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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 06-07-08/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
or 64 fold speed, so that you
don’t have to search long
for your favourite scene.
We did like that it is pos-
sible to save the entire con-
figuration of the receiver
onto an external storage
medium so that you always
have a working channel list
plus all individual settings
available if worse comes to
worst.
Obviously, you can also
choose to update the re-
ceiver’s software with the
help of a USB storage me-
dium, even though most
will probably prefer a di-
rect download thanks to the
network connection of the
Amiko Alien 2.
The PVR features of the
receiver are complemented
by an MP3 music player and
an image viewer for JPEG
and BMP files. It will also
play back videos download-
ed from the Internet, pro-
vided they come in standard
file formats such as MPEG,
TS, AVI, DivX, VOB, etc. All
this turns the Amiko Alien 2
into a genuine multimedia
centre in your living room.
One of the major bonus
features of the Amiko Alien
2 is its network connectivity
to your home network and
of course to the Internet
as well. The manufacturer
placed great emphasis on
this aspect, which is reflect-
ed in the enormous range
of functions and options for
network integration. You
may either use any existing
cabling for hooking up the
receiver to your LAN, or you
can go wireless and access
the Internet without any
Ethernet cable at all.
Even if you don’t have
Internet at your place the
Amiko Alien 2 offers a
smart solution: Simply get
the Huawei K3526, E1550,
E1750 or any other com-
patible USB modem to use
Internet via a 3G mobile
phone network. And if that
is not offered where you
live either, you may always
use the built-in modem and
connect it to your landline –
either way, the world wide
web will soon be at your fin-
gertips.
Once a connection to the
Internet is established the
Spark software has a few
aces up its sleeve. For ex-
ample, a text ticker informs
users whenever a new soft-
ware version is available for
download and the manufac-
turer can even use this mes-
saging system to provide in-
formation on new products
or important news.
By default, the ‘Network-
ing’ item of the main menu
has a number of applica-
tions in store for access to
the YouTube video portal,
Shoutcast Internet radio
service, Picasa image ser-
vice, RSS feeds, Kartina
IPTV or to web TV content
at large. For simply surfing
the web the Amiko Alien 2
offers the Opera browser
which – together with the
OSD keyboard – creates a
very pleasing user experi-
ence. The basic network
features are rounded off
with an FTP client for ac-
cess to any FTP server for
file transfer and a weather
forecast service.
The Opera browser comes
with a jazzed up home
screen with links to fre-
quently used pages such as
eBay, Bing, Google or Ama-
zon as well as social media
networks (Facebook, Twit-
ter, Google+, etc.).
If it turns out you use the
Amiko Alien 2 for Internet
access more frequently than
expected, getting the Amiko
WLK-100 mini wireless key-
board might turn out to be
a worthwhile investment.
It will further enhance your
browsing experience since
aside from the keyboard it
also sports a track pad.
The receiver is fully Amiko
WLK-100 mini compatible
and naturally we gave it a
go: The two turned out to
be a perfect match. Writ-
ing mails or chatting with
friends is sheer pleasure
and you’ll find that your
PC or smartphone will stay
put where they are while
you’re browsing away on
the TV. The Amiko Alien 2
supports the NFS protocol
and therefore allows storing
recordings right on a net-
work drive. You’ll appreciate
that possibility if you like to
create DVDs with your re-
cordings, since it does not
involve any additional file
copying.
Let‘s go back to the Spark
portal once again, because
it is something which in our
opinion deserves special
praise. It offers a range of
small applications for vari-
ous kinds of use. Some of
these apps are in-house
developments, others come
from third-party and pri-
vate software developers
who are able to use a dedi-