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TEST REPORT Satellite receiver

Eycos S55.12.PVRH
PVR in premier league
with HDMI
In recent months an up-and-coming company Eycos here. Together with their Austrian distribu- The decisive HDMI port which
from South Korea has made the headlines a number tor Satforce they have high-flying goals and live by Eycos uses to output the
of times when it comes to new, innovative and tech- the motto "there's nothing that cannot be improved scaler signals
nologically superior products. We're talking about further".

The youngest Eycos receiver Eycos, on the other hand, has The design of the S55.12 PVRH Video output and an HDMI port
deserves the description 'quan- listened very thoroughly and they can best be described as unpre- for connection with a plasma or
tum leap' without a doubt. have thought about how these tentious but elegant. The front LCD screen, three RCA jacks for
Countless owners of plasma or problems could be solved. That's panel sports an extremely easy- stereo audio and video, a switch-
LCD screens are furious about when the idea of a PVR receiver to-read alphanumeric display able 0/12 V output, an RS-232
the often miserable video qual- with an integrated scaler came (VFD) as well as eight buttons interface as well as an USB 2.0
ity of many free-to-air satellite up. The scaler is used to increase to operate the receiver without port for connecting the receiver
channels and doubt they have the resolution of the input signal using the remote control. A flap to a PC, an RF modulator and an
made a wise move by investing and to interpolate the missing in the middle of the lower half of optical audio output for perfect
lots of money into state-of-the- pixels to make sure the increased the front panel hides two CI slots surround sound. A main power
art screens which are fed by resolution does not cause the for all standard modules such as switch rounds off the perfect pic-
low-quality satellite channels. raster that would be unavoidable Irdeto, Seca, Viaccess, Conax, ture.
Everyone knows that a bad pic- with a mere increase of the reso- Nagravision etc. There is also a The included remote control
ture becomes worse the bigger lution. They looked for a qualified blind slot for an integrated card features an ergonomic design,
the screen it is watched on. Many partner and found one in Pioneer, reader and Eycos is expected to user-friendly layout and sits
viewers lament the low resolution which assisted in the develop- offer this particular model with nicely in your hand. As a special
of their favourite channels and the ment of the S55.12 PVRH. The embedded Conax in the near treat Eycos includes a second,
limited bandwidth the program final result of this challenging future. smaller remote control with lim-
providers use. Unfortunately, project reached our test lab a ited features, which is a great
these complains are hardly ever few days ago. The excitement does not stop idea as the smaller remote con-
listened to and in order to keep when we look at the packed back trol is ideal for those family mem-
operational expenses low many The excitement was almost panel which includes – apart from bers who only want to turn on the
program providers experiment audible when we opened the the IF input and looped-through receiver and then zap through
with using even less resources to package and the first impression outputs for the two tuners – two the channels. This will certainly
transmit their signals. lived up to our high expectations. scart euroconnectors, an S- be an excellent argument when

TELE-satellite International — www.TELE-satellite.com


ing itself. This means that the tests at our location in Munich
receiver is able to decode all included ASTRA2D with a 90-
saved and scrambled programs cm antenna and yielded positive
of the harddisk at a certain point results as well. All this confirmed
in time and save a free-to-view that the good tuner built into the
copy of all saved items. If the S55.12 PVRH is way above most
module supports this feature, competing products and even
the S55.12 PVRH can even save signals right around the thresh-
two decoded streams at the old level came in remarkable well
same time. We tested it with an and hardly showed a pixelated
Alphacrypt module and it worked image. The only point we would
just fine. like the manufacturer to work on
is SCPC compatibility – 1 Ms/s
Another feature allows record- should be possible with a little
ing four programs simultane- bit of effort, shouldn't it?
ously. Since the receiver comes
with 'only' two tuners, it follows Even though the motion pic-
that the four programs must be ture industry and some pay TV
transmitted on the same two operators are unhappy about it,
transponders. The receiver then almost all manufacturers of PVR
Eycos encloses all needed cabling only highlights those channels receivers have to include a USB
in the list that can actually be 2.0 port in order to generate
received while the recordings enough sales to survive. Eycos is
trying to persuade the rest of the the start whether both tuners
take place. This list of recordings no exception, but they have tried
family to upgrade to this box. should get the same satellite sig-
is arranged with the most recent a little harder and finally found
nals or not. We believe this is a
recording showing up on top of a chipset that allows using the
The user manual is avail- very efficient way of dealing with
the list, contrary to most other full USB 2.0 capacity. This way,
able in German and English and two tuners and once everything
PVRs which sort the recording a 2-GB recording made its way
deserves special praise. It is is properly installed there is no
the other way round. While this from the receiver to a connected
clearly arranged, comprehensive need to worry which tuner to use,
may take some time to get used PC in about three minutes, even
and features pictures when you as the receiver takes care of all
to, it is nonetheless a clever idea without requiring any special
need them. Hardly any questions this. In our test the automatic
that you'll soon begin to really software as the harddisk of the
regarding the S55.12 PVRH will be tuner selection worked brilliantly,
appreciate. Recordings that receiver is shown as an external
left unanswered by this manual. as we had a fixed antenna con-
have already been watched are
nected to tuner 1 and a DiSEqC drive in the Windows Explorer.
marked with a specific symbol
Everyday use motor-controlled antenna con-
nected to tuner 2.
and the receiver also remem-
bers the exact position at which
Furthermore, Eycos offers its
own settings editor which allows
When performing our tests a convenient editing of channel
a playback was stopped.
we quickly discovered that the The channel search on an 80- and favourite lists on the PC.
pre-programmed channel list transponder satellite took a little As Eycos is always working
In general, Eycos did a great
was not very up-to-date and over three minutes, which is a on offering even better prod-
job for the EPG, as it is nicely
many channels on the list could remarkably good result. ucts they provide new software
arranged, builds up quickly on
not be recived any longer using at certain intervals, which can
the screen and shows all infor-
the pre-set parameters. When Now we get to the interesting be downloaded and installed
mation correctly and efficiently
we approached Eycos about this part: in the 'User Preferences' directly via satellite.
sorted. Timer entries can be cre-
point they reacted in an unusu- menu the HDMI output signal
ated and saved directly through
– among other parameters – can
ally fast manner and only a few
days later sent us new software be set according to personal pref-
the EPG. What is the
for the receiver by e-mail which erences. When tested on a Tech-
included a perfectly current nisat LCD screen and a Pioneer
The tuner used by Eycos has a
very low threshold and managed
actual benefit
channel list together with fixes plasma screen it soon become
for some minor software bugs. obvious why this is an impor- to flawlessly process even the
week signals from EUROBIRD2
of a scaler?
By the time you read this report tant configuration for achieving
26° East and NILESAT 7° West in As if we needed proof for the
the new software should be avail- the best possible picture qual-
our test. It also passed our SCPC great potential of a scaler/PVR
able for download via satellite for ity. Apart from brightness, con-
test and the symbol rates from receiver combination a low-
all users. trast and sharpness this menu
2 to 45 MS/s as claimed by the brow visitor to the TELE-satellite
also allows activating a three-
manufacturer were verified in test lab stopped in front of our
Once you activate the very stage noise reduction system.
our test. Our test transponder plasma TV and wanted to know
smart and animated main menu The scaler offers three different
on EUTELSAT SESAT 36° East with a very surprised tone in his
a whole world of options opens resolution modes: 576p, 720p
and 1080i, of which the 1080i with its very low symbol rate of voice, since when German public
up in front of you. This Eycos
setting is the most desirable one, 1 Ms/s could not be received, broadcaster ZDF was transmit-
receiver seems to be a genuine
of course. however. Additional reception ting a HDTV signal. He was even
globetrotter, and the languages
it can understand are German,
English, French, Italian, Spanish, Depending on the user's needs
Expert conclusion
+
Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Roma- and requirements the Eycos
nian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish receivers outputs the video signal
and Farsi. either as CVBS, RGB or S-Video, The Eycos S55.12 PVRH is a sound and easy-to-use
The receiver supports DiSEqC YUV is also available in case a receiver which did not show any problems whatso-
protocols 1.0,1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 beamer is connected to the box. ever during our test. Thanks to the integrated scaler
(USALS), so that really every The S55.12 PVRH can also receive even regular SDTV signals can be displayed with
user should be able to connect NTSC signals and the automatic amazing quality, so that some of the quality losses
their system to this box, no switching between PAL and NTSC caused by cost-cutting measures of the program pro- Thomas Haring
matter whether it's a Wavefron- takes places without any glitches. viders can be compensated. If a channel transmits a TELE-satellite
Test Center
tier antenna or a DiSEqC motor. The preferred colour norm can be high-quality SDTV signal in the first place, the scaler Austria
set permanently in the on-screen does an even more brilliant job. The extremely fast
Contrary to other manufactur- menu. USB 2.0 port and the possibility of recording four streams at the same
ers' receivers the Eycos S55.12 Among all the various sub- time are features that deserve additional praise.
PVRH does not require the user menus one stands out in par-
to select the tuner he or she ticular: it can be accessed to
decode all scrambled recordings
-
wants to use, which is why the Overscale output is not yet available.
receiver needs to know right at on the harddisk after the record-

TELE-satellite International — www.TELE-satellite.com


more surprised when we told him as original picture, not as over-
that ZDF has not yet upgraded scale. Unfortunately this means
to HDTV and that he was look- that – depending on the selected
ing at a regular SDTV signal that channel – you are faced with black
had been improved by the scaler. stripes around the actual picture.
Most visitors in our lab were not Our plasma screen was able to
sure whether they were looking compensate this and to provide
at real HDTV or scaler-enhanced a full screen picture, while some
SDTV when we asked them. less expensive LCD screens left
the black frame around the pic-
When we connected the S55.12 ture. Eycos has promised to look
PVRH to various different LCD into this and solve the problem
and plasma screens we noticed with one of the coming software
that it provides the HDMI signal releases.

TECHNIC Manufacturer Eycos

DATA Distributor Satforce


Kommunikationstechnik GmbH
Tel +49 - 86 54 773 851
Fax +49 - 86 54 773 852
E-mail info@satforce.com
Model S55.12 PVRH
Function Digital satellite PVR receiver
with integrated scaler
Channel memory 8000
Symbol rates 2-45 Ms/sec.

Satellites 45
SCPC compatible yes
USALS yes
DiSEqC 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3
Scart euroconnectors 2
Audio/video outputs 3 x RCA
UHF modulator yes
0/12 Volt socket yes
Digital audio output yes
EPG yes
C/Ku band compatible yes
Power supply 100-240 VAC, 50/60 Hz

Main menu HDMI menu

Info bar EPG

SCPC reception Automatic decoding

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