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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 04-05/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
36. Language selection
37. Satellite list
38. RASD TV via
INTELSAT 14 45° West
comes in flawlessly
39. With the useful
Fast Scan option
only transponders
of particular pay TV
providers are scanned
PVR functionality it is pos-
sible to select any event for
recording with the yellow
function key.
While watching TV it is pos-
sible to change the language,
activate closed captioning or
change a NVOD sub-channel
on the fly – the manufactur-
er has implemented all these
functions with dedicated
keys on the remote control.
What’s more, one press of a
button is also all it takes to
call up the satellites or fa-
vourites list. If you’re look-
ing for a specific channel and
only know its name but not
its position on the channel
list, a fully-functional OSD
keyboard can be activated
to enter the name or a part
of it. Even the video resolu-
tion can be changed with a
dedicated button on the re-
mote control without hav-
ing to take a detour to the
main menu. Talk about ease
of use!
The integrated zoom func-
tion is a nice gadget, but
due to ever decreasing video
resolutions in standard defi-
nition it’s not really worth its
while. If active, it offers up
to 16-fold enlargement, to-
gether with a corresponding
reduction of video detail, of
course.
We should want to men-
tion the top-notch teletext
decoder of the AMIKO set-
top box. True, most users
these days have high-speed
Internet access, smart-
phones and all sorts of other
electronic media channels,
but teletext still has not lost
any of its appeal as a quick
information source while
watching TV. The STHD-
8820 CICXE PVR provides
teletext either through its
create a PIN-protected pa-
rental lock for certain chan-
nels. Favourites lists can of
course be created as well,
even though the manufac-
turer has opted to offer a
separate menu item for fa-
vourites lists management.
While this may sound unu-
sual for some, we feel that
it’s a clever move.
Now that all basic param-
eters are set we can finally
say good-bye to the main
menu and let the receiver
switch to the first channel
on the list. As soon as the
channel appears an info bar
at the bottom of the screen
pops up showing the title of
the current and next events
plus icons for teletext, en-
cryption, subtitles, HD con-
tent and language options,
if available. Two bars indi-
cate signal quality and sig-
nal strength of the current
channel and thus give a
quick hint at the current re-
ception situation.
A simple touch of the ‘Info’
button calls up extended
event information of the
current broadcast, while
the red function button re-
trieves all kinds of technical
data for a more professional
look at the signal. You may
even move the info bar from
the bottom to the top of the
screen using a special menu
item, and this is something
we haven’t seen before and
find a rather innovative op-
tion.
Users can also choose
whether the channel list that
appears after pressing the
‘OK’ button is made up of
one, two or three columns.
A number of additional fea-
tures can be called up using
the colour-coded function
keys. The red button chang-
es the content of the chan-
nel list to specific groups
(all channels, favourites,
channels of specific satel-
lites, or alphabetic sorting),
individual providers, differ-
ent CAS systems, HD only
or terrestrial channels only.
The green button activates
the extended electronic
program guide for the cur-
rently selected channel and
the yellow button allows di-
rect editing of channel list
entries. Use this feature to
quickly rename or block in-
dividual channels, to add
them to a favourites list or to
mark them for skipping. Fi-
nally, the blue button can be
used to sort all entries ac-
cording to FTA/CAS, alpha-
bet (A-Z or Z-A) or blocked/
non-blocked channels.
If channels provide the
relevant information, the
AMIKO’s EPG is a valuable
planning tool for a lazy even-
ing in front of the telly. Press
the ‘EPG’ button and the re-
ceiver presents content in-
formation for five channels
at a time. The red button
with the group function we
know from channel list man-
agement is available here as
well and can be used to re-
strict EPG data to a specific
favourites list, for exam-
ple. The AMIKO STHD-8820
CICXE PVR is able to offer a
preview for up to seven days
and since it comes with full