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03-04/2015
16 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Leading Digital TV Industry Publication — 03-04/2015 —
TEST REPORT Triple-Tuner HD-Receiver
The Race Car
among Receivers
What happens when we
have a company that bears
the name Formuler and
launches a receiver that it la-
bels F1? Well, right – we wake
up and smell the coffee, and
we expect one characteristic
from such a product: speed.
We at TELE-audiovision love
bold moves, and we’ve wit-
nessed quite a number of
them in recent years. But in
the end, it boils down to the
big question: Can the For-
muler F1 actually deliver on
its promise?
Its outward appearance
does not give away much with
its unobtrusive black design.
It’s only the fully glassed
front panel that seems to
provide a clue of what is to
follow. It features a perfectly
readable VFD display as well
and encourages active use
thanks to the convenient
pressure point of its buttons,
providing exactly the level of
feedback that is needed.
Up until very recently, al-
most all receivers came as a
permanently-married union
of hardware and software.
These days, however, we can
observe a new trend that
allows users to either use
a manufacturer’s in-house
software solution as operat-
ing system, or chose a third-
party installation instead, if
preferred. The Formuler F1
takes this development one
step further and is shipped
without a manufacturer-
specific operating system at
all. Instead, a total of three
different Enigma 2 distribu-
tions are available for use,
namely OpenPLI, OpenATV
und HDMU. By default, For-
muler uses the OpenPLI vari-
ant, which is why we only
deal with this distribution in
the current test report. Us-
ers that want to look at or
try out the two other options
can download those from the
Internet and install them on
their F1 (see link in info box).
When you turn on the For-
muler F1 for the very first
time an installation assistant
will greet you and guide you
through all required basic
Formuler F1
Superfast receiver for those
who hate to wait.
as a flap that hides a CI slot,
two built-in card readers, a
USB port and an SD card slot.
Looking at the back panel of
the F1 – which is shipped as a
twin DVB-S2 receiver by de-
fault – we discover a slot for
inserting a third tuner, which
can either receive DVB-S2 or
DVB-T2/C signals, depending
on the tuner type selected.
So out goes the twin tuner
and in comes the triple tuner,
complete with full PVR func-
tionality. In principle, adding
a third tuner is not rocket sci-
ence, and all you have to do
is open the case by unscrew-
ing a total of five screws.
We noticed that – contrary
to conventional PC design –
the third tuner is not attached
to a robust socket base, but
only to rather thin pins. This
tells us that Formuler appar-
ently does not want us to ex-
change the third tuner on a
regular basis.
Apart from that, the back
panel sports a classic design
with all the connection op-
tions you could reasonably
require. In addition to the
two standard DVB-S2 tuners
there are six RCA jacks for
stereo audio, composite vid-
eo and YUV, an HDMI output,
S/PDIF output, e-SATA port,
RS-232 interface, USB port,
RF-45 socket and – last but
not least – a socket to con-
nect the external power sup-
ply unit.
The remote control that is
shipped with the F1 receiver
sits in your hand very nicely