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04-05/2012
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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 04-05/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Elegant Receiver Taking Up
Almost No Space At All
TEST REPORT
DVB-T Receiver
As an avid reader of TELE-
satellite you will have no-
ticed a persistent trend in
recent times: Set-top boxes
are shrinking all the time
and it seems the race is on
to launch the smallest box.
All this is not without a rea-
son, because not everybody
has enough space or techni-
cal fondness to display bulky
technical gadgets in the liv-
ing room. The package we
received from Panodic al-
ready hinted at the rather di-
minutive size of the M3601E
DVB-T receiver and after we
had opened it all we found
was a 11.5 x 7.5 x 2.5 cm
black box weighing a mere
118 g. Just think of it, a piece
of cheesecake is heaver than
this receiver – in all senses of
the word!
We appreciated both de-
sign and build quality of
the M3601E and we almost
thought it looked too good
to be hidden behind a flat
screen TV or attached to the
wall using the wall-mounting
openings on the bottom side
of the box. As far as connec-
tions are concerned, this new
Panodic mini-receiver sports
HDMI and RF connections on
the left side, as well as the
obligatory power socket and
connector for the separate
IR receiver on the right side.
We’re talking about DVB-T
here, so an external power
unit providing a 5V current is
more than enough – after all,
there are no LNBs requiring
up to 18V from the device.
Obviously, the Panodic
DVB-T receiver is shipped
with a remote control, but
when looking at the layout of
the control, there’s nothing
obvious about it at all. Ev-
erything seems to be upside
down at first sight. What we
mean by that? Well, all but-
tons controlling PVR func-
tions are positioned in the
uppermost section of the re-
mote control, followed by the
arrow keys that follow the
conventional cross-shaped
arrangement. It is only in
the lower section that the
numeric keypad is located.
In addition, the ‘Stop’ button
cannot be found next to all
the PVR buttons, but appears
on the lower right side of the
arrow keys. You might won-
der what that is all about,
and to be honest, so did we
at first. But the manufacturer
has looked at which buttons
are used most frequently as
well as which section of a re-
mote can be reached most
easily and then designed its
remote control layout ac-
cordingly. Not such a bad
move, we have to say. So
that you don’t have to take
our word for it we asked our
colleagues at the editorial of-
fice what they thought about
the remote control, and the
feedback was overwhelm-
ingly positive. It does take
some time to leave behind
acquired habits and get used
to it, though.
Unfortunately, the external
IR receiver is a component
we cannot praise so highly,
as it did not always pick up
commands sent from the re-
mote control. It was more
point and shoot rather than
remote controlling, if we
wanted to make sure the
receiver followed our com-
mands. On a more positive
note, the integrated LED
which indicates the current
operating mode (green = on,
red = standby) is a very use-
ful feature.
Right after turning on the
Panodic M3601E for the very
www.TELE-satellite.com/
TELE-satellite-1205/eng/panodic.pdf
Panodic M3601E DVB-T
Extremely small receiver with
high-sensitivity HDTV tuner