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Thursday, October 20, 2011

A Quick Review on Openbox S10 Satellite Receiver

Posted by Shipcode at 20.10.11 Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Are you a satellite hobbyist or interested in satellite security? Well then, this satellite receiver is for you!

Meet Openbox S10 HD Satellite Receiver, a Linux MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) OS satellite receiver that has a CCcam Plugin for watching HD (High- Definition) in your TV. It has similar functions of a Dreambox Satellite Receiver but is the cheapest and easy to configure satellite receiver that the world has ever known.

So what’s with this satellite receiver? Unlike other satellite receivers that you receive if you subscribe with satellite cable companies like GSAT, CIGNAL, and Dream, this kind of receiver is configurable and can be loaded with flash images.

This is an ideal tool for satellite hobbyist who loves to shoot FTA (Free to Air) and encrypted channels in different frequencies. And because this kind of receiver has an Ethernet port, this can be used for card sharing also known as control word sharing which is a popular method of pirate decryption.

Basically, card sharing allows access to a specific valid subscription for multiple clients or satellite receivers. A smart card is attached to a satellite receiver loaded with software that supports the “control word” over the Internet.

Openbox S10 (the successor of Openbox S9) supports HD and if paired with a LED (Light Emitting Diode) TV, the graphics are god-like or should I say “imba”. In fact, my father and I tried testing it with just a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) TV and it’s like watching channels in a DVD Bluray mode.
This satellite receiver has a user-friendly GUI (Graphic User Interface) and is one of the coolest satellite receivers and boots faster than any set-top boxes out there.

Below are the complete specifications of this set-top box:

1.     300 MHz MIPS Processor - Linux Operating System
2.     Fully compliant MPEG-4 H.264/AVC Main Profile Level 3 & High Profile Level 4.1
3.     Fully compliant MPEG-2 MP@HL & MP@ML
4.     Fully compliant MPEG-1 Layer I & II & III, Dolby Digital Audio (AC3)
5.     SCPC & MCPC receivable from C/Ku band satellites
6.     Multiple LNB-Switching control (supports DiSEqC1.0/ 1.1/ unicable/1 .2/ 1.3 (USALS) supported)
7.     NIT search supported
8.     Support MHEG-5
9.     Support HDMI 1.3
10.  Support PVR (store in USB disk)
11.  Multimedia files playback (by USB)
12.  Support Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for 7 days
13.  Teletext and subtitle out through OSD
14.  Support multi-lingual DVB subtitle and teletext
15.  Automatic and manual channel scan options
16.  Automatic service scan
17.  Channel-change time: 1 second
18.  OSD in many languages and skin-support
19.  Multilingual support on screen menu (OSD): English, French, Deutsch, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Greece, Portuguese, Finland, Holland, Turkish, Czech, selectable
20.  LED Display
21.  Multiple display modes: 1080i/720p/570p/576i/480p
22.  MPEG-2 / H.264 Hardware decoding
23.  Videotext Decoder
24.  Analog audio output: stereo(L+R)
25.  Screen format: auto, 4:3, and 16:9
26.  Upgrade software through USB2.0 port
27.  Powerful program management function, parent lock
28.  CA 1x slot and CI 1xslot
29.  10/100Mbit Ethernet Interface
30.  Directly bouquet-lists
31.  Size (W x D x H): 300 mm x 220 mm x 56 mm Weight: 2.0 kg without USB HDD

The receiver is really good and I hope next time they will improve their firmware by including new capabilities like able to play AVI, MKV, etc. so that it will surpass the capabilities of a multimedia player.

And by the way, for those of you who are interested in shooting FTA channels just visit Lyngsat.com for more resources.

Happy shooting guys!

About the Contributor:
Shipcode is a prolific blogger of ROOTCON and at the same time an InfoSec enthusiast from Cebu. He was inspired to join ROOTCON as part of the core team to share his knowledge in information security.  He encourages other like minded individuals to come forward and share their knowledge through blogging right here at ROOTCON Blog section.

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