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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 06-07-08/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Depending on the region
you select the receiver au-
tomatically suggests the
corresponding language for
the on-screen display, which
we found rather conveni-
ent. It goes without saying
that this selection is not
set in stone and you may
of course choose French
as your language of choice
even though you use the
receiver in Germany, for ex-
ample.
In terms of video out-
put resolutions, the follow-
ing options are available:
576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i and
1080p, which makes HDT-
127A a perfect match for fu-
ture transmissions with full
HD resolution as well.
Whenever you change the
resolution you have 15 sec-
onds to confirm the new res-
olution, and if you fail to do
so the box goes back to the
previously set video format.
No more despair in front of
a black screen, caused by a
resolution that is not sup-
ported by your TV panel. A
small step in terms of tech-
nology, a giant leap in terms
of user-friendliness, so to
speak.
In addition, you can set
the video output to either
4:3 (pan & scan or letter
box), 16:9 or Auto, which
means the receiver adjusts
the aspect ratio automati-
cally.
Once all parameters in
the four sections are set by
the user the next step is an
automatic channel search
across the entire VHF and
UHF bands. In our case the
HDT-127A took slightly more
than 90 seconds and de-
tected all active DVB-T fre-
quencies. As soon as that
process is completed the
receiver switches to the first
found channel. Now, let the
viewing pleasure begin…
Contrary to satellite TV
reception with hundreds or
even thousands of channels
the DVB-T offering usually
hovers around a dozen or
so stations, with some re-
gions boasting more variety
than others. Nonetheless,
Panodic has chosen to im-
plement the entire range of
channel management and
editing functions. It is pos-
sible to delete, move, re-
name or PIN-lock individual
entries or to mark channels
for skipping. With a total
of eight favourites list all
members of your family are
guaranteed their own per-
sonalised channel line-up.
In case not all channels
were found by the receiver
during the initial automat-
ic search or new channels
have become available, it is
possible at any time to ac-
cess the installation menu
and repeat the search – you
may even choose whether
or not to look for encrypted
channels as well.
If need be, a manual
search is available too,
which lets you enter either
the required frequency or
the channel number in the
VHF or UHF band.
There is even a dedicated
menu item for antenna ad-
justment, which calls up two
signal bars (indicating qual-
ity and strength) in order to
move the antenna until the
two bars show the best pos-
sible values. Use this menu
item to also select whether
or not the coax cable should
provide 5V current to the
antenna, which is required
for an active antenna.
All remaining set-up op-
tions of the main menu con-
sist of the usual parameters
such as audio language,
teletext, subtitles and digi-
tal audio output in either the
BS or LPCM format.
The internal clock of the
HDT-127A can be set manu-
ally, or the receiver can read
out the correct time from
the DVB-T data stream. To
make sure the right time
for your location is shown
it is not necessary to indi-
cate the time difference to
GMT (as is the case with
many other manufactur-
ers) but only to select your
region from a list. The re-
ceiver even shows a number
of major cities in each time
zone, so that you couldn’t
possible get it wrong. Talk
about user-friendliness!
The Panodic HDT-127A is a
PVR receiver and that is why