1st of all, I’ve got the problems that you guys mentioned:
1- Hang - not always though. Sometimes when I pushed the on/off button, it did not shut down.
2- Bad user interface - ASTRO should have design based on current DMT at least, or better.
3- “Snowing” symptom.
4- No antenae in/out - fyi, I need it to connect it to my 2nd TV set upstairs.
5- Yup the remote is confusing… I am still got confused till now.
6- Recording stop ~5minutes before the programme ends.

Anyway, I paid for it… and I am quite happy with the fact that I can now control my TV programme.
But still I am trying to find some information if I can transfer the movie to my PC. What is the use of the RS232 port, right?

A question .. can we transfer the recordings from astro max to pc???

when checking to satellite signal, it gave me 166. sometimes when viewing current it also shows the simptom. if i use normal decoder, i will get around 74-75 for satellite signal.

before this, when using 2 decoders with 1 dish, i have to turn off one of the decoder’s ‘LNB powering’ option. that one has been solved by getting another dish.

now my astro max and the normal decoder is using separate dish. but the problem still exists.

anybody experince the same ?

p.s. can you sponsor me a macbook?

Anybody with Astro Max do feel free to share your experience here.

My biggest gripe: the set hangs an average of once a day. That’s when it refuses to respond to the remote control. The cure is the famous reboot i.e. yank out the plug and replug in. I have to do this at least once a day. There’s only so many times you can do this before something breaks I reckon. Some more the manufacturer didn’t provide an AC power on/off switch. I have to reach to the back of my AV cabinet to grab the socket, each time praying I won’t get zapped.

My 2nd biggest gripe is the piercing red LED which make the Max looks like a cheap clock radio from the 80’s. If you like viewing a movie in dim lighting, be prepared to be distracted by the over-bright panel LED. There’s no dimming control it seems. It definitely cheapened my set of AV electronics.

My 3rd gripe is the sluggish channel changing compared to the old decoder. I think this is because Max actually records whatever channel you are watching for time-shifting purposes and changing channels triggers extra movement in mechanical parts like the hard disk as well. Makes mindless channel surfing a bit of a chore.

The 4th big minus also comes with a big plus. The plus is the feature to record right off Astro’s schedule at the touch of a button. A week’s schedule is piped into the Max and updated daily. Convenient. The big minus is that in reality satellite programs almost never start and stop at the sheduled time. The effect: recording can stop before the show is finished. I’ve had to trash a few recordings where the last 5 minutes was chopped off because of this synch problem.

Actually Max does allow you to easily extend the end recording time but more often than not, this causes a collision with the next on-the-hour recording slot you might have set. The only way to solve it is to completely drop out of one-touch mode and get into manual mode which sucks. So many key strokes just to set one recording.

But overall I still give Astromax a thumbs up because essentially I can now watch 2 programs without having 2 decoders, thanks to the 2 tuners on board the Max.