TELE INTERNATIONAL - TELE-satellite International Magazine

Digital, analogue
and Free-to-Air
Although the satellite market may look very
simple, in fact it is very complex. There are
so many different kinds of users. Everyone
with their own desires and wishes. For manufacturers,
this means finding the right mix
of specifications at a fair price. Not every
user is interested in a digital receiver with
common-access interfacing for pay-TV services.
Many users are only interested in Freeto-Air
reception, but do not want to lose the
analogue channels. One receiver offering this
all in one box would be the ideal solution.
Not a cheap solution where in fact two main
boards are integrated in one housing, but a
real proper low-threshold receiver offering
C-band reception and trouble-free SCPC.
At Hyundai Digital Technology (HDT) we
have found a receiver offering this all. No,
not a test sample, but a receiver which is
already available in a satellite shop near
you: the HSS-700A.
HSS-700A
Unpacking the receiver made it clear to
us that this is a real mass production product
and not a late test version. Two manuals
are included, one in English and one in the
German language. Decent, printed manuals
in good translations.
The receiver looks rather small (it is
335 by 267 by 66mm) which is emphasised
by the slim front. Seven keys on the
front enable the complete control over the
receiver, even without the remote control.
It can store up to 1000 channels, which ID
is shown in the medium-sized display. We
think that 1000 channels is rather little for
a receiver offering digital and analogue TV
and radio all together. This Hyundai performs
well on MCPC signals but SCPC is also
of no problem at all. Both in Ku-band or
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C-band. Although we missed a built-in positioner,
the presence of DiSEqC v2.0 makes
up for this by opening the doors to a wide
variety of satellites. Although integrated into
one receiver, this Hyundai offers two kinds
of reception, being analogue and digital. At
the back of the receiver, therefore, 3 F-connectors
for LNBs are located. In fact, one
of these 3 connectors is an output. So it is
possible to connect one LNB to the analogue
part and another to the digital input.
Normally, you could connect the output to
the the input of the analogue part. A short
cable to do this is included, of course.
Doing so, a user isn’t bothered with
where a signal is coming from and how
it should be processed. The only thing an
average user wants is choosing the channel
desired and enjoying the show.
Although only two Scart (Peritel) connectors
are present, an additional AV signal is
offered on three phono connectors. The
receiver also features a 12-Volt control, also
in phono. The built-in modulator perfectly
integrates the receiver’s signal into an existing
terrestrial cable/antenna signal. It can be
set to any channel on the UHF band (PAL)
or to channel 3/4 for NTSC.
The power supply will do its job with current
between 100 and 240 Volt (47-63 Hz),
which gives this receiver its global approval.
Not in the least because of the fact that the
HSS-700A can store positions of up to 32
satellites. It only lacks the corotor control. At
TSI, we have some information on another
version of this receiver offering both a positioner
and polariser control.
Polarisation switching is done with the
usual 14/18 volt, which doesn’t enable skew
adjusting. Perhaps Hyundai will upgrade
this in future versions too.
It is remarkable how the few buttons give
you full control over this receiver. Besides
the usual numeric keypad, another
16 buttons will do the job, only
seven of which are used in daily
operation of the HSS-700A.
In practice
Power on the HSS-700A and a
high-resolution graphic welcome is
yours. Although this looks fine, many
of us will get suspicious about the speed of
such an intensive graphical interface. We
have seen these things before; nice graphical
interfaces terribly slowing down the
receiver. But this doesn’t go for the HSS-
700A. Despite the graphically intense user
interface, changing channels and screens
is very fast. Even when switching between
analogue and digital channels the Hyundai
doesn’t hesitate. The on-screen menus
are easy to understand and laid out very
clearly. The European version of this box
comes with most important satellites already
programmed for your convenience. This
makes the first installation much easier. The
on-screen display speaks English, German,
French, Italian and Spanish. To perfectly
align your dish, a built-in signal strengthmeasuring
tool will show you the actual
figure on-screen. Additional satellites can
be easily programmed. For every satellite
you can programme a different LOF, 0/12V,
DiSEqC and 22kHz. For a new satellite,
the transponder layout must be scanned.
Whenever only one polarisation plane may
be scanned, and the other at another time,
the already stored values are not overwritten.
Every transponder setting can be edited
or deleted. For digital reception only the frequency
and symbol rates are needed. This
works fine in both MCPC and SCPC reception.
Programming analogue channels will
require you to enter the LNB input value
between 950 and 2150MHz. This may be a
little confusing and annoying. It would have
been a nice feature if it had been possible
to use the digital LOF settings here. The FEC
and PID codes are found automatically as
long as their values are in the data stream.
The service menu offers the possibility to
integrate this receiver in small television
networks.
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