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TEST REPORT

06-07/2007

TELE-satellite & Broadband 06-07/2007 www.TELE-satellite.com

Linux-based treasure box

The rst praise goes to thedesigners we opened the pack-age, delivered to our ofce, tond simply, but at the same time,stylishly designed receiver. AB IPBox 250S PVR is available in twocolor variants black and silver.Front panel contains a horseshoe-shaped Standby button, sevencontrol buttons (Menu, Exit, OK,Left, Right, Up and Down), whichallow to control the majority of receivers functions, and a numer-ical display, which shows thenumber of the currently selectedchannel, current time in Standbymode, as well as the service infor-mation when needed.

Last, but not least, there is anuniversal smartcard reader slot,which, with pre-installed rmware,allows to get access to channelsencrypted in Xcrypt or Firecrypt.

Rear panel greets us with therst surprise. It starts quite usual LNB input with a correspondingloop-through output, two Scartconnectors, three RCAs output-ting the Video and Stereo sound,Digital Audio output and a RS-232 port. And an Ethernet port,which will play a very important

role in the interaction with ABIP Box 250S PVR. Design of theremote control is very simple, butat the same time, quite logic. Theonly unusual thing is that the EPGbutton is located right next to the

0 key, below all other numbers.All other buttons are where youexpect them to be, so you will getused to it quite quickly.

The remote contr ol of AB IP Box

Satellite Receiver

AB IP Box 250S PVR

If you ever traveled to Slovakia you probablyknow that the small town of Topolany is mainlyfamous for its beautiful medieval castle and won-derful bee r. But now new times are coming, and thecompany AB-COM, with hea dquarters in Topolany,is becoming even more well known, and not justinside Slovakia. And this has a reason. Linux-basedsatellite receivers keep gaining popularity world-

wide. Mainly among DXers, fans of satellite recep-tion, who enjoy experimenting, but also among theregular users as well. AB-CO M didnt just follow thistrend, but also put a lot of effort into each rele asedmodel. No wonder that the previous AB IP Boxesreceived such positive response. We were lucky toget a chance to test the latest one, AB IP Box 250SPVR.

250S PVR can also control your TVset, list of the supported models(a very BIG list!) can be found onthe last pages of the receiversuser manual.

InstallationEven the regular user, who is

not planning to endlessly experi-ment with his receiver, will ndthe installation quite simple.After the rst power-up and thewelcome screen, AB IP Box 250SPVR will ask if you would like toformat the installed hard disk. If you choose not to do it now, it canbe formatted later from the mainmenu.

Clear and understandablewizard will guide you through theinstallation process. First the boxwants to know which languagesyou would prefer for the on-screen menu, audio and subtitles.Second screen allows congur-ing the local time, as well as thevideo settings.

Third one is for the LNB selec-tion. First increase the number of installed LNBs in the menu, thenhighlight the appearing string.Clicking OK will bring a sub-

window to the screen with all theneeded parameters, including thesatellite name, LOF, which can beabsolutely exibly selected, andthe DiSEqC settings. AB IP Box250S PVR supports all DiSEqCversions from 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 toUSALS, so it can easily become

the heart of your multi-satellitereception system.

Logically, the next step is thechannel search. Scanning 78pre-programmed transpond-ers on ASTRA 1 position at 19.2deg. East took 6 minutes 10 sec-onds. SCPC reception was testedon EUTELSAT SESAT at 36 deg.East, and AB IP Box 250S PVRdidnt disappoint us here. Chan-nel search can be performed inAutomatic or Manual mode, withpossibility to select a networksearch, to leave out encrypted orFTA channels, or to keep all. Youdo not need to worry too muchabout lling channel memory:AB IP Box 250S PVR top limit is10,000 channels!

Channel switching speed ispretty fast less then a secondfor the channels within the sametransponder, and a bit more (butstill within 1.5 seconds) for differ-

ent transponders. Channel nameswith non-Latin character sets (f.e.Cyrillic) are displayed correctly,so does the EPG information too.However, EPG screen itself stillawaits some improvements to bedone. It is fast, all the information

is loaded and displayed appro-priately, but switching betweendays and channels can be con-

fusing at rst. It also might taketime until you gure it out, how tonavigate through the main menu.It consists of three main items Users option, System Setup and About. Three icons in theleft part of the screen with twofaces, a sprocket and a questionmark represent respectively eachof them. You can switch betweenthese three items with Left andRight buttons on the remotecontrol or receivers front panel,while the sub-items are navigatedwith Up and Down buttons.

Channels can be arrangedinto an unlimited number of favorite lists, with default onescalled Sport, Drama, News,

Movie and Music. Adding chan-nels to them only requires coupleof clicks. Switching between the

Favorite mode and Full Chan-nel List mode happens by press-ing the FAV button on theremote control. Main list can besorted alphabetically, by provider,encryption mode or satellite.Moving channels around or delet-ing the unwanted ones is also amatter of seconds.

PVROf course, presence of these

three letters in the model nameis already promising the possibil-ity to record and play. The testunit weve got was equipped with80 GB HDD, which is enough forrecording approximately 40 hoursof video. Its possible either torecord the programming manu-

AB IP BOX 250S PVRBest Linux-based Satellite Receiver,ensuring the rich variety of available

rmware, plugins and service software

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DATATECHNIC

www.TELE-satellite.com 06-07/2007 TELE-satellite & Broadband

Expert conclusion+AB IP Box 250S PV R is just the thing for those who

love to experiment. Linux-based open source projectensures the rich variety of available rmware, pluginsand service software. Its Ethernet port expands thepossibilities even further, since the receiver can bealmost completely controlled via the Internet fromthe next room or from any place thousand kilometersaway. Of course, all the usual functions are wherethey are expected to be, so the regular users wont be

disappointed either.

-EPG and the Main Menu of the ofcial rmware could be a bit more

user-friendly, but this is a minor software problem, which doesntaffect the big picture and, hopefully, will be solved soon. Anyhow, ittakes only a few minutes to upload an alternative one.

NickolasOvsyadovskiy

TELE-satelliteTest Center

Hungary

Default welcome screenFirmware upgrade via RS-232

Manufacturer AB-COM, Topoany, Slovakia

Fax +421 38 5322027

E-mail info@abcom.sk

Model AB IP Box 250S PVR

Function Digital Linux-basedPVR satellite receiver

Processor IBM PowerPC 405

Channel Memory 10000Symbol Rate Up to 45 Ms/s

SCPC Compatible Yes

USALS Yes

DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

Scart connectors 2

Audio/Video outputs 3xRCA

UHF Modulator No

S-Video No

Component output No

0/12V connection No

Digital audio output Yes

LAN Yes

EPG Yes

C/Ku-band compatible Yes

Power supply AC220V, 50Hz / AC110V, 60Hz

ally, by pressing the button withred circle on the remote control,or by selecting your favorite TVshows from the EPG. Pressingthe same red circled button inthe EPG mode will mark the pro-gram for recording. Recordings of

video and audio material, as wellas timer reservations are han-dled in a special menu, called FileList Management, which can beaccessed by pressing the buttonwith an envelope. It is also here,where you can choose the video oraudio recordings to be played. But!There is much more, what you cando with them. Remember the niceEthernet socket on the receiversreal panel? Maybe we can get therecordings to the PC somehow? Ormaybe its good for anything else?

The power of LinuxAB IP Box 250S PVR would be

a regular PVR-receiver, if not itsarchitecture. Being built on IBMPowerPC405 processor with Linuxoperation system, rmware of this receiver is an open-sourceproject. Receivers architectureturned out to be compatible withalternative rmwares releasedfor other Linux-based receivers,after some slight modications

they can also be used with AB IPBox 250S PVR. Those which werealready converted and are testedto be working with it, can be foundon the ofcial AB-COM supportwebsite. We found its address ona white sticker attached to thereceivers packaging http://www.abcom.sk and http://www.download.abcom.sk .

But before we start experi-menting, it makes sense to visitthe nearest electronics store andbuy two cables the cross-over

Ethernet cable and a null-modemcable. Then from the websitementioned above we downloadtwo programs PC Editor and

Flash Tools. You can also down-load several image les, theones that youd like to try. Makesure that the electricity aint goingto disappear in the next minutes,and let the experimenting begin!

If youre afraid of damagingyour receiver by uploading thenew rmware from the PC, AB IPBox 250S PVR gives you another

option. It can be connecteddirectly to the Internet via PPPoEor Dialup. Several web and FTPsites with ofcial or alternative rmwar e ar e alr ea dy pr e-p ro-grammed. The chosen versionwill be downloaded directly

into the receivers memory andinstalled.

However, we went a differentway, by testing both the Ether-net and RS-232 connection. RS-232 rmware upgrade with Flash

Tools software can take up to half an hour or more, but it will bedone for sure, since some earlierversions of the ofcial rmwaremight not support the Ethernetupgrade. The latter is done fromthe PC Editor program, there ABIP Box 250S PVR model is called

CubeCaFe. But its not only forthe rmware upgrade. Channellists can be conveniently edited,and later re-uploaded to thereceiver. Import of the SatcoDX*.sdx le s is completely sup -ported in the PC Editor.

Once the Ethernet connectionis established, you can nd theinformation about it in the About Network Info menu. Makenote of the IP address assigned tothe box. Because if you open yourfavorite web browser and type itin, you will see a lot of interestingthings. First you will be promptedfor a user ID and a password (use

relook for both), and after youenter them, youll land in GeckowWebinterface, the web-server of your AB IP Box 250S PVR. Here

you can check the EPG, addressthe receiver with a virtual remotecontrol, schedule programs forrecording and save recorded pro-grams on your computer. AB IPBox 250S PVR also has an FTP-server, you can connect to it byusing any FTP client, entering theIP of your box, using root asthe user name and relook asthe password. You can nd therecordings in /var/media/videodirectory. However, if you down-load them via the FTP, youll haveto convert them to .mpg rst, by

using the simple MakePS utility,which is also available at the of-cial AB-COM support website.

Since this is an open-sourcesystem, there are not just a lot of various rmwares available, butalso lots of plug-ins. For example,you can install games, MP-3 playeror other utilities. All of them, anda lot more, can be found on thewebsite mentioned above. Butthats not all. AB IP Box 250SPVR hides a lot more treasuresinside, which well let you dis-

cover by yourself. Because if welltell you everything, it wouldnt beso much fun to experiment, wouldit ? And satellite reception is nolonger just watching TV channelsor listening to radios, its much,much more now.

Channel List of SESAT 36 EastMain Menu

Receivers web interfaceRecording Management

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