Sagem DTR 67500 Eco review
The Eco credentials of this tuner are quite impressive at only 15W in operation HD upscaling, recording exporting and multimedia playback make this a smart PVR
Over the past 12 months or so Sagem has been quietly ramping up the features in its Freeview PVRs while managing to keep down the price. The DTR 67500 Eco is a perfect example of this.
It has a 500GB hard disc capable of storing 250 hours of TV, Freeview+ certification (so supports series link and accurate recording) and HDMI out with upscaling yet still comes in at a reasonable £180 (a 320GB version, the 67320, is also available for £150).
The casing remains pretty much unchanged from the 67250. It’s a step up from early Sagem Freeview recorders but the amber LED display (which shows the time when in standby) still looks a bit cheap. The Eco in the name refers to the fact that the receiver uses a reasonable 15W in operation and 2W when in standby.
Good connections
Connections include the HDMI, component video outputs, twin Scarts with RGB and composite out on each, plus S-video on the VCR Scart. There are also optical and coaxial digital audio outputs for digital audio. A front-mounted USB port is included for inserting FAT32 formatted flash drives and hard discs for importing and exporting MP3, JPEG and MPEG-2 files (recordings are stored as transport streams).
The remote is fairly unchanged from the 67250T with simultaneously coloured and lettered buttons frequently employed to make navigating the menus more intuitive. The EPG supports seven days of Freeview data displayed as a grid with the option to have the selected channel running in the top-left corner of the screen.
You can view data for TV and radio channels up to seven days in advance (skippable day by day) with programme synopses displayed in the top right. Or you can view lists of programmes by channel or filter the EPG to only show programmes of a certain type, favourite channels or channels of your choosing.
Sadly, as was the case with the 67250, the EPG is frequently sluggish in operation when you’re recording at the same time. The programme information banner shows now-and-next data that can be expanded to give synopses. You can pick shows from the recording library without having to dip into the menus.
Recordings can be scheduled from the EPG and are added to the manually confi gurable timer menu which has single, weekly, daily and Monday to Friday/Saturday/Sunday options. You can record two channels at once and timeshift one while recording another or browsing the menus.
Recorded and timeshifted material can be fast forwarded and rewound at 4x, 10x or 60x, 300 or 600x normal speed. You can rename recordings, put them in folders, PIN-lock them and merge them into one file.
The recording format is the native transport stream (MPEG-2TS) equating to about 1.7GB an hour on average. Recordings can be exported to (and ‘from’ if you happen to have any transport stream files sitting around) USB connected drives. The receiver also plays back MPEG-2 files. There’s no DivX or MP4 support, though this may be added as an update in future. Also playable are MP3 and JPEG files with playlist options for all.
Pictures from the 67500′s tuners are decent if not exceptional. Upscaling helps to address incidences of artefacting but it’s more of a case of smoothing the edges rather than delivering an enhanced feeling of crispness.
Nevertheless, the quality of recordings matches the original broadcast and we were able to play exported recordings on our laptop using VLC software. Audio performance is also sharp and clean, especially via the digital outputs, with high-quality MP3s rendered with faithful punch.
(Reviewed by Grant Rennell – What Satellite & Digital TV Issue 277)
Humax HDCI-5000 review
Humax’s affordable FTA HD receiver is a great performer but we reckon that it’s capable of more
You could use it to watch the BBC HD channel and also tune into the emerging European HD channels. Courtesy of its CI slots, the 2000 also made provision for European hi-def pay-TV.
The HDCI-5000 sells for about £100 less than its predecessor. The midi-sized 5000 is, alas, nowhere near as svelte in appearance, and the 2000′s fluorescent display has been downsized to four green LED digits. In addition, you’ll only find a single CI slot under the drop-down flap – the 2000 had two.
Front panel controls are minimal. There are no menu buttons, and so the blandly styled but solid handset is essential. And you’ll need a PC to read the manual CD-ROM.
You get the (single-tuner) LNB input and output, component output, twin Scarts and optical digital output of the 2000, as well as its composite and analogue-audio socketry. Among these connectors is a switch that forces you to choose between component and RGB Scart.
Where the 5000 scores over the 2000 is in its provision of Ethernet connectivity. This terminal, which has so much potential, is described in the manual as a ‘service port’. We hope Humax will do something useful with it in time.
GET CONNECTED: Humax have included an Ethernet port with the HDCI-5000, as well as the expected options like HDMI, component video and optical audio output
The 2000′s RS232 port has gone AWOL. Humax has instead hedged its bets on the USB Host port – described in the manual as ‘connecting to the USB memory or external HDD’. So can PVR functionality can be added?
Not at the moment. The USB port (also on the 2000) is currently provided for backing-up or restoring channel databases. No mention has been made of firmware upgrades here; these are (or will be) available over the air.
Setup
Unusually, the 5000 is compatible with SCD (Single Cable Distribution), a clever band-shifting system that allows up to eight receivers to be fed from a purpose-designed LNB via a single cable. SCD is one of the ‘antenna type’ options of the receiver’s friendly ‘setup wizard’. This also takes you through language, time-zone, default channel lists, dish configuration, initial searching and display configuration.
The wizard only covers simple DiSEqC switchboxes; further setup is necessary for motorised dishes. This wipes any previous searches from its memory; motorised dish users should cancel the search, let the wizard run its course and engage manual setup.
Which takes us to the slick and beautifully designed menu system, the options of which are divided among four groups. ‘Preferences’ looks after languages, time/ date and AV settings (such as Scart output, aspect-ratio, display mode and – if you’re not using HDMI – lip sync correction).
From ‘edit channels’, you can delete, move, rename and restore channels. There’s also the ability to import/export channel lists to/from USB – although we couldn’t get this to work.
The third option is ‘installation’, and it’s from here that your motorised dish is configured. From its ‘edit satellite data’ option, the satellites you can receive can be ‘activated’. The DiSEqC positioner, which caters for 1.2 or USALS, is excellent – not only can you call on any positions residing in your mount’s memory, but you have complete control over movement – continuous or (variable) steps in either direction. There’s also a ‘recalculate’ function, and dish-limit setting.
You can search all transponders of the selected satellite, or just focus on one – it’s also easy to define and store a new transponder for future searches. This is the closest the 5000 gets to manual searching. Parameters here are the expected frequency, polarity, symbol rate, modulation type (DVB-S or DVB-S2) and FEC. Disappointingly, no provision for PID entry has been made and blind-search is absent.
HD HAPPY: The HDCI-5000 had little trouble finding available HD channels, but Humax has yet to implement a workaround for accessing ITV HD
With a motorised dish searching couldn’t be easier. You choose the satellite you want, the dish moves to the appropriate position, then you specify the terms of the search (free and/or encrypted, radio and/or TV) and off it goes. What a shame that automatic multi-satellite searches are not allowed.
Other installation menu options cover over-the-air firmware updates and a master reset. Finally, we have the ‘system’ menu, which reveals receiver and CI module status.
Navigation
Humax receivers traditionally score well in navigation terms, and the 5000 is no exception, owing to its fast channel-change and sensible use of the handset’s coloured fast-text keys. Channels can be sorted alphabetically, or by conditional-access status.
Another press of a button and all available hi-def channels are listed. It’s also easy to list all of the channels on a specific satellite. A pop-up menu activated by a press of the ‘opt+’ button allows you to delete, rename or lock channels. They can also be placed into one of the five favourites lists, each of which can be renamed. It’s well designed.
Then there’s ‘i-Bar’, Humax’s name for the channel-information pop-up. This gives you channel/programme name, time/date, a programme-progress bar and HD/encryption status as well as signal strength and quality.
The EPG, which supports now-and-next and 7-day schedules, also employs the coloured keys to good effect. The default mode relies on the traditional grid format, which can simultaneously accommodate up to seven channels, but there’s also a single-channel list view.
GREAT GUIDE: The HDCI-5000′s EPG shares similarities with previous Humax receivers, making good use of the coloured remote keys and an ‘i-Bar- for easy navigation
Owners of VCRs or DVD recorders can schedule programmes so that the receiver changes channel at the appropriate time. A useful ‘quick browse’ will let you hop around the schedules in speedy increments.
Then there’s the three-step ‘zoom’, but the icing on the cake is a ‘find’ function. Enter a keyword, and programmes containing it are listed. To quicken the search a genre, day and approximate time frame can be chosen.
Performance and features
The 5000 has few gimmicks. There’s no multimedia playback or ‘picture freeze’, and this receiver is the first we’ve come across in years not to include a Tetris clone or any other games. But you can arrange for the receiver to turn itself on at a specified time, switch to a channel of your choosing and then shut down again.
Rather more useful are two buttons marked ‘v.format’ and ‘wide’. The first cycles through the various component/HDMI output modes (576i/576p/720p/1080i), while the second either expands the picture to fit the screen or displays in letterbox format.
This is particularly useful for HDMI because not all displays give you control over aspect ratio. If you’re viewing a standard-def channel it’s upscaled if a HD output mode has been selected.
Other features include teletext, subtitles and soundtrack selection (Dolby is supported). In performance terms, the 5000 scores highly. Searching is commendably fast; more than 1,700 Hot Bird TV and radio services were found in under four minutes by a tuner of above-average sensitivity.
While searching is fast, this receiver’s inability to accept PIDs or conduct multi-satellite scans coupled with the lack of blind search will disappoint the enthusiast.
The 5000 found most hi-def services – BBC HD, Eins Festival and Luxe HD included – but ITV HD proved to be beyond its capabilities. A future firmware update – our test receiver had a very early version – will apparently address this.
Both picture and sound quality were first-rate, hi-def channels standing out with a rich visual texture and vivid, natural colour. By any standards, well-encoded standard-def programming fares well too, even with upscaling engaged. Sound quality, whether radio or TV, is detailed and clear.
If you’re after a reasonably priced HD receiver and aren’t bothered about the bells or whistles, the HDCI- 5000 is worth considering. We hope that improved firmware will fix some of our criticisms, especially the unused Ethernet port, underused USB, limited search capabilities and ITV HD incompatibility.
Sooloos
Launch price £11,270.00
- Pros Simply extraordinary user interface and user experience. Deeply impressive sound quality. Flexibility and quality
- Cons Only that we can’t afford it
The essence of Sooloos is simple. It’s designed to marry the best possible server interface with eye-popping sound quality – like an ultra-swanky Sonos system. Compression? None of that here: your music is stored at optimum-quality Flac for playback through your hi-fi.
Expandable to 100 rooms
Sooloos will even preload your system with the first 2500 CDs in your collection for free, so it’s ready to go out of the box. Even more helpfully, the system will also make a 192kbps MP3 file of the same tunes for transferring to your iPod.
The combination we tested has three key components. The first is the most obvious: the Control:One is a glorious 17in touchpanel that displays all you need to drive the system, and which also includes a CD drive for ripping discs.
Naturally, you can put together a system based on multiple zones, each with a Control:One – but if you want, the interface can also be ported on to your iPod Touch or iPhone. Blimey.
Zone out
The Control:One links via Ethernet to a single Source:One, which is effectively the system’s preamp. The outputs of this connect to any hi-fi amp, just like a CD player would, so you’ll need Source:Ones in each zone you want music in.
Finally, there are two Store:One Network Attached Storage boxes: one holds the music; the other is a backup.
Terabytes of tunes
Our test unit came with one terabyte of storage, enough for around 2500 albums in Flac, but up to 3TB can be installed in each mirrored pair (7200 albums in total) – and more Store:One components can be added.
We never thought we’d find an interface that made iTunes look slow, but this is it: Sooloos writes its own software, and the result is genius. It really is as fast as you can think.
The touchpanel makes operating the system child’s play too, while info from the All Media Guide gives sleeve art, album credits, release dates and even reviews. The result is a musical epiphany.
Summing up is difficult without ignoring that price. This certainly isn’t a credit crunch investment. So let’s just say that it’s brilliant, and celebrate the very fact that it exists. Now, about that kidney
Creative Color Speakers for Dell
Designed specifically for Dell, Creative has recently launched colored speakers and headphones to bring more fun in your music experience. The Inspire T10 speakers are tagged at $40 while the EP-610 headphones are $24. With variety colors to choose from to match your Dell computers, other features from the speakers including individual tweeters, bass enhancement, magnetic shielding and separate controls for volume and bass
Creative Color Speakers for Dell
Designed specifically for Dell, Creative has recently launched colored speakers and headphones to bring more fun in your music experience. The Inspire T10 speakers are tagged at $40 while the EP-610 headphones are $24. With variety colors to choose from to match your Dell computers, other features from the speakers including individual tweeters, bass enhancement, magnetic shielding and separate controls for volume and bass
