Finally i received my Astro b.yond decoder, dish and remote control together with the new byond activated card which will give me the HD service which i have been waiting for. Getting the installation was not exactly a breeze, i subscribed for the service on the 14th of December 09 and after numerous calls to astro, i finally got a agent who was interested to help me get it sorted and hence the installation is done.

Only after 1 day after my last call i received a call from the Astro Byond team who gave me a call run down on the terms and conditions

The terms :

You are locked down for 12 months.
RM 20 per month (x12 months) on top of your current subscription
You get the HD channels based on your subscription(There are currently 4 channels and more to come!)

Currently i have the sports channel which falls under this bracket but im considering taking the movie channel after looking at the kinda quality you get(Its awesome!).

So my installer came in today to install the HD set and as usual there was a problem, apparently Byond needs good signal to be able to display the HD channels. There are 2 elements, Signal Strength & Signal Quality . If both are satisfactory, then only you will receive the channels.

So my previous dish which was at my balcony was not getting the right signal so it had to be moved away from my unit to a location where the reception was better. Unfortunately, you get only 10meters of wiring for free. So i had to pay extra for the wiring to my unit from the dish.But its all good because now i don’t have a dish on my balcony and the installer did a good job with the wiring so its hardly visible

But it was worth the trouble, when the unit was powered up… The signal was way better and i got a glimpse of the brilliant quality! Unfortunately i only have the sports channel which falls under the new HD channels and it was like i was watching a dvd!! Brilliant quality!

The new set also brings a new format in the way the guide is displayed. You no longer need to see a blue screen but actually watch a preview of the channel which browsing the information. The decoder is significantly smaller and the remote is pretty neat as well!!

So now i have Byond installed and I am tempted to subscribe to the movie channel to see what is in store. Also looking forward to more new HD channels to come in. On top of everything, cant wait for World Cup 2010 in HD!