Here's your ticket to digital
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One Box Home, Thaico and The Nation provide an easy, affordable path to the future
The One Box Home digital-terrestrial TV receiver is a compact set-top box that’s easy to install and use.
With it, you get a Yagi 5E-type “passive” antenna that’s useful for most home viewers currently using either satellite receivers or subscribing to a cable TV service, who thus have no antenna.
Best of all, Thaico Electric Appliance Industry (Thaico), which makes the DVB-T2 receivers, has joined forces with the Nation Group and One Box Home, distributor of the boxes. As a result, viewers will be able to get a Bt690 coupon from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission toward the cost of the receiver.
Thaico, the Nation Group and One Box Home will explain how to use the coupons when the commission distributes them.
The set-top box is just 12x9x3.5cm and light enough that it can be attached to the back of your LCD TV with double-sided adhesive tape.
Apart from the tape, the package comes with everything you need to get the unit ready for enjoying digital TV. There’s the antenna and a 10-metre cable, plus an HDMI cable, an A/V cable, a power adapter, a remote control and an English-Thai user’s manual. The remote control itself has brief descriptions of its functions in Thai as well.
I tucked into the package and, just following the manual, found the antenna easy to assemble. The cable with connectors at both ends is easily linked to the box and antenna.
With the antenna in my living room, the box “reported” that the signal wasn’t strong enough to generate TV images, so I took the antenna out on the balcony and immediately picked up a powerful-enough signal. All the digital TV channels came in with good quality.
The box indicated I was getting a signal that was 70 to 75 per cent of full capacity, varying with the channels. When I connected the set-top box to my rooftop antenna, the signal strength rose to between 81 and 85 per cent. That tells me that the antenna provided in the package does a pretty decent job if you don’t have a rooftop one.
With the HDMI cable I connected the set-top box to my home-theatre receiver, which is in turn hooked up to my plasma TV. Would the box pass on the Dolby Digital signal to the receiver so I could enjoy five-channel immersive movies?
I turned on the set-top box and was prompted to scan for digital channels. If you use the active antenna, you can at this point switch on the electrical power to the antenna. The box menu’s default language is Thai, but it’s easily swapped for English.
The box has a USB 2.0 port on the right side, ready for a USB drive or portable hard drive if you want to record TV shows. Once all the digital TV channels provide full programme guides, you can use the EPG to set up recording in advance. Just don’t forget to have a USB or portable hard drive plugged into the box.
In my test, the One Box Home receiver generated sharp and clean pictures, especially when tuned to HD channels. Thai Rath’s HD channel and Channel 5 HD both came through crisp and beautiful.
The set-top box can also function as a multimedia player, displaying photos and playing MP3 music files. You just select the function you want from its “Multimedia” menu.
Best of all, the box can play most digital-movie formats, including MKV, AVI, DivX, XviD, MOV, FLV, MPEG and MP4.
I hooked up my 500GB portable hard drive and played MP3 files and viewed JPEG photos and digital movies with no problem at all. Full HD 1080P movies in the MKV format played smoothly as well.
And the box transmitted Dolby Digital audio for the home-theatre receiver to decode so it could generate a five-channel environment without a hitch. The box also displays Thai-language subtitles.
There is no channel-number display or even a power switch. Instead, you use the power button on the remote to switch on and the “Info” button to check the information of the channel that’s playing.
One Box Home is distributing the set-top box for Bt1,290 via Tesco Lotus superstores. Club Card members can buy it for Bt999. Don’t forget about that Bt690 coupon, though – details about which will be announced later.
KEY SPECS
Maximum display resolution: 1080P Full HD
Display ratio: 16:9, 4:3, Pan & Scan, Letter Box
EPG: 7 day
TV broadcast: SD/HD: MPEG2, MPEG2, AVC, H.264
Dolby Digital (AC3): Yes
Software upgrade: OTA, USB
Supported movie formats: MKV, AVI, DivX, XviD, MOV, VOB, FLV, DAT, MPEG, MPG, MP4 and TX
Supported audio formats: MP3, WMA
Supported picture formats: JPEG, BMP, PNG
Ports: USB 2.0, HDMI, RF in, RF out, coaxial audio output, A/V, power
