digital pro-logic code, the channel 2 from the satellite is PCM (basic stereo) only.  So in my case the fta STB will be staying as well. The guys who developed the mystar are obviously not au-fait with why some of us are excited by digital delivery.  

The Austar techie was very understanding of these issues.

No way to download latest enhancements to mystar, via set-up. Lets hope the HD box is here before blu-ray is the standard  

Edited by ozbrit, 17 November 2007 - 01:40 PM.

[davmel]

ozbrit, on Nov 17 2007, 01:37 PM, said:

The fta tuners only give 7,9 & 10 but no channel 2 which is broadcasting a dolby digital pro-logic code,

FTA terrestrial ABC has BOTH a Dolby Digital AC3 audio and an MPEG-1 Audio layer 2 audio stream. There shouldn't be any reason you can't receive ABC.

Quote

the channel 2 from the satellite is PCM (basic stereo) only.

No, the satellite transmission is MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 - NO satellite channels use uncompressed PCM audio as it's far too wasteful. Either MPEG-1 or AC3 DD are used.
Your decoder converts the MPEG audio into PCM, but don't confuse that with what is transmitted.

[cjhayes]

Got the MyStar yesterday as well and apart from issues with 2 terrestrial digital channels, all seems OK.

From what the techs (3 of them came around as it was the first install in my area) told me, it seems that the terrestrail channels are pre-configure to access certain transmitters and they were unaware that there is a local transmitter that services a small area of Coffs Harbour and the MyStar box will only lock in the main and more distant transmitter.

Consequently, whilst I can get perfect reception on my Digital STB, the MyStar box get reception that gives marked pixellation, particularly on Channel 10.  Channel 9 haven't set up on the local transmitter yet but luckily, the signal is coming in strong enough from the main transmitter that I get a reasonable picture.  Prime suffers a bit like 10, just not as bad.

I find the box very easy to use, the picture quality is good but it seems to have some issues with providing program information at this stage.  Last night, my wife was watching a movie on Prime (7) and called me to come and watch it after it had been going for 20 mins.  We just hit the rewind button and watched the whole thing again from the start.  Love that!  I know that's probably no big deal to seasoned PVR users but I found it cool - and really easy to activate.

So, it's a thumbs up from me thus far.

Cheers,

Clinton.

[dj_salinger]

cjhayes, on Nov 17 2007, 07:00 PM, said:

Got the MyStar yesterday as well and apart from issues with 2 terrestrial digital channels, all seems OK.

From what the techs (3 of them came around as it was the first install in my area) told me, it seems that the terrestrail channels are pre-configure to access certain transmitters and they were unaware that there is a local transmitter that services a small area of Coffs Harbour and the MyStar box will only lock in the main and more distant transmitter.

Consequently, whilst I can get perfect reception on my Digital STB, the MyStar box get reception that gives marked pixellation, particularly on Channel 10.  Channel 9 haven't set up on the local transmitter yet but luckily, the signal is coming in strong enough from the main transmitter that I get a reasonable picture.  Prime suffers a bit like 10, just not as bad.

I find the box very easy to use, the picture quality is good but it seems to have some issues with providing program information at this stage.  Last night, my wife was watching a movie on Prime (7) and called me to come and watch it after it had been going for 20 mins.  We just hit the rewind button and watched the whole thing again from the start.  Love that!  I know that's probably no big deal to seasoned PVR users but I found it cool - and really easy to activate.

So, it's a thumbs up from me thus far.

Cheers,

Clinton.

I'm having the same EPG issues as well. Also, I set a manual record for Neighbours (for my fiance, not me!) so that it would record 6.30 - 7pm Mon-Fri on Southern Cross Ten, but it will only do the one recording and then disappear. Has anyone else had any success/failure with that?
With some quick calculations based on what percentage of the HDD space a recording takes up I don't think it could take 60 hrs either. Maybe around 24?

I should say that other than that I'm happy!

Edited by dj_salinger, 17 November 2007 - 07:28 PM.

[davmel]

dj_salinger, on Nov 17 2007, 07:26 PM, said:

With some quick calculations based on what percentage of the HDD space a recording takes up I don't think it could take 60 hrs either. Maybe around 24?

The 60 hours is most likely an estimate based on the bitrate from satellite channels which average 2GB (varies between 1.2 and 2.5GB) per hour. FTA terrestrial SD is 3GB per hour and HD is 5.5-7 GB per hour. So if you only record SD FTA it will record <40 hours and with HD <20 hours (assuming that it was a half decent PVR that COULD let you record and view in HD!).
It's pretty pathetic, but I use my HTPC setup to record Austar directly as well and I still can't get enough 750GB and 1TB drives to record everything. The tiny hard drive in the Mystar and IQ is ridiculous given how cheap large hard drives are now.

Edited by davmel, 17 November 2007 - 07:35 PM.

[whispa1970]

Chappas, on Nov 17 2007, 11:08 AM, said:

I had mine installed yesterday. YIPEE!
I'm having the 11am issue as well Whispa. The only thing I can think of thats causing this is that 11am AEDT time is UTC +0:00 because NSW is in the +11:00 timezone and the timestamp on satellites around the world work on UTC time. I got this same problem on my Atlas the first time the new EPG was released and then it went away suddenly with a RESET at 5am and newer version of the EPG.

Your Austar decoder timeshifts the time in your EPG depending where you are in the country and what timezone you select in your DECODER settings.

Seems to be fixed now, but the EPG is slow if you go past a few days.

It didn't record a show today for some reason, but that may have been my fault.

So far so good.

[ozbrit]

davmel, on Nov 17 2007, 05:37 PM, said:

FTA terrestrial ABC has BOTH a Dolby Digital AC3 audio and an MPEG-1 Audio layer 2 audio stream. There shouldn't be any reason you can't receive ABC.
No, the satellite transmission is MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 - NO satellite channels use uncompressed PCM audio as it's far too wasteful. Either MPEG-1 or AC3 DD are used.
Your decoder converts the MPEG audio into PCM, but don't confuse that with what is transmitted.

Perhaps I didn't explain clearly, the terrestial tuners on mystar are for 7,9 & 10 only.  When I select 9 or 10 I get Dolby digital 2.0 streams through my toslink.  When I select channel 2 from the satellite (as its not available on mystars terrestial tuners) I don't have the option of the dolby digital 2.0 or the rare DD5.1 the ABC have been known to deliver via their SD signal. My receiver displays PCM and I know from experience thats only stereo and not encoded dolby.

[davmel]

ozbrit, on Nov 17 2007, 10:38 PM, said:

When I select channel 2 from the satellite (as its not available on mystars terrestial tuners)

Why can't it receive the terrestrial ABC transmission? Can't you go into the menus and manually scan for it?

[Chappas]

davmel, on Nov 17 2007, 11:24 PM, said:

Why can't it receive the terrestrial ABC transmission? Can't you go into the menus and manually scan for it?

Well, its already on the satellite platform as a subscription channel. True, everyone sees ABC and SBS as FREE to AIR, however, it is sold as a package on the satellite platform too. So you care whether or not it has the Dolby Digital AC3 track. I will be calling Austar about that - either let AC3 on the satellite platform to enhance my viewing or let us have ABC and SBS via terrestrial for better audio.

If they were to do that, then there would be NO NEED for regional ABC channels on the satellite platform - a saving they could make to make way for something else?

[whispa1970]

Chappas, on Nov 18 2007, 07:37 AM, said:

Well, its already on the satellite platform as a subscription channel. True, everyone sees ABC and SBS as FREE to AIR, however, it is sold as a package on the satellite platform too. So you care whether or not it has the Dolby Digital AC3 track. I will be calling Austar about that - either let AC3 on the satellite platform to enhance my viewing or let us have ABC and SBS via terrestrial for better audio.

If they were to do that, then there would be NO NEED for regional ABC channels on the satellite platform - a saving they could make to make way for something else?

Austar has been very useful for those that are not able to get ABC or SBS via DVB-T.

I dont understand why they decided to control the DVB-T side of things.  It should have been able to do a search for the channels normally then lock them in.

I have issues with not being able to get one channel because the parameters for my area are slightly wrong, so no WIN TV.

[whispa1970]

I have had to reboot a few times because there are issues with picture, but I have been playing around with it intensly.

Overall, very happy so far.

[davmel]

Chappas, on Nov 18 2007, 06:37 AM, said:

Well, its already on the satellite platform as a subscription channel. True, everyone sees ABC and SBS as FREE to AIR, however, it is sold as a package on the satellite platform too.

The satellite version is a poor recompressed version of the terrestrial transmission (which at 3 Mbps for sat compared to 5.4 Mbps for terrestrial gives a blurry second rate picture).
There's no reason they can't offer both with different channel numbers.

[DrP]

davmel, on Nov 18 2007, 02:52 PM, said:

(which at 3 Mbps for sat compared to 5.4 Mbps for terrestrial gives a blurry second rate picture).

That's not a valid comparison.  The versions of the ABC you see via Austar are very much VBR encodes.  Typically they average 2.5Mbit/sec (far too low hence the quality issue), but can peak far beyond that - up to around 6Mbit/sec depending on what is going on with the other programs in the mux.  ABC's terrestrial SD is essentially CBR 5.4Mbit/sec.

[Chappas]

DrP, on Nov 18 2007, 04:38 PM, said:

That's not a valid comparison.  The versions of the ABC you see via Austar are very much VBR encodes.  Typically they average 2.5Mbit/sec (far too low hence the quality issue), but can peak far beyond that - up to around 6Mbit/sec depending on what is going on with the other programs in the mux.  ABC's terrestrial SD is essentially CBR 5.4Mbit/sec.

Don't forget also, that ABC dictate what the bitrate should be. Every (commerical) channel is so paranoid about how a channel looks and feels to a customer. So may be its ABC who don't give a toss? Granted that channel 102 isn't crash hot either, but ABC tried to fit as much as they could on their own transponder, both TV and radio channels. Some of it is their (ABC's) own fault.

I think Austar should have allowed ABC and SBS terrestrial. They do appear in the 'Local Channels' genre in the EPG which to some they may feel as if its a little misleading.

[bcann]

anyone know what to program a harmony remote as to talk with the mystar... without having to prgram in the extra keys??

Just got mine today.

[whispa1970]

bcann, on Nov 19 2007, 08:03 PM, said:

anyone know what to program a harmony remote as to talk with the mystar... without having to prgram in the extra keys??

Just got mine today.

Should be exactly the same as for the Atlas/Flinders or Titan STB if your had one of those.

Both the remotes work for any of the STB's.

[bcann]

whispa1970, on Nov 19 2007, 08:05 PM, said:

Should be exactly the same as for the Atlas/Flinders or Titan STB if your had one of those.

Both the remotes work for any of the STB's.

but you have to add the extra buttons ... oh well ...

[dj_salinger]

My TV Guide seems to be working a bit better now. It's still slower than my old box but at least it's not freezing all the time! I'm thinking about emailing Austar and telling them they HAVE to change the music on the TV Guide Planner!

We've been giving it a good working out recording wise and it seems to be handling it all OK. Although I still haven't been able to get it to record Neighbours every night of the week using a Manual Recording, anyone else tried this?

[billyb67]

do you have autotune like on foxtel ?

so it automatically changes channel to the program you have set a reminder for ?

thats very important for me

Edited by billyb67, 20 November 2007 - 01:39 PM.

[dj_salinger]

billyb67, on Nov 20 2007, 02:36 PM, said:

do you have autotune like on foxtel ?

so it automatically changes channel to the program you have set a reminder for ?

thats very important for me

No.

[DrP]

dj_salinger, on Nov 20 2007, 02:16 PM, said:

No.

Really makes me wonder what Austar has against such a simple feature.  None of their boxes do it.