AB IPBox 910HD - TELE-satellite International Magazine

use the card in combina-
tion with the Windows Media
Center (only with Windows
Vista and Windows MCE
2005). As – unfortunately
– the Windows Media Center
does not support HDTV with
H.264 we decided right at
the start to use the in-house
software solution provided
by the manufacturer.
Installation was completed
in a breeze, and we also did
not encounter any difficulties
installing all required drivers
on our test PC which is
equipped with Intel Core2Duo
1.8 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia
Geforce graphics board and
Windows Vista. A few minutes
was all it took to get
ready for HDTV on the PC.
Everyday use
Even at first sight the
FireDTV Viewer impresses
with its sleek, cleverly laid
out and easy to use appearance.
The manufacturer went
at great lengths to avoid
overpowering users with a
main screen that is full of
buttons, features and adjustment
options. Thanks to this
strategy even absolute beginners
will not be overwhelmed
by an endless variety of settings
and thus should be able
to use the software after only
a short while.
The main window displays
the selected TV channel
in presentation mode (full
screen) or any desired size.
Only when the mouse cursor
is moved to the outer right
section of the window does a
channel list pop up. This way
no valuable space is wasted
by a permanent channel list
display.
The control bar is located
at the lowest end of the
FireDTV Viewer and can be
used to control the viewer.
Altogether it boasts eleven
buttons, which are (from
left to right): play/pause,
record, timer, previous
channel, search, one channel
down, one channel up,
volume, mute, teletext and
EPG. Above the control bar a
second bar indicates the current
position during playback.
It can also be used to move
to another position thanks to
time shifting during playback
and recording. There are no
dedicated buttons for fast
forward and fast rewind, but
thanks to the time shift bar
this is no real loss.
Once the installation process
is finished the software
is ready to perform its first
channel scan. The FireDTV
Viewer comes with a prestored
list of 153 European,
Asian and American satellite
positions which is quite upto-date
and well sorted. Any
required LOF can be used
which means that the good
old C band is supported just
as well as signals from the
exotic S band.
DiSEqC 1.0, 1.2 and 1.3
are available if your set-up
includes more than one LNB
and make the software compatible
with small dual-feed
antennas as well as motorised
dishes. Only those
relying on DiSEqC 1.1 (frequently
used in combination
with multi-focus antennas)
are left standing in the rain,
as the software currently is
unable to work with such systems.
In the end, however,
the manufacturer would be
able to rectify this glitch with
a simple software update.
The pre-stored transponder
list allows performing a
channel scan either across
the full frequency range of
a satellite or for a restricted
range. Alternatively, a single
transponder can be chosen
for a scan as well. Each scan
result is saved separately
with an individual time stamp
by the software and it is even
40 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 04-05/2009 — www.TELE-satellite.com
CI menu
PVR timer function
Extended EPG
possible to decide whether
the result should be added to
an existing list or stored separately.
In case you don’t use
a conditional access module
it is of course perfectly possible
to restrict any search
to free-to-air channels only.
We tested the software with
HOTBIRD 13° East with its
100+ transponders and were
surprised it took only 4:20
minutes to find more than
1500 TV and radio channels,
which is quite an achievement.
Now that the channel list is