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TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Leading Digital TV Industry Publication
— 09-10/2014
—
battery pack that is charged
via a micro USB interface. For
one thing, that’s good for the
environment as there are no
replaced batteries that need
to be thrown away or – in
some countries – recycled.
More importantly, howev-
er, this new approach opens
up a whole new world of op-
tions and features. What
do we mean by that? Stay
glued! For example, this re-
mote control comes with a
gyro sensor which can turn it
into a computer mouse with
a single touch of a button.
Just place your finger on the
corresponding button and the
remote control will convert all
hand movements into mouse
signals and will send them to
the receiver. A brilliant fea-
ture, especially for gaming
and surfing the web.
Added to that is a touch-
sensitive scroll wheel and a
dedicated button for voice-
controlled operation. Apart
from those – any many more
– innovative features, Amiko
has opted for a minimalist
look, in keeping with the re-
ceiver itself. This makes the
remote control easy to use
and rather self-explanatory
with the least possible num-
ber of individual buttons.
One word of advice on the
remote control, before we
look at setting up the Amiko
A3 for the first time: This new
remote comes with a stand-
by button, which must be
switched on before it can be
used. You don’t need to worry
about switching it off again,
1. Spark 2 Logo
2. Video resolution options
3. DiSEqC 1.0 settings
4. DiSEqC 1.1 settings
5. Extended installation
6. Extended installation –
satellite configuration
7. Editing satellite entries
8. FastScan search on all
frequencies of a pay TV
provider
9. Network search is supported
10. Channel search
11. The integrated blind scan
feature works extremely
reliably
12. Transponder editor
13. DiSEqC 1.3 settings
14. Blind scan – active
transponders being identified
15. All favourites lists can be
(re)named freely
however. Three hours after
the last input or command it
will power down automatically
to save battery pack capacity.
When the receiver is turned
on for the very first time, an
installation wizard pops up
and guides you through the
initial setup routine, which
covers all required basics:
video output resolution (with
1080p available as an option,
as we can happily confirm),
OSD language and network
parameters. As far as the lat-
ter is concerned, the Amiko
A3 will accept cabled network
access just as well as WiFi
(802.11 b/g/n) through its
built-in WLAN. Even Internet
access through a cellphone
network (provided you buy
the required USB stick that is
available as an accessory) is
possible.
We did appreciate the fact
that the internal clock of the
receiver can be set to obtain
the correct time from the In-
ternet instead of from a DVB
channel. Some channels per-
sistently transmit inaccurate
time codes, which may cause
troubles down the line with
timed recordings, for exam-
ple. The Internet is more reli-
able here, so thank you Amiko
A3 for providing that option.
The initial setup is completed
with adjusting the receiver to
the reception equipment at
hand, and once again you’re
given all options you should
ever require, including DiSE-
qC protocols 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and
1.3, as well as unicable solu-
tions, complete with manual
LOF input, if needed. A total
of 53 European and Asian
satellite positions plus their
current transponder data are
pre-stored already. It goes
without saying that new en-
tries can be added at any
time, and existing entries can
be edited, if need be.
As far as search modes are
concerned, the Amiko A3 has
in store the standard auto-
matic mode, a manual scan
and a blind scan mode which
worked excellently in our test.
It did not take more than two
minutes for a blind scan on
HOTBIRD 13° East, which was
not only extremely fast but
also very reliable, finding all
active transponders on that
position and saving the data
