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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 09-10/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
is considerably smaller. An
overview of the distinguish-
ing factors between the two
can be seen in our table.
The receivers use differ-
ent processors, even though
both are clocked with 1230
DMIPS at 500/333 MHz (CPU/
DSP) and thus are largely
identical.
There are only marginal
differences which go unno-
ticed by users, since the pro-
cessing capacity is identical
and in both receivers the CPU
is not fully exploited. In the-
ory, for example, both pro-
cessors could support even
more flash memory. The sin-
gle genuine processor-based
distinction is Dolby Digital
Plus, which is only available
with the AZBox ME thanks to
its SIGMA SMP 8655 proces-
sor.
Here is a quick rundown
of the major differences be-
tween the two receivers:
•
Hard disk:
While it is
possible to install in internal
2.5’’ HDD in the AZBox ME,
the miniMe only allows an
external HDD via USB or e-
SATA.
•
Firmware:
The flash
memory of the AZBox ME can
store three different firmware
versions. When switching on
the receiver you can either
press 0, 1 or 2 on the remote
control to select the firmware
you prefer. With the AZBox
miniMe it is only possible to
store two different firmware
versions in the (smaller) flash
memory (0 and 1).
•
Display:
With the AZBox
ME you get a blue alphanu-
meric VDF display show-
ing the channel name when
switched on and the current
timewhen in standby. The dis-
play is particularly important
when selecting the firmware
version to boot from – the
display will show BOOT[0],
BOOT[1] or BOOT[2] so that
you know you can release
the corresponding button on
the remote control. The AZ-
Box miniMe does not feature
such a display, which means
you select the firmware by
pressing the respective but-
ton (0, 1 or VOL+) and most
probably keep your finger on
the button much longer than
required.
The AZBox miniMe we re-
ceived for testing came with
pre-installed AZtrino v1.6.
We checked on the manufac-
turer’s website (http://www.
azbox.com) and found out
that it was the current firm-
ware for the receiver.
Once we had connected
all cables to the receiver we
were finally able to turn it
on. It always surprises us no
end to see how user-friendly
a receiver can be with top-
notch software. In this case
we were smoothly guided
through various configura-
tion steps by an efficient wiz-
ard, starting with language
selection.
Even though this receiver
is small, the range of avail-
able languages is huge and
we cannot think of a box that
offers more options!
Video resolution is next,
with all modes from 480p to
1080p being available, either
with 50 Hz or 60 Hz. Obvi-
ously, it is also possible to
select interlaced mode (i) for
all resolutions. We went for
1080i, a configuration that is
very popular in Europe.
What follows is the cor-
rect time zone, and here too
the manufacturer seemed to
have thought of all corners of
the world.
From these basic settings
we are guided to the net-
work parameters. DHCP is
activated by default, and this
actually makes sense since
the router automatically as-
signs all required values and
addresses.
If you prefer to work with
a static user-defined IP ad-
dress you can of course also
manually set all parameters.
At this stage you can even
define a so-called time server
from which the AZBox min-
iMe obtains the exact time.
While it is true that the cur-
rent time is also transmitted
with DVB-S/S2 data streams
we found that some provid-
ers are simply incapable of
sending a correct and stand-
ardised time stamp so that it
may happen during zapping