26
TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 1 -12/2012
—
www.TELE-satellite.com
Naturally, we were only too
eager to try that out and can
confirm that cloud access
works smoothly and flaw-
lessly.
These days the Inter-
net has become our con-
stant companion, no matter
whether it’s the PC at home,
laptop computer, tablet
or smartphone on the go.
We’ve become used to being
online all of the time, every
step of the way.
Following from this, it’s
only logical for Jiuzhou to
add Internet functional-
ity to its DTP2100 by im-
plementing a fully-fledged
web browser. It supports
Javascript, loads web pages
quickly and provides a range
of practical features such as
multi-window browsing.
It only takes a few com-
mands from the remote
control to switch between
windows and you can even
choose to save web content
onto an external storage
medium.
Websites you call up regu-
larly can be moved to a fa-
vourites list and can then be
called up with the touch of
a button. Previously visited
sites can be looked up again
using the history function
which logs all visited pages.
Apart from their brilliant
implementation, all the fea-
tures and functions we dis-
cussed so far are great to
have, but can be found with
other DVB-T receivers as
well. It’s the Android oper-
ating system that well and
truly sets this product apart
from its competitors.
Thanks to Android the
DTP2100 has access to virtu-
ally all apps available on the
Google Play marketplace, no
matter if they come from
multinational software gi-
ants or independent devel-
opers.
You select an app that
seems right for you and
download it to the receiver
–
that’s all there is to it. Mil-
lions of apps are available
that way, and while many of
them have to be purchased
there is also a substantial
free offering.
Google Play can either be
accessed directly from the
receiver, or you may browse
the marketplace on your PC
at
http://play.google.com
.
As soon as you have found
an app in the Google Play
Store you simply press a
button on the receiver’s re-
mote control for the down-
load to begin. Installation is
automatic so that you’ll be
able to work with your new
app in a matter of minutes.
Jiuzhou ships its Android
receiver with a number of
popular apps pre-installed,
such as YouTube or Face-
book, for example. So even
by default you’re all set for
moving around in social net-
works. If you also want to
use Twitter, Foursquare and
similar services you’ll find all
of them in Google Play.
Some apps bring to the
fore a minor drawback of the
DTP2100 – as far as Android
is concerned the receiver is
regarded as a tablet, which
means all apps downloaded
from Google Play act tablet-
like as well. This means some
commands require screen
gestures (swipes, pressing a
certain area on the screen,
etc.) which cannot be per-
formed with the remote
control of the DTP2100. The
same is true for apps requir-
ing a GPS signal.
Even though, we should
not put all the blame on Jiu-
zhou. It seems that Google
and many app developers
were taken by surprise by
the many different uses for
the Android operating sys-
tem. They are now address-
ing these issues and will
surely adjust some of their
apps for receiver use. The
pre-installed Facebook and
YouTube apps, however, are
not affected at all by this
problem. Both access the
respective online services
quickly and reliably, and it
was above all the YouTube
app that truly impressed us.
Users can access their user
account (if available) after
providing their login data. It
is possible to search and sort
specific content, and if you
want to upload your videos
the app even provides that
option as well.
The Facebook app is a
similar treat that provides
an extremely pleasing user
experience. Not only does
it allow you to follow your
friends’ timeline, but you
can also use the message
and chat features that you
know from your PC or mobile
device.
If you need to update your
own status or would like to
add photos or videos – just
go ahead, the Facebook app
supports all these functions
flawlessly.
As far as apps are con-
cerned, we discovered an-
other handy tool for keeping
on top of what might in time
become a rather huge pile of
different apps: With the OTT
(
On The Top) entry in the
main menu you can identify
apps you use most frequent-
ly and then have quick ac-
cess to them without having
to browse through all your
other apps.
Before we come to our fi-