Special Feature: receiver can be hidden; the IR receiver ...16. The Amiko Mini HD's network features 17. IP settings; of course the DHCP protocol is supported 18. The receiver's software

56 57TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest TV Box Magazine — 11-12/2013 — www.TELE-audiovision.com www.TELE-audiovision.com — 11-12/2013 — TELE-audiovision International — 全球发行量最大的数字电视杂志

• Special Feature: receiver can be hidden; the IR receiver for the remote control can be placed anywhere• Fully featured PVR thanks to the USB interface• Integrated Internet for You Tube, Google Maps, etc.• Automatic DiSEqC recognition, automatic recognition of channel and TV monitor video resolution• LNB voltage can be increased to make up for voltage drops on longer cable runs

TEST REPORT Miniature DVB-S2 HDTV Receiver

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11-12/2013

www.TELE-audiovision.com/13/11/amiko

58 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest TV Box Magazine — 11-12/2013 — www.TELE-audiovision.com

TEST REPORT Miniature DVB-S2 HDTV Receiver

A Satellite HDTV Receiver with Every Feature

With the Mini HD, Amiko has introduced a miniature DVB-S2 compatible HDTV PVR receiver to the market. It comes with the same fea-tures as its larger cousins. It’s elegant black box is only 15 x 11 x 3.5 cm in size and at 250gm it is essentially feather-light.

The front panel sports two LEDs that indicate the receiver’s current opera-tional status while all of the proper connections can be found on the rear panel. In particular, this includes an

LNB input, an Ethernet jack, a USB 2.0 port as well as a jack for the external 12VDC power supply. With the help of three small jacks, Amiko has provided outputs for an A/V interface cable (CVBS and stereo audio) as well as an RS232 port; the nec-essary adapter cable is in-cluded with the receiver. The third jack is for con-necting the external IR re-ceiver; Amiko designed the Mini HD such that it can be mounted on a wall or placed inconspicuously behind the TV.

An absolutely perfect vid-eo signal is provided by the HDMI output, unfortunately though, crystal clear audio is only available via HDMI; there’s no S/PDIF output for connection to a stereo sys-tem.

We especially liked that Amiko truly used every inch of space on the Mini HD; for example, a card reader for Conax Smartcards was incorporated on the under-side of the receiver with the actual card slot facing the front of the box. There’s also a second USB 2.0 jack on the right side to let you quickly attach an external storage device.

The Amiko Mini HD is pow-ered by a 400 MHz proces-sor and comes with 64 MB of Flash memory plus 1 GB DDR SDRAM. This combi-nation will later provide for the perfect presentation of HDTV as well as an OSD that reacts extremely fast to re-mote control commands. The remote control included by the manufacturer sits nicely in your hand, is ergo-nomic and is clearly labeled.

You won’t find an instal-lation assistant in the Mini HD; users will need to set up all the basic functions them-selves. The new Amiko re-ceiver can provide the vid-eo signal via HDMI in 480i,

AMIKO MINI HDPerfect mini Receiver

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480p, 576i, 576p, 720p 50 Hz, 720p 60 Hz, 1080i 50 Hz, 1080i 60 Hz, 1080p 50 Hz as well as 1080p 60 Hz; nothing was left out. The receiver even has an Auto-matic Mode where it adapts itself to the resolution of the TV channel that is currently being received plus a Native by TV mode where the re-ceiver adjusts itself to the maximum resolution of the TV.

The Mini HD supports the DiSEqC Protocols 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 and is therefore able to handle multifeed, multifocus and/or motor-ized antenna systems. The receiver comes with 28 pre-programmed satellites but those satellites are limited to European entries only; a more expanded list would be nice to have.

We appreciated the abil-ity to increase the LNB volt-

1. The Amiko Mini HD Main Menu2. Every possibility is available for editing the channel list3. Individual channels can easily be renamed4. Installation Menu5. Satellite Settings6. If desired, the individual PID values of a channel can be entered7. With FastScan, all the transponders from one of the nine preprogrammed PayTV Providers can be automatically scanned8. Auto DiSEqC Function9. Calculation of the necessary angle for antenna alignment10. User Settings11. Time Settings12. A total of eight timer slots are available13. The output video signal can be set to a maximum resolution of 1080p HDMI14. The user can customize the OSD15. Three integrated video games pass the time during commercials

age by 0.5V in those cases when longer coax cable lengths are used. The Auto DiSEqC function could save the day for the less-experi-enced users. With its help, the receiver can automati-cally identify what satellite is connected to the receiver through which DiSEqC port.

Unfortunately, this is where the limited pre-programmed satellite list comes into play; only those satellites in the list can be recognized. Testing this fea-ture in Europe with the very popular ASTRA and EUTEL-SAT satellites showed that it functioned perfectly. Less popular satellites were not recognized.

On the channel scan side of things, the user can run a satellite scan, transponder scan or blind scan. Of course it’s the blind scan that we’re particularly fond of: on the HOTBIRD satellite at 13° east it managed to find 1597 TV and 373 radio channels in a mere six minutes. It’s quite a satisfactory result. Even on less popular satel-lites such as SES4 at 22° west, the blind scan feature delivered acceptable results with transponders using dif-ferent symbolrates.

The FastScan Option is an exceptional feature with the Amiko Mini HD. It can be used to read all the transponders from one of nine prepro-grammed European PayTV providers. In our tests with the Dutch CanalDigitaal, this function worked without any problems. In no time at all every channel from a PayTV provider will be presented in the channel list without

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16. The Amiko Mini HD's network features17. IP settings; of course the DHCP protocol is supported18. The receiver's software can be automatically updated via the Internet19. Weather forecast20. RSS Feeds are shown in an organized fashion21. The video services YouTube and YouPorn can be accessed directly from the receiver22. YouTube23. The receiver supports the time shift function in addition to normal recordings24. Google Maps on the Amiko Mini HD

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the need for any tiresome searching.

After the receiver’s chan-nel list has been filled with thousands of entries, the next task that comes to mind would undoubtedly have to be managing the channel list. And the Mini HD doesn’t disappoint here at all; every possible option you can think of is available, such as deleting, renaming, moving, grouping or locking out specific channels with a PIN code. Thanks to the 32 Favorites lists all of your most-loved channels can be moved into one of these col-lections making them easier to access with the push of just one button.

25. Even Google Maps' satellite view is available26. The OSD keyboard can be used to search for specific locations in Google Maps27. Channel scan28. Info bar with the EPG data from the current and upcoming programs29. EPG view 130. EPG view 231. EPG view 332. Channel list33. The channel list can be limited to individual satellites34. The channel list can be limited to individual providers35. Language selection36. Satellite selection37. OSD Teletext38. The Amiko Mini can easily play back previously recorded programs39. MP3 playback

After the receiver has been set up to your per-sonal tastes, a push of the Exit button on the remote control takes you out of the Settings menu. The Mini HD can now get to work. It op-erates through a cleverly arranged OSD that presents a logically and well-thought-out interface to the user. We especially liked the EPG, the contents of which can be displayed in three different modes.

Thanks to additional func-tion buttons on the remote control, options like subti-tles, teletext or language selection can be accessed directly through the main menu. This saves time and makes things easier for the user.

Since the Amiko Mini HD is a fully-featured PVR re-ceiver, we wasted no time in connecting an external stor-age device on one of the two USB ports. We were able to record two broadcasts si-multaneously in HD qual-ity while at the same time watching a third channel live. For timer recordings there are eight program-ming slots available. In this day and age, though, that’s not quite enough.

In addition to PVR record-

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40. The integrated picture viewer functioned perfectly41. Video playback of various formats42. DivX playback43. Full HD video playback44. Even Flash videos could be played back without any problems

ings, the USB ports can also be used to play back videos in AVI, MPEG, MP4, TS, Flash and VOB for-mats. You can even listen to your favorite MP3 music files. Some of you out there will be also happy to know that JPEG pictures can be viewed on your TV through the Amiko Mini HD.

You may have noticed while reading this test re-port that the Amiko Mini HD also comes with a network interface allowing you to ac-cess the wonderful world of the Internet. And if you’re surrounded by WiFi sig-nals in your home, the USB WiFi adapter would also let you browse the Internet

wirelessly. Unfortunately, though, this adapter is not part of the package.

DATATECHNICAL

Model Mini HD

Function Miniature / PVR Receiver with external IR remote control

Input frequency 950 - 2150 MHz

Input symbol rate 2 - 45 Ms/s

Modulations QPSK, 8PSK

EPG yes

Video resolution 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p 50 Hz, 720p 60 Hz, 1080i 50 Hz, 1080i 60 Hz, 1080p 50 Hz, 1080p 60 Hz

DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

SCR no

RS232 yes

Ethernet yes

USB 2.0 yes

CI Slot no

Card Reader yes (Conax)

HDTV yes

MPEG4/H.264 yes

OSD languages English, German, Greek, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Rumanian, Hungarian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovenian, Slovakian, Serbian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish

Power Supply 100 - 240V AC, 50/60 Hz AC / 12V DC

Dimensions 15 x 11 x 3.5 cm

Weight 250 g

DIAGRAMENERGY

Active Power

Apparent Power Mode Apparent Active FactorActive 15 W 8 W 0.53StandBy 2 W 1 W 0.5

OPINIONEXPERT

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RECOMMENDEDPRODUCT BY

Thomas HaringTest Center

Austria

AMIKO Mini HDDVB-S2 HDTV Receiver


Energy: The first 15 minutes active operation; the second 15 minutes standby

Very compact and space-saving construction, low power con-

sumption, well-organized OSD, logical operation and every PVR

feature you can think of are all plus points for the Amiko Mini HD.

All in all, a perfect little receiver.

The Auto DiSEqC function because of the limited number of

preprogrammed satellites in some cases doesn’t provide convinc-

ing results. The eight timer slots for a PVR receiver are not enough.

In addition to the ability to update the receiver’s soft-ware, the user also has ac-cess to current weather in-formation, RSS feeds as well as services such as YouTube, YouPorn and Google Maps. The idea of adding Google Maps to a satellite receiver seems to be an innovative idea at first, but in reality it’s not all that easy to work with when all you have is a remote control and an OSD keyboard.

To round it all off, three integrated video games are included that we had a

lot of fun with in our tests. There were also numerous settings capabilities as well as the ability to store the channel list on a USB stor-age device if needed. In general we were quite sat-isfied with the logical and well-organized OSD struc-ture including its graphical presentation. Thanks to its very low power consump-tion at only 3W in standby, you can keep a little extra of your money in your wal-let. And because of its small size, the Amiko Mini HD can easily be hidden deep inside your TV setup.

Documents

Special Feature: receiver can be hidden; the IR receiver ...16. The Amiko Mini HD's network features 17. IP settings; of course the DHCP protocol is supported 18. The receiver's software