Subject: Technomate TM-1500 CI+ Super. A report by Roy Carman. Copyright. This report is the property of Tempus Fugit Publications and Visiondotcom Ltd (Trading as Satellite Superstore) Test Conditions. Location. Surrey Hills, SE England. Equipment. Dish, 1.2 meter Channel Master Dish with an Innvacom Twin Universal Professional.3db LNB fitted. The IF feed to the receiver is distributed via an active Eurostar 8 way splitter, this splitter distributes to other receivers (Manhattan Plaza 100. Quali QS1080IRCI HD, RSD ODM 302, Fortecstar Lifetime Ultra, Spectralook) within the day to day user set up. Sat FT125 Cable from LNB to Splitter then FT 100 cable from splitter to receiver. The dish is moved with a Manhattan Plaza ST 500 receiver. Therefore DiSEqC was not tested. The Receiver. (In test situation) I received a Technomate TM-1500CI+ Super for testing purposes on Friday 14 July 2006.
The Technomate TM-1500 CI+ Super receiver is situated in the bottom of the picture, sat upon its packing carton.
Receiver front. The front of the receiver is different in that the display window is round instead of the usual oblong window, this is purely cosmetic and limits the amount of detail that can displayed. To the right of the display can be seen three buttons. These buttons are as follows, Standby on/off, Programme up, Programme down. The rest of the receiver face is taken up with the flap, on the right of the picture, covering the single CI slot. An interesting point I shall add here is that you can buy separately a black housing kit. Also with the two 2 CI version, the TM-CI Super you can also obtain a Conax card reader that that can fitted in less than five minutes according to the handbook provided.
Receiver rear. Working left to right:RF in and out (note, this receiver only operates on PAL and NTSC) IEC 169-2 male and IEC 169-2 Female. RF out is for UHF channels 21-69 and is fully adjustable. 2 x RCA Cinch for stereo audio out 2 x RCA Cinch for Video Composite (top), S/PDIF for digital audio out. 2 fully wired Scart sockets marked TV and VTR, both are Composite but only the TV scart offers RGB out. The output can be toggled between Composite and RGB Red, Green and Blue) within the menu. The VTR scart has both an RGB and Composite input, but only Composite output. A note here and that is; manufacturers must start to ensure that both scart sockets are capable of RGB out to facilitate the best standard of recording onto Digital Video Disk recorders. RS 232C DB9 Low speed serial port for data transfer between similar receivers and of course for those inevitable updates via computer. A null modem cable is required for the software download and data transfer. LNB Input at the top, the LNB loop through at the bottom. These are standard IEC 169-24 (F connector).
Next is the mains socket for the standard Euro 8 mains connector. Last is an AC input on/off switch. This is very useful in todays environment of spiralling energy costs and also when the receiver locks up.
The RCU (Remote Control Unit) The remote control that arrived with receiver is possibly one of the most ergonomically designed RCU that I have ever used. The control can be held comfortably in the left hand and operated easily with the thumb of that hand. In addition to the standard controls for any satellite receiver, the RCU has a button marked colour. This allows the user to adjust the receivers video output to their current TV brightness, contrast and colour settings. There are also 4 coloured buttons at the bottom of the RCU with which a whole list of menu moves can be eliminated using these controls.
The receiver. This is a vastly different kind of receiver from the Technomate 4100 D that I tested in 2005. Gone are the cloned menus from the Fortecstar Lifetime Ultra receivers and in comes a menu that I can only say is pleasantly easy to use and understand. The receiver weighs 1.8Kgs and measures 260x54x232 mm. Although the handbook says the receiver is capable of down loading symbol rates between 2Msps and 45 Msps, the receiver easily found a signal of 1Msps. Audio is MPEG 1 layer 1 & 2. DiSEqC is available, Version 1.0/1, 1/1, 1.2. The receiver is also Stab USALS compatible. Reading the handbook it is possible by setting up USALS and inserting the satellites you wish to view, by pressing the red button on the remote whilst in the Blind Search page of the menu an Auto Navigation Blind Search will search the frequencies etc that are in the software database for every satellite that you have set up to view. The receiver would take a fair time to work its way through the 120 degree arc, also by using this means of search and by using the mode ALL as the search criteria the receiver will fill its memory of 5000 channels pretty quickly. Just by searching 28.2/28.5 East, 23.5 East, 19.2 East, 13 East, 7 East and 1 West, that will pretty well stuff the memory to capacity. Auto Navigation Blind Search is of little use if you use a separate receiver to move the dish. Again this receiver uses vital memory space by including silly games (Writers view). When will manufacturers/software writers learn that we would sooner utilise the memory space taken up by these games as channel storage. Operation and function. Menu Langauge. The first screen seen when initially setting up the receiver is the list of languages. There are 12 languages available.

Fig 1 Select your language. Interestingly the Handbook accompanying this receiver only had English and French languages included. The next Menu screen that appears is really the hub of menu system.
Fig 2 Main Menu. Although the cursor sets up on Installation on the initial screen; it is advisable to first cursor down to System Setting, and set the receiver up to your television.
Fig 3 Once this screen is visible you can now set the receiver to. Correct time and date can be set. However after the receiver has downloaded the first channel the onboard clock will set itself to the correct time. But you still need to enter this menu to set your time difference from Greenwich Mean Time.
Fig 4 Once the required settings are entered, press Exit on the RCU and another sub screen appears with the choice of Yes/No/Cancel, using the cursor on the remote, select your choice and press OK. To leave a menu page either Menu or Exit can be pressed. The next page of this menu is the A/V Output Setting. Again it is a very self explanatory menu page. Once this menu page has been adjusted to user requirements there will be no need to go to it anymore unless of course you need to carry out a full Factory Reset. As we go through the menus you will see that there is very little need to carry out the somewhat devastatingly complete, Factory Reset Once your setting has been entered the Yes/No/Cancel screen appears; again move the cursor over your choice and press the OK button that is in the middle of the RCU.
Fig 5 Once the user has worked their way through the menu at Fig 3, they then can move back to Installation in the main menu. Before moving on I will mention the Factory Reset Page that is in the System Setting Menu. To enter the Factory Reset page you will need to enter a PIN, the default PIN code being 0000. Now here is the clever part of this receiver, it is clever because of its simplicity.
Fig 6 The only complaint here is that you cannot choose an individual satellite to remove Channels or Radio from it is all or nothing. Deleting Scrambled Channels could be useful, but be vary wary of this as many broadcasters do not electronically label their channels correctly as Scrambled or Free to Air (FTA), also many data channels that the receiver downloads in its search show up as FTA. The Delete All Channels function is very useful as it does not lose your antenna settings or satellite loading list. Whereas with the Manhattan or Fortec, remove all channels and the satellite disappears from the Satellite loading list. Returning to the Installation menu.

Press OK

Fig 8 Satellite Setup, and now the required satellites that are visible within the arc can be set up. The receiver being tested was set up for the European area. The last satellite East, being Telstar 10 at 76.5 East and the last satellite West being, Echostar 3 at 61.5 West. By using the Green button on the RCU, the names of satellites can be changed. The Yellow button is Save and obviously saves the data a user has entered at this stage of the menu. The Blue button will delete the satellite displayed. The Red button sets the receiver to scan the nominated satellite from the software database. The Motorized Setting, (see Fig 7) allows the user to select the level of DiSEqC that is to be used.

Fig 9 The default setting is Off, but once the cursor is used to search for the correct DiSEqC mode the screen changes again
Fig 10 Now the dish can be moved using DiSEqC and centred over the satellite. Nearly everything has been thought of in this software, there is even a Move Fine facility for that pin point adjustment. The Yellow and Blue signal bars at the bottom of figure 10 are the focal point for satellite adjustment. Obviously an active transponder has to be set at the Transponder position. Interestingly the DiSEqC Motor setting is 1.2, also in the same line there is the USALS set up facility. Referring to Fig 7, Auto Navigation gives the user the chance to set the search criteria. The red button again sets the receiver searching the software database, and the green button sets the receiver into Blind Search mode.
Figure 11 The level of channels to be downloaded can be set. All will download TV, Radio and Data. Free only the designated Free to Air channels, TV omits the radio channels but catches the Data channels, however it does help prevent channel over load. The next Installation category is Blind search, and this is where this receiver is a little different from the rest! Select the satellite to be searched from your designated list. If using DiSEqC the receiver will now move to the selected satellite.
Then side arrow across to the small screen on the right.
Fig 12 Here can be set the all important search parameters dependent on the satellite to be searched. TP allows the setting of the frequency parameters to be searched. A tip here; Not all satellites operate over the full KU or C Band so to be economical with the search time brief yourself at which frequencies the particular satellite operates within. SR. This position has four settings. FULL, this will find the majority of active transponders on a satellite, but it will not find those below using an SR below 2 Msps. It is also prone to miss some SR below 4 Msps 7.5M Over, this will search for all transponders visible using and SR above 7.5 Msps. 7.5M Under, this will search for all transponders visible using and SR below 7.5 Msps. 3.7M Under, this will find transponders operating at 4 Msps and under. A slight overlap as you can see was evident. This search is much slower than the All and 7.5M Over categories. DETAIL, using this, the user can expect to find all transponders between 1 Msps and 45 Msps. It is slow but very thorough indeed. If using this to find feeds it is probably best to set the Frequency search parameters to 250 MHz at a time because if it is attempted to search the whole satellite, some feed would have been and gone. A comparison here, when searching 19.2 East, Astra Series 1 craft, the Manhattan Plaza 100 when set to All found 697 TV and 325 Radio channels. The Technomate TM-1500 CI+ Super, set to search in DETAIL mode, found 944 TV and 334 Radio. The argument here of course is that the Technomate has filled valuable storage space with uninteresting data channels, or has it? That depends upon the users requirement. The receiver in any of these modes searches in 8 MHz steps, the secret is in the search time set at each search level. You can almost sense the receiver in the DETAIL mode steadily switching up a MHz at a time, and running rapidly through all the symbol rates, within the 8 MHz band. It has been reported that the receiver sometimes skips channels, I have had only one experience of this and that was on Turksat 1C. In general the Technomate TM-1500 CI+ Super found more channels that both Fortec and Manhattan Plaza.

Referring once more to Fig 7 the next item on this sub menu is Advance search.
Fig 13 This allows the user to search the receiver software database, plus transponders that have been previously added either by the operator (this is the screen where to add new transponders) or other searches. A Network search can also facilitated. Search type criteria are once again, All Channel, FTA Only, and TV Only. Network Search allows the receiver to find transponders that are associated with other transponders broadcast by the same network. The last item on the Installation Menu is PID search, Fig 14. Here an individual transponder can be searched, or if known, the PIDS can be added.
Fig 14. By now the main operational parts of getting the receiver to find channels has now been completed. On setting up one thing I found irritating was that after a download, the found channels were added on to a list of channels of every channel that has been downloaded from all satellites. To get around this the user needs to go to the Sat button on the RCU and then select the satellite that they are watching to gain the list of channels for that one particular satellite.
Fig 15. Edit Channels. Within this menu the user can organise the channels that have been downloaded into what ever order they so wish. If the user is a feed hunter and also wishes to watch the programme channels then the Skip Channels feature and Set Favorites can be set up so that the programme channels can be skipped, or use the Favorites to view the programme channels. Or of course using the Move Channels function, move the feed channels either to the beginning or the end of the Satellite channel list. Using this menu as with all receivers, can be a time consuming event. The next item in the main menu is Games. This, and I will say it again, is a memory space consuming item that really does not have any place within the satellite receiver domain. Manufacturers please note and rid us of this menace.
Fig 16. There are six games in all.

The next main menu choice is System Information, this is self explanatory.
The information here will change as updates are received and installed. One handy thing is the telephone number so that you can ring or fax and complain about the useless waste of space that the games take up.
Fig 17. To find this information; just press OK on the RCU when the cursor is over the System Information bar. The last item for this receiver is Common Interface
Fig 18. The receiver tested has only one CAM slot. When a CAM is in the slot provided the Slot #1 this will change to the type of cam in use, be it Viacess, SECA etc. The final function on the Main Menu, the Smart card (Conax), does not have any function on this receiver and is for other versions. General. A slight irritant is that when displaying the Information screen, this includes details of the channel in use as seen in FIG 19 below.
Fig 19 The Information display and PIDS screen disappear when the channel is changed however the bottom part of the display does remain for as long as you have set for it to remain in the setting up process. If this could be set to remain in the System Setting menu this would be an asset. When checking channels and their relationship to a transponder this can be done easily by pressing the OK button twice whilst observing a channel.
Fig 20 The Red button on the RCU displays all of the channels found on the satellite being viewed. The Green button on the RCU displays the channels in Alphabetical order. The Yellow button by transponder, beware here; the thumbnail view does not change unless OK is keyed upon the transponder you have selected by use of the cursor. This requires a two pushes of the OK key. Note.If the user goes to full screen here, then all they can view are the channels that are on the designated transponder that has been selected. The user will need to re-enter the Channel List part of the menu and depress the Red or Green button that enables the viewing of the whole satellite content. Select the transponder to be viewed using the Up and Down buttons, OK, the cursor now moves to the channels upon the selected transponder, again using Up and Down buttons on
the RCU select the channel to be viewed, key OK again, and the thumbnail view changes; to see the thumbnail view in full screen just key OK. This can be very handy for moving between programming and feeds. The Blue button brings up a list of encryption systems that allow the user to define the type of encryption in use by a channel/transponder.

Fig 21 To the left appears a list of Encryption types, in the bottom right hand corner of the screen the term CAS can be seen, beside that is the type of encryption in use. In Fig 21 the CAS is FTA.
Fig 22 The receiver can be set up to be Child Friendly and prevent unauthorised changes to the downloaded content. The handbook is small, printed on good quality paper, concise, excellent diagrams, and uses reasonably accurate descriptions with good English. Summary. The only complaint that I have against this all singing all dancing receiver is the lack of FEC (Forward Error Correction/Viterbe Bit Rate). I am being told that this is being left out because of todays powerful satellites. I personally do not see the logic in that as someone will always live on the edge of a particular satellites footprint. Being able to set the FEC is a crucial factor when trying to pull in those weaker channels.
The receiver is very fast and furious in the general search modes, Full and 7.5M Over; in Full it will miss some of the lower SR transponders. But the receiver comes into its own when using 3.7M Under and DETAIL. Using All in the blind search mode the receiver took 8 min 5 sec to download Hotbird at 13 East producing 1425 TV and 488 Radio channels. Another slight gripe that became evident whilst compiling this report is the insipid colouring of the menu back ground. By the end of playing with this wonderful little receiver I began to feel a little sea sick. A slight over use of menu occurs in the OSD (On Screen Display). Settings can be changed by using the left or right buttons on the RCU, that is sufficient, but to add the ability to press OK over the various settings and obtain a small screen with exactly the same information as using the right and left cursor buttons is menu over kill and again use of memory space. However a change that I would like to see is that Exit means total exit from anywhere within the menu system, to move just one stage back in the menu then just use the Menu button. As a firm believer in One piece of equipment to do just one job, then the second scart socket marked VCR must be capable of RGB out. This is one of the first receivers that I have had the privilege to use that does not require an urgent software update. For that Technomate must be congratulated.

TEST REPORT

Satellite Receiver
Technomate TM-7755 2VA 2CI
! . - . . . . . PID Info . Cancel . . 2:2:4 . . ! ""! . . . Eutelsat Sesat 63 11/940 00561 11/640 11/250 ) ( 25561 . . . . . . . - )(Factory reset . 801 72 . 0057 11 .
. 0001 )1 ( TRSP Sesat .
. . . ) ( . 5577- TM " " . Hotbird . 6 . SatcoDX . 01/009 11/002 6 Eutelsat W 01 4/ . . . 2365 ! . . . .
TELE-satellite International www.TELE-satellite.com
Satellite Receiver TEST REPORT
. 6 Eutelsat W 12/5 - - . . . . Hotbird 3 . : 801 7. . . . . . OK . . . . ) (Sport ) (Film ) (Music ) (Children . EPG . . . .

2 " " 2 CI

. . : ) (CI ! DiSEqC . DiSEqC LNB. . . . . 16 . . 82 6 . 32/5 . LNB UHF ) SVHS ( RCA/Phono S/PDIF 232 RS . 21/0 V . 0.1 DiSEqC 2.1 DiSEqC USALS
. : . 0057 . . Hotbird
. : . . .
Andy Middleton TELE-satellite Test Center UK
. . 0005 .
www.TELE-satellite.com TELE-satellite International
TEST REPORT Satellite Receiver Info-Box

Channel Information

Blind scan receiver with 2 embedded VA slots & 2CI

TECHNICAL

Distributor E-Mail Fax Model Function Channel Memory Satellites Symbolrate DiSEqC USALS Programmable 0/12V Output Scart Connectors Video/Stereo Audio Output Digital Audio Output Color System S-VHS Output Modulator PAL/NTSC compatible C/Ku-Band Compatible SCPC Compatible EPG Teletext USB 2.0 Connection Picture-in-Picture Power Supply Power Consumption Technomate, 328 Hoe Street, London E19 9PX info@technomate.com +TM-7755 2VA 2CI Blind scan receiver with 2 embedded Viaccess slots & 2 CIs Mbps (1.0 received in our tests) 1.0 & 1.2 yes no x RCA yes (optical) PAL/NTSC/SECAM yes (via Scart) yes, UHF yes yes yes yes yes no no 90-240 VAC 50/60Hz Max 30W

Channel list

Extended EPG

Power scan

RESULT
Features Channel Memory Channel Scan Speed Video Quality Audio Quality Tuner Sensitivity

USALS setup

SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL