TV Tel's(TV Cabo) Powerbox

rato

Now that Tv Tel's takeover by Tv Cabo, all customers of Tv Tel have to exchange to a new STB due to the fact of the encryption contract that Tv Cabo has with Kudelski, and turn their dishes over to Hispasat 30ºW.


Since July until the end of August, Tv Tel's customers are now being contacted to exchange their STB's to TV Cabo's Thomson Powerbox.





The new STB from Thomson for the TV Tel customers is a very simple STB. It has a flimsy look,has the essential connectivity, but lacks a HDMI or DVI socket. A must have for today's standards in terms of STB boxes.



The remote has a antique feeling, but comes with buttons for a future update(HDD drive)? Strange, for a STB which doesn't even have a USB port. The ethernet port is there, but connecting a network disk to a STB that doesn't even have a HDMI socket is beyond me.






The inside doesn't also seem to be prepared for an internal HDD.




Image viewing is the scart method, with RGB option. Picture quality is standard via Hispasat 30ºW, but you can notice that when it was transmitted via Eurobird 9ºE, the picture had less compression, hence a better quality in terms of viewing. A minus for TV Tel's customers.





OSD menu's a basic to crude, using the same OSD from the (in)famous Octal Powerbox's. Were talking about a OSD menu's that has been the same since 1998!!!!




Funny, is the option between the TvTel channel menu & the Tv Cabo channel menu.





All channels that Tv Tel customer had are accessable via the TV Cabo menu(of course the transponder is the same), but other channels(not premium channels), that are not found on the Tv Tel menu(ex: Fox), give a message to contact Tv Cabo for more info. A way for Tv Tel customer's to change to a Tv Cabo contract?







The EPG button is a extra for Tv Tel customers which was missing on thier former STB boxes. It works through Tv Cabo's interactive software via direct buttons on the remote and the coloured buttons. The EPG is about a day on most channels.







Tv Tel was the first company to rival Tv Cabo in Portugal in the DTH satellite market. It didn't last one year. Now that Meo(Portugal Telecom) appeared and PT Multimedia seperation from Portugal Telecom giving birth to Zon(Tv Cabo), the Tv Tel customers were basically caught in the crossfire. Wanting to change from Tv Cabo a year ago, now faces them as a provider. The choice now is simple: For HD viewing, or cancel the contract and join Meo, or change the contract and pay for a rented HD STB.