1. TEST REPORT Satellite Receiver
Eycos S50.12 PVR
The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg?
We’ve been waiting a long time for the first PVR ing the delivery truck trudged through a thick layer fed with the same satellite signal.
receiver from the very young company Eycos out of of snow all the way to our doors. Finally, the long We find this to be a very practi-
South Korea. On a dark and gray cold winter morn- awaited test unit is sitting here in front of us. cal feature and once everything
is correctly set up, the user will
no longer need to think about
We were very excited while clearly labeled and sits nicely in reveals a number of additional which tuner to use. The receiver
opening the package and the ini- your hand. Eycos also provided setting possibilities. The Eycos handles this all by itself.
tial impression from looking at a second remote control that is is quite international: aside from It has become almost stand-
the outside of the receiver did smaller and equipped with lim- German, English, French, Ital- ard for most receivers to offer
not disappoint us. Sleek but ele- ited functions. This could be ian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian an automatic, a manual and an
and Dutch, you can also choose expanded PID scan. The Eycos
from Romanian, Russian, Swed- is no exception here. Of course
ish, Turkish and Farsi as an OSD a network scan is also available.
language. At a little over three minutes, the
automatic scan of 80 transpond-
The Main Menu is divided into ers is quite good although the
six sections. In the first sec- receiver needs quite a bit of time
tion, “Channel Search”, all of the to actually store all of the chan-
settings for antenna configura- nels it found. For the manual
tion as well as satellite data are channel scan, Eycos came up
gant is the best way to describe quite practical when you con- handled. The receiver supports with a rather interesting idea:
the S50.12 PVR. The front panel sider that your nosy little one the DiSEqC protocols 1.0, 1.1, if a single transponder needs
sports a four-digit display as well could have otherwise easily 1.2 and 1.3 (USALS). Every to be scanned that is not yet in
as eight buttons for complete messed up the entire program- user, regardless of whether they the receiver’s transponder list,
operation of the receiver should ming of the receiver. have a WaveFrontier antenna or there is one transponder in the
the remote control go missing. a DiSEqC motor, should have no list with a frequency of 00000.
Behind a centrally located flap We also need to highlight the trouble adapting the receiver Simply enter the desired new
are hidden a pair of CI slots that user manual written in English to their system. Contrary to frequency and once the chan-
can be used with a variety of and German. It is clearly and receivers from other manufac- nel scan has been completed,
modules (Irdeto, Seca, Viaccess, concisely written, covers every turers, the Eycos was designed this new frequency will be trans-
Conax, Nagravision, etc.) aspect of the receiver and is prop- in such a way that the user need ferred to the transponder list.
The nicely equipped rear erly illustrated where it needs to not worry about which tuner to This can be done as many times
panel also put a smile on our be. All in all, it should be able to select except for determining as needed to complement the
faces. In addition to the IF input answer almost any question you whether both tuners would be existing transponder list.
and looped-through output for might have regarding the opera-
the two tuners, there are also a tion of the S50.12PVR.
set of Scart connectors as well
TEST
RESULT
Features
as an S-Video connection, three
RCA jacks for video and stereo Everyday Use
Channel Memory
audio, a programmable 0/12- To our astonishment, this test
Channel
volt output, an RS-232 serial receiver came to us prepro-
Scan Speed
interface, a USB 2.0 port for grammed with a very up-to-date
SATELLITE
connection to a PC, an RF modu- channel list for Astra, Hotbird Channel
INTERNATIONAL
Switching Speed
lator and also an optical digital and Turksat. If you happen
audio output for perfect sound. to have a somewhat standard
Video Quality
Rounding out all of this is a main antenna configuration, then it
power switch. should take no time at all to get
the first pictures on your TV set. Audio Quality
The included remote con- Accessing the nicely designed TELE
trol is ergonomically designed, and animated main menu Tuner Sensitivity
TELE-satellite International — www.TELE-satellite.com

2. If up until now you have been
frustrated with the poor picture
quality of CVBS signals, you can
seek help in the “User Settings”
menu. The receiver can provide
the video signal in CVBS, RGB
and S-Video. YUV for connec- ings, it won’t be too difficult to recording from the receiver to a er’s basic settings are function-
tion to flat screen TV’s or pro- lose sight of what is going on. PC and this without any supple- ing correctly. This is a powerful
jection systems is unfortunately Contrary to most other receiv- mental software since Windows tool for the service tech. The
not available. The reception of ers, the list of recordings in the recognized the hard drive in the question now becomes, is this
US feeds in NTSC format did Eycos is in descending order receiver. Eycos also offers a receiver really the goose that
not present any problems; the – that is, the last recording is settings editor at no charge that laid the golden egg? We believe
automatic switching between shown first. At first it may take can be used to edit the channel that it is definitely headed in that
PAL and NTSC signals functioned some getting used to, but after and favorites lists comfortably direction. The manufacturer is
perfectly. a while you won’t want it any on the PC. willing to please and has prom-
other way. ised to react to our small list of
The remaining three menus For dealers there’s even a self- bugs that we stumbled on during
deal with CI modules, the hard After every channel change diagnostic menu. After entering our tests. Without a doubt,
drive and subsequent decryp- – if desired this can be set to a code known only to dealers, Eycos has developed a very solid
tion: the receiver is capable of a gradual fade out/fade it – an they can determine if the receiv- receiver with the S50.12PVR.
recording multiple encrypted Info bar is displayed that shows
programs on the hard drive for information on the current and
later decryption. As long as the upcoming program. TECHNIC Manufacturer Eycos Multimedia Systems
No.756, 189-1, Kumi-dong
CI module supports this func- DATA
Bundang-ku, Seongnam
tion, the receiver can also record The EPG is very logically 463-810, Korea
two decrypted programs at the designed, is very quickly loaded
Distributor Satforce
same time. In our test using with data and displays all of the Kommunikationstechnik GmbH
an Alphacrypt module, this also information correctly and leg-
Tel +49-86-54 773 851
worked without any difficulties. ibly.
Fax +49-86-54 773 852
E-Mail info@satforce.com
Features The Eycos manufactured
tuner is very sensitive to incom- Model S50.12PVR
After this excursion through all ing signals and was easily able Function Digital Satellite Receiver with
of the S50.12PVR’s setting pos- to handle the weak signals on PVR Function
sibilities, we wanted to immerse Arabsat 2D at 26° east. The Channel Memory 8000
ourselves in the features used receiver also mastered the SCPC Satellites 45
on a daily basis. The capability test signal on Pas12; the signal Symbol Rate 1-45 Ms/sec.
to record four programs at the with a symbolrate of only 1.325
SCPC Compatible Yes
same time jumped right out at Ms/sec. was no problem for the
USALS Yes
us. Since this receiver uses only receiver.
DiSEqC 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3
two tuners, the four programs
to be recorded would have to be Even though the movie indus- Scart Connectors 2
on two transponders. Unfortu- try and some PayTV providers Audio/Video Outputs 3 x RCA
nately, the receiver only shows might not be happy with this fea- UHF Output Yes
the number of current record- ture, nearly every manufacturer 0/12 Volt Output Yes
ings. If you want to know what must equip their PVR receivers
Digital Audio Output Yes
and for how long/time remain- with a USB 2.0 interface in order
EPG Yes
ing, the proud owner will only to survive in the market. Eycos
C/Ku-Band Compatible Yes
find out after pushing the large is no different. In fact they
PVR button on the remote con- seem to have put a little extra EPG Yes
trol and checking out the list of effort in this in that they man-
previously recorded programs. aged to find a chipset that can
A little improvement here might take full advantage of the capac-
not be a bad idea since with up ity of USB 2.0. It took just about
to four simultaneous record- three minutes to transfer a 2GB
Expert conclusion
+
The Eycos S50.12PVR is a solid and easy-to-use Main menu Satellite scan
receiver that did not show any problems during our
tests. Especially noteworthy is the extremely fast
USB 2.0 interface as is the capability to record four
programs simultaneously. Thomas Haring
TELE-satellite
-
Test Center
Austria
Here and there we found some small bugs in the
software of this receiver. The bug list as well as a wish list was for-
warded to the manufacturer.
Satellite list Info bar
TELE-satellite International — www.TELE-satellite.com