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TEST REPORT                   IPTV Receiver




Jiuzhou DTP8300
Receiver                                                                                                                Jiuz hou DTP830 0
                                                                                                              IPT V receiver equippe
                                                                                                                                           12-01/201
                                                                                                                                                   1




for Internet Television
                                                                                                                                     d with top- notch
                                                                                                                            technology




At first sight the DTP8300                                                       If you turn around the            there is of course the usual
                                                                               receiver and look at the con-       range of sockets for HDMI
from Jiuzhou looks just like                                                   nection options on the back         out, three RCA jacks for
                                                                               panel it becomes perfectly          YUV, three more RCA jacks
your average set-top box for                                                   clear that this is a set-top box    for stereo audio and CVBS,
satellite, cable or terrestrial                                                that does not receive signals       an optical S/PDIF output,
                                                                               from satellite, cable or ter-       S-video socket and a second
reception. It only measures                                                    restrial antenna.                   USB interface. There is
                                                                                                                   even the added benefit of a
230x160x39 mm, which makes                                                       All we find is an RJ45 Eth-       mechanical power switch,
it a neat little addition to                                                   ernet port when it comes            which is a valuable feature in
                                                                               to signal input. In addition,       this time and age.
the living room cabinet. The
box comes in stylish black
and sports two LEDs on the
front panel to indicate the
current operating mode. The
manufacturer has chosen to
do without an LCD or segment
display, but has instead opted
for an on/off switch in the left
corner and a USB 2.0 interface
in the right corner.




30 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com
                                                         1
TELE-satellite World                           www.TELE-satellite.com/...
                                                                     Download this report in other languages from the Internet:
                                                                     Arabic        ‫العربية‬      www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/ara/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     Indonesian    Indonesia    www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/bid/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     Czech         Česky        www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/ces/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     German        Deutsch      www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/deu/jiuzhou.pdf
  The remote control that            If a receiver uses digital      English       English      www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/eng/jiuzhou.pdf
comes with the receiver           satellite, cable or antenna        Spanish       Español      www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/esp/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     Farsi         ‫فارس ي‬       www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/far/jiuzhou.pdf
makes a great first impres-       signals, the receiver’s hard-      French        Français     www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/fra/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     Hebrew        ‫עברית‬        www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/heb/jiuzhou.pdf
sion, has all keys within easy    ware has to take care of           Mandarin      中文           www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/man/jiuzhou.pdf
reach, offers just the feed-      all aspects of signal pro-         Dutch         Nederlands   www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/ned/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     Polish        Polski       www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/pol/jiuzhou.pdf
back required, and is clearly     cessing. This does not only        Portuguese    Português    www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/por/jiuzhou.pdf
                                                                     Romanian      Română       www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/rom/jiuzhou.pdf
labelled.                         involve reception, conver-         Russian       Русский      www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/rus/jiuzhou.pdf
                                  sion, decryption (if required)     Turkish       Türkçe       www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/tur/jiuzhou.pdf

  If we have to think of          and finally output of signals                          Available online starting from 3 December 2010
something worth improv-           received with the DVB data
ing it’s the IR receiver in the   stream, but also channel           Its main task is to display            tent and of creating the IPTV
set-top box, which requires       management, processing of        on the TV content which is               receiver’s   complete    user
users to point the remote         EPG data and creating OSD        delivered as pre-packaged                interface.
to a very small area on the       messages for user interac-       data. All technology required
box – otherwise you’ll have to    tion.                            for receiving and processing               When turned on, the IPTV
press the desired key several                                      channels, for creating the               receiver connects to the mid-
times before your command           By   contrast,   an   IPTV     OSD and for managing con-                dleware via the Ethernet port
is actually received at the       receiver is a different story    tent is located at the provider          and displays content received
other end.                        altogether. Put simply, it is    end of the IPTV system.                  from the middleware.
                                  a kind of web browser being
   We’ll focus on the pecu-       able to put out audio and           There, so-called middle-                By the way, the middle-
liarities and features of the     video. It doesn’t have to do     ware (put simply again, a                ware is also responsible for
DTP8300 in a moment – but         a channel search, it has no      kind of web server) takes                establishing a connection to
first it’s worth looking at the   (or only a very basic) OSD       care of setting up channels              the DVB-IP gateway for TV
decisive differences between      system and there is no need      lists using provider-specific            reception. Providers store
TV reception via antenna,         to manage, process, save,        design elements, of providing            the IP addresses and ports
cable or satellite and IPTV.      and organise channels.           video-on-demand (VOD) con-               of individual channels within




                                                                                                                        0.57




                                                            www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/201 —
                                                                                             1     TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine         31
the IPTV network in the mid-           for his network, as well as
dleware.                               the multicasts used for TV
                                       and radio distribution and the
   If a user now selects a spe-        ports.
cific channel on the channel
list that is created and pro-             This means in turn that set-
vided by the middleware, the           top boxes for end users need
IPTV receiver obtains the              to be just as flexible in order
exact IP address and port              to fit into existing IPTV net-
of the selected channel and            works. To this end – and to
starts displaying the corre-           this end only – the DTP8300
sponding video stream.                 is equipped with a dedicated                   The DTP8300 starts up with its own boot screen
                                       setup menu which can be
  Now the second major dif-            called up with a small button
ference between satellite              on the remote control. By
and IPTV reception becomes             default it is PIN-protected
evident. If you receive your           and we suggest that end
channels directly via satellite        users in general keep their
this means that all content is         fingers off all of these set-
available at the receiving end         tings.
(hence the term broadcast-
ing), while IPTV reception               The menu is divided into
means that only the content            six items, with Basic Settings
(channel) that was specifi-            and Extended Settings being
cally requested is available           of most interest. In Basic
at any one time.                       Settings you need to tell your
                                       box how it should connect
   Of course all available con-        to your IPTV provider’s net-
tent is sitting at the provider,       work.
                                                                                      Main menu as generated by the Jiuzhou middleware
waiting to be requested, but
still data only starts to flow           The receiver can either
once the user calls up spe-            request an IP address from
cific content. Each customer           the DHCP server or you can
is served individually, so to          assign a static IP address to
speak, which is also why –             your box. If you subscribe to
apart from standard radio              an IPTV provider that uses
and TV channels – video-on-            DSL for distributing their
demand, time shift or PVR              content you may also set up
can be offered by the pro-             a connection to the IPTV net-
vider without the customer             work via PPPoE.
having to purchase new
hardware.                                Once additional network
                                       parameters such as gate-
   Metaphorically    speaking,         way and DNS server are set
broadcast reception via sat-           or received from the DHCP
ellite, cable or terrestrial           server the IPTV receiver
transmission is like a giant           also needs to know the exact                   In our test setup the channel list contains five entries
wave of content extending              address of the middleware.
to all receivers at the same
time, while an IPTV network              For our test purposes we
targets each subscriber sep-           chose to use the default mid-
arately, providing only spe-           dleware provided by Jiuzhou,
cifically requested content in         which we had installed in our
a customised way.                      test centre on a standard
                                       Windows PC using Microsoft
  Not only is each IPTV cus-           IIS.
tomer served individually,
each IPTV network is also                While    configuring    the
characterised by an individ-           network connection of the
ual set-up, depending on the           set-top box it came as an
provider’s requirements.               unexpected but very nice
                                       surprise that not only a con-
  In theory, an IPTV pro-              nection via Ethernet was
vider can freely select the IP         possible, but also via WLAN.
addresses he wants to use              If you prefer to go wireless                   MBC Action on NILESAT 7° West via IPTV


32 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com
                                                         1
available to the provider it is
                                                                                                                  possible to offer tailor-made
                                                                                                                  customer service if need be.

                                                                                                                     Complementing the con-
                                                                                                                  figuration options of the Set-
                                                                                                                  tings menu there is system
                                                                                                                  overview, a self-test feature
                                                                                                                  and an option to restore fac-
                                                                                all you need is an RT73 com-      tory settings.
                                                                                patible WLAN USB adapter
                                                                                to plug into one of the USB         Using a web browser or
                                                                                ports – once it is detected       USB memory stick it is also
                                                                                by the system it can easily       possible to upgrade the
                                                                                be configured directly in the     receiver’s operating system
                                                                                                                  – a dedicated menu item is
                                                                                box.
                                                                                                                  available to facilitate that
                                                                                                                  procedure.
                                                                                  Now that all settings are
                                                                                completed the IPTV receiver
                                                                                                                    Once    all  settings  are
                                                                                saves all data and re-boots
                                                                                                                  selected the box needs to
                                                                                in order to establish a direct
                                                                                                                  be rebooted so that it con-
                                                                                connection to the middle-
                                                                                                                  nects to the middleware over
                                                                                ware.
                                                                                                                  the network and displays the
                                                                                                                  main menu generated by the
                                                                                   While average users should
                                                                                                                  provider’s middleware.
                                                                                be all set now we of course
     Watching an IPTV channel – the info bar on the bottom of the screen also   could not do without having
                                                                                                                     Using its own middleware
     displays EPG information if provided by the middleware.                    a look at the Extended Set-
                                                                                                                  Jiuzhou impressively demon-
                                                                                tings in order to adjust them
                                                                                                                  strates some of the features
                                                                                for our test setup.
                                                                                                                  an IPTV provider is able to
                                                                                                                  implement with its in-house
                                                                                   Currently the only menu
                                                                                                                  middleware and in combina-
                                                                                languages available are Eng-
                                                                                                                  tion with the DTP8300.
                                                                                lish and Chinese, but this
                                                                                refers only to the Main Menu
                                                                                                                    As you can see in the
                                                                                and a couple of OSD inserts
                                                                                                                  screenshots the main menu is
                                                                                of the receiver. During day-
                                                                                                                  divided into four major areas:
                                                                                to-day use the IPTV provid-       The top bar corresponds to
                                                                                er’s middleware generates all     the colour-coded function
                                                                                OSD items anyway and can          keys on the remote and thus
                                                                                be designed according to the      is perfectly suited for direct
                                                                                provider’s specifications.        access to live TV, video-on-
                                                                                                                  demand or timeshift viewing.
                                                                                  In Video Settings users
                                                                                can select the format of the        The left area holds features
                                                                                signal output to the TV, with     that are used a little less fre-
     Settings menu of the DTP8300                                               480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p      quently, such as games or
                                                                                and 1080i being available in      additional VOD content.
                                                                                4:3 und 16:9 aspect ratios, as
                                                                                well as PAL, NTSC or SECAM.         In the window to the right
                                                                                                                  of that section the live video
                                                                                   Finally, the Extended Set-     of the currently selected
                                                                                tings menu can be used to         channel is inserted, while
                                                                                change the PIN code that          in the bottom section of the
                                                                                restricts access to the Set-      screen there is room for ban-
                                                                                tings menu and to activate a      ners advertising new VOD
                                                                                log protocol that is sent to an   content or other provider-
                                                                                FTP server. This way provid-      based information for sub-
                                                                                ers can permanently check         scribers.
                                                                                whether any error messages
                                                                                have been created by the            In our test scenario we
                                                                                IPTV receiver or any prob-        hooked up Jiuzhou’s own
                                                                                lems have occurred.               middleware with the DVB-IP
                                                                                                                  gateway we had installed in
     Access to the network is via cable or WLAN                                   Thanks to these data being      our test lab and then entered


34 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com
                                                         1
the corresponding multicast            MPEG-4/H264 as well as
addresses as required. This            Windows Media 9 video. The
left us with one of our feed           built-in  browser     handles
channels – the MBC tran-               HTML 4.0, Javascript 1.5 and
sponder from NILESAT 7°                Java Virtual Machine.
West – being available on the
IPTV box in next to no time              Data delivered from the
at all.                                middleware is displayed with
                                       a 32bit True Colour User
  We were rather impressed             Interface. The audio decoder
with the zapping speed of              is capable of processing
this neat little box, which            WMA-9, MPEG Layer 1, 2 and
took just under one second             3 (MP3), AAC LC, AAC LC+                       IP settings
to switch between individual           SBR Level 2 as well as AAC+
streams of the TV channels             Level 2. Sampling rates of
requested.                             22500, 44100 and 48000Hz
                                       are   supported    and   the
   Whenever a new channels             receiver has a built-in 128
is called up the DTP8300 dis-          MB flash memory, 192 MB
plays EPG information of the           SDRAM and an 8K EEPROM.
selected event, if this feature
is provided by the middle-               In a word, we were
ware.                                  impressed with the Jiuzhou
                                       DTP8300 during our test.
  How     certain   additional
keys on the remote control                In the IPTV market it’s usu-
are used and which features            ally not up to the end user to
they access largely depends            pick a set-top box, which is
on the provider’s middleware           why the DTP8300 will mainly
again. If timeshift viewing            be chosen by IPTV providers.
is available, then it can be           They would end up with a                       Always required: the middleware address
controlled just like with any          box that is able to implement
other receiver and there’s no          all middleware features and
need to get used to a new              therefore is a perfect tool
user concept.                          for offering programming to
                                       subscribers.
  IPTV compatible added fea-
tures such as news, weather               Even end users looking to
updates or current offers for          stay independent from pro-
subscribers can be assigned            vider-supplied hardware will
to different function keys on          like the Jiuzhou DTP8300 as
the remote. There is even              it offers all necessary func-
an option to change from               tions, is easy to use, and
number to character input so           doesn’t take much space in
that you can use the numeric           the living room cabinet.
keypad for texting – just like
you would with your mobile
phone.
                                                                                      Extended settings
  As far as technical com-
patibility is concerned, the
Jiuzhou DTP8300 supports




36 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com
                                                         1
Video output in various formats                 Updating the operating software of the DTP8300 via server of USB stick

                                                                        Expert Opinion
                                                +
                                              Small IPTV receiver that is perfectly suited
                                           for use in the living room. Excellent video qual-
                                           ity, quick execution of commands sent from the
                                           remote control and good build quality are the key
                                           characteristics of this set-top box.
                                                                                                                  Thomas Haring
                                                                                                                    TELE-satellite

                                                -                                                                     Test Center
                                                                                                                          Austria
                                            The IR receiver of the box could be a little
                                           more forgiving



                                                                                ENERGY
                                                                                  DIAGRAM


EPG, clock and update settings
                                                                 Apparent Power


                                                                                              Mode      Apparent Active Factor
                                                                                              Reception 17.5 W   10 W   0.57




                                                                 Active Power




                                                                         TECHNICAL
                                                                                    DATA
                                          Manufacturer                  Sichuan Jiuzhou Electric Group Co., Ltd.
                                                                        #16 Yuejin Road, Mianyang 621000, Sichuan, China
DTP8300 system information                Fax                           +86-816-2468903/2469241

                                          EMail                         overseas@jiuzhou.com.cn

                                          Model                         DTP8300

                                          Function                      IPTV Set-Top-Box

                                          Stream Protocol               UDP

                                          Menu Standards                HTML4, Javascript 1.5, Java Virtual Machine

                                          HDMI connector                yes

                                          Scart connector               no

                                          Audio/Video output            3 x RCA

                                          YUV output                    3 x RCA

                                          S-Video output                yes

                                          Digital audio output          yes (optical)

                                          Ethernet                      yes

                                          WLAN                          yes (via USB stick)

                                          USB connector                 yes

                                          Input Voltage                 9V

                                          Dimensions                    230x160x39mm



                                  www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/201 —
                                                                   1              TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine        37

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Jiuzhou

  • 1. TEST REPORT IPTV Receiver Jiuzhou DTP8300 Receiver Jiuz hou DTP830 0 IPT V receiver equippe 12-01/201 1 for Internet Television d with top- notch technology At first sight the DTP8300 If you turn around the there is of course the usual receiver and look at the con- range of sockets for HDMI from Jiuzhou looks just like nection options on the back out, three RCA jacks for panel it becomes perfectly YUV, three more RCA jacks your average set-top box for clear that this is a set-top box for stereo audio and CVBS, satellite, cable or terrestrial that does not receive signals an optical S/PDIF output, from satellite, cable or ter- S-video socket and a second reception. It only measures restrial antenna. USB interface. There is even the added benefit of a 230x160x39 mm, which makes All we find is an RJ45 Eth- mechanical power switch, it a neat little addition to ernet port when it comes which is a valuable feature in to signal input. In addition, this time and age. the living room cabinet. The box comes in stylish black and sports two LEDs on the front panel to indicate the current operating mode. The manufacturer has chosen to do without an LCD or segment display, but has instead opted for an on/off switch in the left corner and a USB 2.0 interface in the right corner. 30 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com 1
  • 2. TELE-satellite World www.TELE-satellite.com/... Download this report in other languages from the Internet: Arabic ‫العربية‬ www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/ara/jiuzhou.pdf Indonesian Indonesia www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/bid/jiuzhou.pdf Czech Česky www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/ces/jiuzhou.pdf German Deutsch www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/deu/jiuzhou.pdf The remote control that If a receiver uses digital English English www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/eng/jiuzhou.pdf comes with the receiver satellite, cable or antenna Spanish Español www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/esp/jiuzhou.pdf Farsi ‫فارس ي‬ www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/far/jiuzhou.pdf makes a great first impres- signals, the receiver’s hard- French Français www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/fra/jiuzhou.pdf Hebrew ‫עברית‬ www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/heb/jiuzhou.pdf sion, has all keys within easy ware has to take care of Mandarin 中文 www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/man/jiuzhou.pdf reach, offers just the feed- all aspects of signal pro- Dutch Nederlands www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/ned/jiuzhou.pdf Polish Polski www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/pol/jiuzhou.pdf back required, and is clearly cessing. This does not only Portuguese Português www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/por/jiuzhou.pdf Romanian Română www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/rom/jiuzhou.pdf labelled. involve reception, conver- Russian Русский www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/rus/jiuzhou.pdf sion, decryption (if required) Turkish Türkçe www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1101/tur/jiuzhou.pdf If we have to think of and finally output of signals Available online starting from 3 December 2010 something worth improv- received with the DVB data ing it’s the IR receiver in the stream, but also channel Its main task is to display tent and of creating the IPTV set-top box, which requires management, processing of on the TV content which is receiver’s complete user users to point the remote EPG data and creating OSD delivered as pre-packaged interface. to a very small area on the messages for user interac- data. All technology required box – otherwise you’ll have to tion. for receiving and processing When turned on, the IPTV press the desired key several channels, for creating the receiver connects to the mid- times before your command By contrast, an IPTV OSD and for managing con- dleware via the Ethernet port is actually received at the receiver is a different story tent is located at the provider and displays content received other end. altogether. Put simply, it is end of the IPTV system. from the middleware. a kind of web browser being We’ll focus on the pecu- able to put out audio and There, so-called middle- By the way, the middle- liarities and features of the video. It doesn’t have to do ware (put simply again, a ware is also responsible for DTP8300 in a moment – but a channel search, it has no kind of web server) takes establishing a connection to first it’s worth looking at the (or only a very basic) OSD care of setting up channels the DVB-IP gateway for TV decisive differences between system and there is no need lists using provider-specific reception. Providers store TV reception via antenna, to manage, process, save, design elements, of providing the IP addresses and ports cable or satellite and IPTV. and organise channels. video-on-demand (VOD) con- of individual channels within 0.57 www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/201 — 1 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine 31
  • 3. the IPTV network in the mid- for his network, as well as dleware. the multicasts used for TV and radio distribution and the If a user now selects a spe- ports. cific channel on the channel list that is created and pro- This means in turn that set- vided by the middleware, the top boxes for end users need IPTV receiver obtains the to be just as flexible in order exact IP address and port to fit into existing IPTV net- of the selected channel and works. To this end – and to starts displaying the corre- this end only – the DTP8300 sponding video stream. is equipped with a dedicated The DTP8300 starts up with its own boot screen setup menu which can be Now the second major dif- called up with a small button ference between satellite on the remote control. By and IPTV reception becomes default it is PIN-protected evident. If you receive your and we suggest that end channels directly via satellite users in general keep their this means that all content is fingers off all of these set- available at the receiving end tings. (hence the term broadcast- ing), while IPTV reception The menu is divided into means that only the content six items, with Basic Settings (channel) that was specifi- and Extended Settings being cally requested is available of most interest. In Basic at any one time. Settings you need to tell your box how it should connect Of course all available con- to your IPTV provider’s net- tent is sitting at the provider, work. Main menu as generated by the Jiuzhou middleware waiting to be requested, but still data only starts to flow The receiver can either once the user calls up spe- request an IP address from cific content. Each customer the DHCP server or you can is served individually, so to assign a static IP address to speak, which is also why – your box. If you subscribe to apart from standard radio an IPTV provider that uses and TV channels – video-on- DSL for distributing their demand, time shift or PVR content you may also set up can be offered by the pro- a connection to the IPTV net- vider without the customer work via PPPoE. having to purchase new hardware. Once additional network parameters such as gate- Metaphorically speaking, way and DNS server are set broadcast reception via sat- or received from the DHCP ellite, cable or terrestrial server the IPTV receiver transmission is like a giant also needs to know the exact In our test setup the channel list contains five entries wave of content extending address of the middleware. to all receivers at the same time, while an IPTV network For our test purposes we targets each subscriber sep- chose to use the default mid- arately, providing only spe- dleware provided by Jiuzhou, cifically requested content in which we had installed in our a customised way. test centre on a standard Windows PC using Microsoft Not only is each IPTV cus- IIS. tomer served individually, each IPTV network is also While configuring the characterised by an individ- network connection of the ual set-up, depending on the set-top box it came as an provider’s requirements. unexpected but very nice surprise that not only a con- In theory, an IPTV pro- nection via Ethernet was vider can freely select the IP possible, but also via WLAN. addresses he wants to use If you prefer to go wireless MBC Action on NILESAT 7° West via IPTV 32 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com 1
  • 4. available to the provider it is possible to offer tailor-made customer service if need be. Complementing the con- figuration options of the Set- tings menu there is system overview, a self-test feature and an option to restore fac- all you need is an RT73 com- tory settings. patible WLAN USB adapter to plug into one of the USB Using a web browser or ports – once it is detected USB memory stick it is also by the system it can easily possible to upgrade the be configured directly in the receiver’s operating system – a dedicated menu item is box. available to facilitate that procedure. Now that all settings are completed the IPTV receiver Once all settings are saves all data and re-boots selected the box needs to in order to establish a direct be rebooted so that it con- connection to the middle- nects to the middleware over ware. the network and displays the main menu generated by the While average users should provider’s middleware. be all set now we of course Watching an IPTV channel – the info bar on the bottom of the screen also could not do without having Using its own middleware displays EPG information if provided by the middleware. a look at the Extended Set- Jiuzhou impressively demon- tings in order to adjust them strates some of the features for our test setup. an IPTV provider is able to implement with its in-house Currently the only menu middleware and in combina- languages available are Eng- tion with the DTP8300. lish and Chinese, but this refers only to the Main Menu As you can see in the and a couple of OSD inserts screenshots the main menu is of the receiver. During day- divided into four major areas: to-day use the IPTV provid- The top bar corresponds to er’s middleware generates all the colour-coded function OSD items anyway and can keys on the remote and thus be designed according to the is perfectly suited for direct provider’s specifications. access to live TV, video-on- demand or timeshift viewing. In Video Settings users can select the format of the The left area holds features signal output to the TV, with that are used a little less fre- Settings menu of the DTP8300 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p quently, such as games or and 1080i being available in additional VOD content. 4:3 und 16:9 aspect ratios, as well as PAL, NTSC or SECAM. In the window to the right of that section the live video Finally, the Extended Set- of the currently selected tings menu can be used to channel is inserted, while change the PIN code that in the bottom section of the restricts access to the Set- screen there is room for ban- tings menu and to activate a ners advertising new VOD log protocol that is sent to an content or other provider- FTP server. This way provid- based information for sub- ers can permanently check scribers. whether any error messages have been created by the In our test scenario we IPTV receiver or any prob- hooked up Jiuzhou’s own lems have occurred. middleware with the DVB-IP gateway we had installed in Access to the network is via cable or WLAN Thanks to these data being our test lab and then entered 34 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com 1
  • 5. the corresponding multicast MPEG-4/H264 as well as addresses as required. This Windows Media 9 video. The left us with one of our feed built-in browser handles channels – the MBC tran- HTML 4.0, Javascript 1.5 and sponder from NILESAT 7° Java Virtual Machine. West – being available on the IPTV box in next to no time Data delivered from the at all. middleware is displayed with a 32bit True Colour User We were rather impressed Interface. The audio decoder with the zapping speed of is capable of processing this neat little box, which WMA-9, MPEG Layer 1, 2 and took just under one second 3 (MP3), AAC LC, AAC LC+ IP settings to switch between individual SBR Level 2 as well as AAC+ streams of the TV channels Level 2. Sampling rates of requested. 22500, 44100 and 48000Hz are supported and the Whenever a new channels receiver has a built-in 128 is called up the DTP8300 dis- MB flash memory, 192 MB plays EPG information of the SDRAM and an 8K EEPROM. selected event, if this feature is provided by the middle- In a word, we were ware. impressed with the Jiuzhou DTP8300 during our test. How certain additional keys on the remote control In the IPTV market it’s usu- are used and which features ally not up to the end user to they access largely depends pick a set-top box, which is on the provider’s middleware why the DTP8300 will mainly again. If timeshift viewing be chosen by IPTV providers. is available, then it can be They would end up with a Always required: the middleware address controlled just like with any box that is able to implement other receiver and there’s no all middleware features and need to get used to a new therefore is a perfect tool user concept. for offering programming to subscribers. IPTV compatible added fea- tures such as news, weather Even end users looking to updates or current offers for stay independent from pro- subscribers can be assigned vider-supplied hardware will to different function keys on like the Jiuzhou DTP8300 as the remote. There is even it offers all necessary func- an option to change from tions, is easy to use, and number to character input so doesn’t take much space in that you can use the numeric the living room cabinet. keypad for texting – just like you would with your mobile phone. Extended settings As far as technical com- patibility is concerned, the Jiuzhou DTP8300 supports 36 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine — 12-01/201 — www.TELE-satellite.com 1
  • 6. Video output in various formats Updating the operating software of the DTP8300 via server of USB stick Expert Opinion + Small IPTV receiver that is perfectly suited for use in the living room. Excellent video qual- ity, quick execution of commands sent from the remote control and good build quality are the key characteristics of this set-top box. Thomas Haring TELE-satellite - Test Center Austria The IR receiver of the box could be a little more forgiving ENERGY DIAGRAM EPG, clock and update settings Apparent Power Mode Apparent Active Factor Reception 17.5 W 10 W 0.57 Active Power TECHNICAL DATA Manufacturer Sichuan Jiuzhou Electric Group Co., Ltd. #16 Yuejin Road, Mianyang 621000, Sichuan, China DTP8300 system information Fax +86-816-2468903/2469241 EMail overseas@jiuzhou.com.cn Model DTP8300 Function IPTV Set-Top-Box Stream Protocol UDP Menu Standards HTML4, Javascript 1.5, Java Virtual Machine HDMI connector yes Scart connector no Audio/Video output 3 x RCA YUV output 3 x RCA S-Video output yes Digital audio output yes (optical) Ethernet yes WLAN yes (via USB stick) USB connector yes Input Voltage 9V Dimensions 230x160x39mm www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/201 — 1 TELE-satellite — Global Digital TV Magazine 37