TELE INTERNATIONAL - TELE-satellite International Magazine

We have been waiting for over one year
and finally it is here: the new Nokia 9800S
Mediamaster. Only shortly before the
Mediacast99 started in London, we received
our first test version of this digital box.
It would have been better to wait for an
update of the firmware, but then it would
have been too late to tell you all about it
in this issue of TSI. At the end of this test
report you will read about the new features.
9800S
The big changes have not only taken
place on the inside but on the outside
as well. Nokia’s latest box was given a
completely new styling of the housing and
remote control. On the front, the colour of
the DVB logo indicates the type of receiver,
where blue stands for a satellite, orange for
a cable and green for a terrestrial receiver.
What is left is the famous green display. It
shows the name of the channel currently
being processed. The 9800S can store up to
2000 channels. Still perfectly hidden behind
a lid are the emergency buttons and the
PCMCIA slots for Common Interfaces and
also a slot for a Viaccess smartcard. Viaccess
is integrated in this new Mediamaster. Using
this Common Interface technology makes
the receiver remarkably universal towards
any encryption method. Almost any encryption
system in use within Europe today will
finds its way in a Common Interface module.
At this moment, modules are available
for Conax (Finland, Norway and Denmark),
Nagravision (Spain), Cryptoworks (Czech
Republic and Xtra-Music, the former DMX)
and Irdeto (except for the modified Irdeto
by DF1/Premiere). The built-in Viaccess
decoder makes reception of French and
Russian channels possible.
So let’s hop on to the back. Unfortunately,
there is only one LNB input. No output
to connect an analogue receiver to. Also
located at the back are two Scart connectors.
Still, it is possible to connect both
your television and VCR and an analogue
receiver. The manual clearly described how
to do this. Nokia has understood very well
why many users of prior Mediamasters had
opened their box and installed a phono connector
for the digital audio output. This new
9800S has been given it already by Nokia.
Of course, an analogue audio output is also
present, both in cinch. The famous RS-232
interface is still present and can be used to
update the firmware or channel settings.
However, you don’t need to update your
receiver using the Internet. A new service
from Nokia is that you can have the receiver
updated using a special signal on the Astra,
Hotbird, Thor or Sirius. It will update your
receiver to the latest situation.
A modulator is now built-in and is software
adjustable. It can be set to any channel
between 21 and 69.
The remote control was fully redesigned.
It is designed to fit perfectly well in your
hand, but it also looks very fine. The circular
menu buttons are still there. New buttons
are Freeze, Service options and a recall
function for the channel you have been
watching most recently.
http://www.TELE-satellite.com
Open-TV
More Information
-www.TELE-satellite.com/TSI/9908/nokia.shtml
In practice
The graphical user interface will easily
guide you through the first steps of
installation. First, you can determine the
language of the box. Here you can choose
from English, German, Swedish, French,
Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Norwegian
and Finnish. After that you have to tell the
receiver what other equipment you have
installed. When using a universal LNB, you
can immediately start enjoying the show. Of
course, after you have properly aligned the
dish. A measuring tool is built-in and shows
the relative signal strength. After entering
the values for a new channel, just press the
OK button and the quality of the signal is
shown.
Almost any digital signal available can
be caught. If ever you want to receive a far
away signal that is not automatically recognised
by this new Mediamaster, just enter
the transponder settings and have the box
do its job. Even without the PID-codes the
Nokia 9800S will find almost anything. This
was not the case for SCPC signals, but after
the already mentioned software update,
this problem will be solved. Searching
manually for certain channels is possible.
Unfortunately, the functions in the extensive
menu structure are not very fast. Switching
channels however is done very fast.
The EPG has been fully redesigned and
could easily replace your current printed
TV-guide. Unortunately, a lot of programme
providers still don’t supply the information
Common
Interface
with their signals. Also in Radio mode the
EPG will do its job.
Finding the channel you want to watch
will be a little bit difficult in a range of 2000
channels. Therefore, you can build your
own favourites lists. Up to nine different
listings with a maximum of 99 channels per
listing can be built. This way, every member
of your family can have its own favourites
listing. But you can also use the nine listings
to categorise. It is easy to delete channels or
to change the order. You can even change
the name of a channel and it is also possible
to lock channels.
Nokia will supply the 9800S with two
listings programmed: one FTA only and one
with both FTA and pay-TV. On the pay-TV
side, the box uses age differentiation to
determine if someone is allowed to watch
certain channels. This prevents your youngest
from seeing things he or she had better
not seen. Channels can also be locked with
a four-digit code.
Nokia has built this 9800S being very sensitive.
So we tried C-band reception. Using
a 2.4m dish, the global and hemi-beams of
Intelsat were caught without any problem.
However, you will need a C-band LNB for
this. With SCPC enabled in the most recent
firmware, many DXers will get a warm feeling
from this new box. Remarkable and a
little disappointing is the disappeared SCSI
connector. We still believe real multimedia
is made of more than a satellite receiver
only. One should be able to connect an
external DVD or CD-ROM drive.
The teletext decoder processed the data
very fast. Whenever a channel uses subtitles
or has a second audio carrier you can easily
select the service with the option button.
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