Versión de HTML Básico
22
TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 04-05/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
channel entries from a sin-
gle satellite can be deleted
at one time; this would save
some users a lot of time and
aggravation.
In general we were quite
happy with the quick reac-
tion time of the receiver to
remote control commands
as well as with the sensitive
IR receiver. Both of these
make using the receiver that
much easier and can put a
smile on the lips of users
when they‘re working with
the receiver such as when
sorting the channel list.
Once the receiver has
been completely set up ac-
cording to the user‘s re-
quirements, the main menu
can be left simply by push-
ing the „Exit“ button. This
takes the receiver to the
first channel in the chan-
nel list. An informative Info
bar appears that displays
the title of the current and
upcoming programs plus
provides information on the
availability of teletext, sub-
titles or EPG data.
As long as the program-
ming provider offers EPG
data for the next several
days, it can be evaluated and
displayed through the Sky-
worth HS18. For this pur-
pose there are two modes
available: a complete over-
view of a single channel and
also a simultaneous display
of five channels in a grid for-
mat. Both formats are clear-
ly organized and offer the
user a good overview of the
upcoming programs. Since
the Skyworth HS18 is a PVR
receiver, timer recordings
can be set up directly from
the EPG. Unfortunately, you
can only set up a total of
eight timers; considering
the number of TV channels
that are available today, this
number is somewhat small.
But this is made up for by
the well-arranged channel
list that can be easily ac-
cessed with a single push of
the OK button. The list can
be further refined to those
channels from individual
satellites or from specific
groups (provider, CAS). A
practical search function
with the use of the OSD
keyboard is also available
to help make finding specific
channels much easier.
The new HS18 receiver
from Skyworth comes with
a fully functional and quite
sensitive DVB-S2 tuner.
Whether it was weak sig-
nals, such as those on
BADR at 26°E that come in
relatively weak here in Aus-
tria, or narrow band SCPC
signals, the receiver could
not be brought out of its
rhythm. As a result, the
HS18 had no trouble at all
receiving the 12634V tran-
sponder on TURKSAT at
42°E with a symbol rate of
2.222 MS/sec. We were also
surprised at the picture and
audio quality of the small
HS18. It can be used in an
RV with a 24“ monitor just
as well as with a 50“ LCD TV
in your living room at home.
Even though the HS18
isn‘t much larger than a
pack of cigarettes, it eas-
ily becomes a fully featured
PVR receiver thanks to its
USB 2.0 port and the use of
an external storage device.
Its capabilities exceed many
other mini receivers in that
it can record two HD chan-
nels simultaneously while
showing a third TV channel
live. Since the HS18 only has
a DVB-S2 tuner, all three
channels have to be on the
same transponder. As you
would expect with a high-
quality product, Skyworth
also included a time shift
function with the HS18 that
allows the user to pause a
live program and come back
to it at a later time without
missing a thing. In this way
you can answer that tele-
phone call or handle some
other unavoidable interrup-
tion in the middle of your fa-
vorite show without missing
a beat.
The incorporated media
player in the HS18 plays
back all the prerecorded
TV and radio content but is
trumped by an MP3 jukebox,
a picture viewer and a video
player for all of the stan-
dard formats (for example,
MPEG, VOB, TS, MKV, AVI).
This makes the small Sky-
worth HS18 box a fully-fea-
tured multimedia receiver
with which you can not only
enjoy TV and radio pro-
grams, but you can also en-
joy listening to your favorite
songs. And let‘s not forget
that it can also play the lat-
est video clips from the In-
ternet and lets you present
your vacation pictures and
videos to all of your friends.