I am presenting you review of newest Vu+ Duo 2 receiver. Vu+ finally released their flagship satellite receiver Duo2 which was announced at Anga 2012 and publicly shown at Anga 2013. It is a successor of legendary Duo which came out in 2010. Duo2 was anxiously expected by thousands of satellite enthusiasts all over the Europe and the main question is: Has Vu+ delivered? The answer to this question you can read at the end of this article.

Duo2 really is an impressive piece of kit. Neither Dreambox, Gigablue, Xtrend or any other competitor hold such receiver in their assortment. I will try to present all important facts that might be interesting. Let the review begin!

SPECIFICATION

2x Plug and Play tuners with Dual DVB-S2 tuner option!
2×1300 MHz MIPS processor
1GB Flash
2GB DDR3 DRAM
1Gb LAN
300Mbit N WiFi
2x DVB Common-Interface Slot
2x Smart Card Reader
3x USB ports (1x front, 2x rear)
1x eSata port
1x SPDIF optical audio output (digital)
1x HDMI 1.4 video / audio output (digital)
1x Scart
1x RCA video output
2x audio output (L / R) RCA
2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA III HDD
Internal power supply
VFD and LCD display
Opera Browser
HbbTV
Hardware Transcoding function
Kernel version is 3.3.8

QUICK PRODUCT COMPARISION

Vu+ Uno

512MB RAM
128MB Flash
2x400Mhz
100Mbit LAN

Vu+ Ultimo

512MB RAM
1024MB Flash
2x400Mhz
100Mbit LAN

Vu+ Solo2

1024MB RAM
256MB Flash
2x1300Mhz
1Gb LAN

Gigablue Quad

1024MB RAM
512MB Flash
2x1300Mhz
100Mbit LAN only

INSIDE CARDBOARD BOX

Duo2 comes in nice recyclable cardboard box, which is similar to the packaging of the Duo and other Vu+ receivers. Box contains:

• the receiver obviously
• HDMI cable
• OLD remote control
• two batteries
• power cord
• SATA cable
• loop-through cable
• HDD mounting screws and rubbers for damping sound
• voucher for new remote control
• manual (easy setup guide)
• Vu+ leaflet with all main features explained. I scanned it and you can see it below:

You can also check unboxing video which IS NOT MINE:

OUTSIDE APPEARANCE

Duo2 casing size is identical to the Vu+ Ultimo (380mm x 290mm x 60mm). Below are sizes of other boxes, just for comparison. If you have space limitations, do not forget to take into account tuner connectors that stick out on the rear side of the receiver.

Solo2 is: 280mm x 200mm x 50mm
Gigablue Quad size is: 340mm x 243mm x 66mm

In the FRONT we can find:

Left side:

• LCD display (7cm x 4cm size and 400×240 resolution)

Center:

• VFD display (8cm x 3cm size)

Right side:

• Small plastic lid that is covering power button, front USB 2.0 port, two cardreaders and two CI slots!

Look is minimalistic when receiver is powered off. There are no volume controls or any other buttons like on Duo for example. Is LCD screen of any use? It depends on settings of LCD4Linux plugin which might be too hard for you to setup. Lucky there are users who posted their config file. You can put lots of info on LCD but the end result will be disappointing as you wont be able to read it if are lets say 2m away from receiver. For configs visit http://www.vuplus-community.net/board/threads/duo2-lcd4linux-lcd-display-layouts.13273/ or http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?29977-Post-your-working-VU-Duo2-LCD4Linux-configs

You can also just download this file: http:/www.satnigmo.com/vfd_skin.rar. Here you will find one config for LCD4Linux and two different layouts for VFD screen. Second layout is with picon, first one is without. These files are currently running on my Duo 2. Config for lcd4linux goes to etc/enigma2 folder, files for VFD go to /usr/share/enigma2/vfd_skin folder.

In my opinion Vu+ could just use one bigger LCD screen at the center of the front side. Now there is also VFD screen which is not producing such high quality picture than LCD (obviously).

You can see VFD and LCD screens in action here:

In the REAR we can find:

• Two connectors for fixed DVB-S2 tuners.
• SCART socket
• Composite and audio outputs
• Optical output
• HDMI 1.4 socket
• Ethernet port which speed is 1000MB/1Gbit
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• RS232 connector
• Cooling fan

I personally expected more USB ports this time as DUO2 is not cheap. I use one rear port for DVB-T stick and other one for EPG data. Front one is usually used for flashing images only and therefore quite useless.

INSIDE THE RECEIVER

In the left side of the receiver, we can find mounting tray for 2.5″ or 3.5″ drive. In the upper left part is the power supply. Right part of the receiver is reserved for motherboard with all important parts like internal WiFi, plug and play tuners, cardreaders and what is most important, new chip BCM7424. Vu+ AGAIN decided to use standard passive cooling solution that can be found on all their receivers. I think that they should use bigger heatsink for the main chip in order to improve cooling. Regarding tuners I would like to add that Duo 2 supports up to 4 tuners with only 2 tuners inserted in Duo 2. This is possible if you have two DVB-S2 Dual tuners combo. DVB-C/T tuner is not “Dual” which means you can only use DVB-C or DVB-T at the same time. You can add additional tuners via USB but support depends on used image. Some images like BlackHole support more USB tuners than others.

Included FAN is good decision by Vu+, because when considering long term effects of heat on internal components, we come to the conclusion that fan can prolong life of our satellite receivers. I strongly recommend that you use Fan Control 2 plugin which enables you to control FAN speed and behavior in standby. Fan should be working in standby too as the receiver is still generating lots of heat when not in use. Especially tuners are problematic as they are very hot when not in use and this is worrying. I hope Vu+ will release driver update which will fix this issue. Guys on vuplus-support.org forum measured temperature of tuners and it reached 60C!

RAM is very important part of the receiver, especially if you are heavy user of EPG data. This kind of data is notoriously known for bringing receivers to their knees. Especially problematic are older and entry lever receivers with 256MB of RAM capacity. Its just not enough for advanced users. Some newer receivers already have 512MB and this should be bottom limit for future receivers. Where is Duo2? It has 2GB DDR3 1333Mhz of RAM. Impressive number! With this amount of available memory, there is zero possibility of its shortage (unless there are memory leaks in drivers). You can now download all EPG packages in XMLTV Importer without any issues.

Flash is usually not so important for end users. It is used for storing images that we flash to our receivers. This time Vu+ decided to put staggering 1GB of flash in this box. With such amount you can now use flash space for storing epg data and picons. With older receivers you had to use HDD or USB stick for this but  now you dont need this.

LAN supports speeds up to 1Gbit. Internal WiFi on the other hand supports 300Mbit speed. For this you need router which supports N standard. Sadly I was not able to test speed of LAN because Duo2 is connected to 100Mbit router. I do have 1Gbit network in my house but not in living room where is receiver. I was able to read on vuplus-community forum that speeds are similar to Solo 2.

Here are numbers using FTP:

• SOLO2 (WD caviar blue SATAII 2,5) to PC (SSD Crucial M4 SATAIII) : 65MB/s
• PC to SOLO2: 25MB/s

REMOTE CONTROL

Duo 2 should come with completely new remote but apparently they ran into problems and decided to include old remote instead. Old remote control (same as with Solo 2 for example) is actually really nice, much better that the one which comes with Xtrend receivers. It has firm and big buttons which are smartly placed over the whole remote. Main advantage of old remote is that if you come from old Vu+ receiver you dont have to adapt to the new remote control layout. New remote will be available soon and you will be able to get it for free using included voucher.

EDIT (28.07.2013): HM-SAT still hasnt sent me the new remote …

Range is not so good as with first Duo. I also tried with white Duo remote (for this you need to change remote control system code to 1) and behavior was much better. The main problem with Duo2 remote is that you need to point it into receiver if you want it to work. With white Duo remote this isnt the case and remote works even if you point it to the ceiling or the opposite side. When the Duo2 remote works you can move through channel list with good speed as receiver does not have any problems receiving flood of IR signals from remote.

EDIT (28.07.2013): Vu+ released VFD Controller update which improves situation. If you use OpenViX or OpenATV, just update software to latest version and then go to Plugin Browser and select Upgrade Firmware plugin. When in plugin, select VFD controller and press Upgrade. Then you need to press Download and after files are downloaded press OK. This should complete the process.

I would like to also mention that Duo 2 does not have problems with remote of my air conditioning (AC) house unit. Where was the problem with Duo? If I used AC remote control in the range of Duo IR receiver, Duo just stopped working. Display became blank and whole receiver non-responsive. Now this is not the case!

Logitech Harmony 700 works with Duo 2. You just need to select Solo 2 or Ultimo in Logitech software. Duo 2 has not been added yet. After adding you also need to change Inter-key delay and Input delay to 0ms. Then you need to click on “Troubleshoot” and select option “DUO 2 responds to some commands either too many times or only occasionally.”. Tick number 1 and save. This should improve remote responsivness! You can also try other settings if you are not satisfied with mine.

IMAGE CHOICE

I am a bit disappointed with current image choice which consists only of VTi, BlackHole and OpenATV. First two images uses Vu+ original image as their basis, second one uses OpenPLi as basis. Images like ViX and OpenPLi haven’t released their images yet but ViX should come out soon. OpenPLi on the other hand wont release it any time soon as they are waiting for Vu+ patches and I think they wont arrive soon.

Its hard to recommend the best image as everyone have different tastes. I am using OpenATV and I am not really happy as I am used to OpenPLi simple interface. I will switch to ViX when it becomes available. I was using OpenPLi with Duo and this is still by favorite image.

EDIT (28.07.2013): OpenViX has beed out for a few days now. It is actually quite like OpenPLi but with more settings and pre-installed plugins. I am now using OpenViX and this is image that I recommend.

Update procedure flashing) is the same as with other Vu+ boxes but i will write it again:
1. Unzip or unrar your favourite image (BlackHole for example),
2. Format stick to FAT32,
3. Copy the folder to the root of the USB stick,
4. Connect USB stick and make sure that there aren’t any other USB stick connected to Vu+,
4. Turn on VU + Duo2,
5. Press power button to start.

BOOTING SPEED

I was impressed with speed of boot time from completely cold state (OFF) to operating state (TV picture). I measured approx. 35 seconds on OpenATV image without additional plugins. It might be different on other setups. Hot reboot times are a bit longer, I measured approx. 54 seconds.

Here is again a video which shows you booting speed with original image! Video IS NOT MINE.

PICTURE QUALITY and ZAPPING SPEED

Channel switching is fast and it could be even faster if Enigma 2 wouldn’t be the bottleneck here. New chipset has too much power for Enigma 2 which was originally made for 300Mhz MIPS Broadcom CPU. 4.2.2 feeds sadly do not work and they never will. Picture quality is subjective attribute of this receiver and it is hard for me to comment it. I dont see any differencies between Duo and Duo2.

PIP

Picture in Picture works just fine and you can watch two HD channels at once and they can be on different transponders or they can be FTA or encrypted. Duo for example has poor PiP function but that is because of chipset limitation. Duo2 of course has chipset which supports HD PiP with smooth picture, it is not slideshow like with Duo. Sadly there is no dedicated PiP button on remote control, which is the case with Xtrend receivers. I was not able to detect any problems with PiP.

RECORDING

You can record up to 16 channels simultaneously. Nothing else to add here.

BLINDSCAN

I tested blindscan on 13E with these settings:

• Frequency: 10700-11700
• Symbol Rates: 2-45Mhz

Receiver finished with searching after exactly 5 minutes. It found 2133 channels. I have used this function for the first time so I cannot compare these results with other receivers. This is your task my readers!

EDIT (28.07.2013): Apparently blindscan function only works with official image from Vu+, VTi and BlackHole. If you use OE-Alliance images then you need to wait for driver fix from Vu+.

INTERESTING FEATURES

Transcoding function is very useful addition of this receiver. What does this function do? It transforms high quality video to lower quality one so you can watch it on your phone via 3G connection for example. Yes, you can watch your favourite TV channel in your school using 3G or WiFi if you school has it. I was able to test it and I can say that it works fine. Duo 2 has better transcoding capabilities than Solo 2 because it supports “hardware transcoding”. You can also change video bitrate in special plugin. Solo 2 does not support this feature.

EDIT (28.07.2013): Be aware that transcoded stream does not work with VLC or Windows Media Player. It is only usable on your mobile phone or tables. There is also a bug in Vu+ drivers where you current live channel cannot be transcoded. This should be fixed soon.

CONCLUSION

Pros:

• Stylish casing with two screens
• Built-in 300Mbit WiFi and Gigabit LAN
• Lots of RAM and Flash
• Last generation chipset
• Fast booting
• Hardware transcoding

Cons:

• Heat problems with tuners in standby
• Remote control is problematic
• Not enough images available
• Blindscan does not work with OE-Alliance images
• VFD screen could have higher resolution and be more sharp
• Not enough rear USB ports
• No DVB-T2 tuner

Should you buy it? If you dont mind spending 499 EUR on this box then YES. If you cannot afford it you should buy Solo 2 which is also a powerful receiver but does lack some power and features that Duo2 has.

For discussion please visit this thread:

https://www.satnigmo.com/forum/index.php?threads/vu-duo-2-review.566/

Well I just noticed that Vu+ released their own app for Android devices. I have been waiting for this release for a very long time and now its finally here. I can say that they did a good job. Actually the creator or programmer of this app is the same as Nxtrend app which is made for Xtrend devices. But there are differences. First one is that Nxtrend only works on Xtrend satellite receivers and second difference is that not all features are finished on Nxtrend.

Vu+ on the other hand comes packed with nice features that all work. One of these nice features is Signal meter which just works and you dont need seperate app for this. I also like internal video player with nice little infobar and even second infobar with extended event information. Just like on Enigma 2 itself, niceee! Integrated video player also means you dont need to use external video player which can be problematic as every player has their own set of problems. Also these players do not have infobar for example.

Some of you probably wont like app design which resembles Win8 Metro screen style with tiles. In my opinion design could be better. App is free and works not only on Vu+ but also on my Xtrend ET-5000. This is great and I like Vu+ decision not to limit use of their app only to their receivers. Overall I think that this app is better than Nxtrend and the best app or Enigma 2 receivers. Even Dreambox which has large fan base, especially in Germany, does not have such good app. Actually Dreambox does not have their official app for Android. Not a good decision if you ask me. It seems that Dreambox is going downhill in all areas. Expect pictures soon …

VU+ PLAYER ON GOOGLE PLAY

Vu+ decided to refresh their line of satellite receivers and they surprised used with new model named Solo2. It contains next generation chipset from Broadcom and this is of course good news for all satellite enthusiasts. The name suggest that this receiver is single tuner but in reality it has two fixed DVB-S2 tuners! Sadly tuners are non-replacable because this feature is reserved for Duo2 which is expected to come in Q1 2013. Warning, in this review there are no pictures because i currently do not have my DSLR at home 🙁

SPECIFICATION

1300 MHz MIPS processor
256MB Flash
1GB DDR3 DRAM
Gigabit LAN
1 x DVB Common-Interface Slot
2 x Smart Card Reader (Xcrypt)
3 USB ports (1x front, 2x rear)
SPDIF optical audio output (digital)
1 x HDMI 1.4 video / audio output (digital)
1 x Scart (TV)
1 x RCA video output
2 x audio output (L / R) RCA (analog)
Plug and Play support for 2.5″ SATA – Hard Drives
External 12 volt power supply
12 character VFD display
Opera Browser
HbbTV
Transcoding function
Current kernel version is 3.3.6

QUICK PRODUCT COMPARISION

Vu+ Uno

512MB RAM
128MB Flash
2x400Mhz
100Mbit LAN

Vu+ Ultimo

512MB RAM
1024MB Flash
2x400Mhz
100Mbit LAN

Gigablue Quad

2x1300Mhz
1025MB RAM
512MB Flash
100Mbit LAN but apperantly they are working to enable 1Gbit speed

INSIDE BOX

Solo2 comes in nice recyclable cardboard box, which is actually the same as the packaging of the Duo and other Vu+ receivers. It contains the HDMI 1.4 cable, remote control, batteries, external power supply, power cable and a small pack of HDD mounting screws. Everything is neatly packed and i can just say, nice work Vu+! HDMI cable is interesting addition because some other companies are not adding these cables with their satellite receivers. Remote control is the one we can find with some other receivers, except with Ultimo which has experimental remote that most users actually do not like much. Color of remote is black and it is programmable!

APPEARANCE

Solo2 is very similar to the Vu+ Ultimo but much smaller in size. Casing size of Solo2 is: 280mm x 200mm x 50mm
For comparision, Quad size is 340mm x 243mm x 66mm

In the FRONT we can find:

Left side:

1. 12 digit VFD display which is also present in Vu+ Uno model
2. Power button which is the same as with Ultimo

Right side:

1. Small plastic lid that is covering front USB 2.0 port and cardreaders/CI slot
2. Single CI slot
3. Two card readers

Look is very minimalistic and this is apperantly new design route for future Vu+ receivers. There are no volume control or any other buttons like on Duo for example!

In the REAR we can find:

1. Two connectors for fixed DVB-S2 tuners.
2. SCART socket
3. Composite and audio outputs
4. Optical output
5. HDMI 1.4 socket
6. Ethernet port which speed is 1000MB/1Gbit
7. Two USB 2.0 ports
8. RS232 connector
9. Cooling fan

As we can see, the rear side is pretty standard, nothing spectatular. I personally expected one USB port more because rear ports are the one we use most of the time. Front one is usually used for flashing images only.

Fan was surprise to me, because Gigablue Quad which is using almost the same next-gen chipset, does not have fan. Personally i think that Vu+ made good decision, because when considering long term effects of heat on internal components, we come to the conclusion that fan can prolong life of our satellite receivers. I also need to mention that fan is controlled with sensor(s).

INSIDE THE RECEIVER

In the inside/left side of the receiver, we can find mounting tray for 2.5″ drive. Some of you maybe expected that Solo2 would accomodate 3.5″ size drives, but this is reserved for Duo2 which will also have bigger casing. Because 3.5″ size is not supported you are limited with drive space. I think that 1TB 5400RPM 2.5″ drive is the most rational decision if you have enough funds of course. Select reliable brand because you do not want to loose your recordings 😉

In the center there is new chip called bcm7356 which has 1.3Ghz. Vu+ decided to use standard passive cooling solution that can be found on all their receivers. I think that they could used bigger heatsink for the main chip in order to improve cooling.

RAM is very important part of the receiver, especially if you are heavy user of EPG data. This kind of data is notoriously known for bringing receivers to their knees. Especially are problematic older and entry lever receivers with 256MB of RAM capacity. Its just not enough for advanced users. Some newer receivers already have 512MB and this should be bottom limit for future receivers. Where is Solo2? It has four 256MB DDR3 1333Mhz chips and this means that the total number of usable memory is 1GB. Impressive number! With this amount of available memory, there is almost zero possibility of its shortage. Vu+ made good decision to put so much of it into Solo2.

Flash is usually not so important for end users. It is used for storing images that we flash to our receivers. At first Vu+ planned 128MB of flash for Solo2, but they changed their minds and now we have 256MB of flash available on Solo2. Currently this is more than enough for all functions of this receiver.

LAN is very fast and supports speeds up to 1Gbit. Solo2 uses RTL8211E chip and its quite a performer. I measured speeds up to 30MB/s when downloading from receiver using CIFS. Upload speeds are sadly a lot lower and I achieved speeds up to 9MB/s. In the future this can change as drivers will improve for sure.

And where is internal PSU? Well with this receiver, Vu+ apperantly decided to use external PSU which is actually good decision. Why? There is no unnecessary heat build up within the machine and should your PSU ever fail on you, it’s a far simpler job getting an external replacement.

REMOTE CONTROL

Remote control is really nice, much better that the one which comes with Xtrend receivers. It has firm and big buttons which are smartly placed over the whole remote. Range and responsivnes is amazing and one of the best among satellite receivers. You can point remote to the wall and receiver will still detect IR signal. IR receiver embedded in the Solo2 apperantly does great job receiving signals from remote. When moving through channel list you can do this with lightning speed as receiver does not have any problems receiving flood of IR signals from remote. This is the case with all Vu+ receivers and i love it. I also have Xtrend ET-5000 and its remote control is not so responsive and therefore it is a bit hard to navigate quickly through channel list. I also dislike its buttons which are too small and too soft. They do not produce good feeling in your hands at all. I hope that Xtrend will add better remote next time.

IMAGE CHOICE

I am a bit dissapointed with current image choice which consists only of VTi and BlackHole. These two images uses Vu+ original image as their basis. Images like ViX and OpenPLi havent released their images yet and apperantly they wont release it anytime soon. Apperantly the main cause for delay is insufficient support from Vu+ regarding fixing issues that are reported by image makers. Their drivers are actually known to be poorly made and full of hacks. This statement can be confirmed  by developer(s) of drivers for Sundtek DVB-C/T sticks, OpenPLi, ViX and probably other developers. Main coder of ViX recently said:«yet more, hacks to fix bad drivers, sorry this is final straw, nothing for vu from me, until they get there ****ing act together.”

Another quote from him: “just so you know the issues are not with the box, i have vix running on solo2, but Vu+ keep breaking their promises in regarding support. (i even told them i did not want a solo2 to test on, but they sent one anyway, in the hopes i would just bow down and release an image.). so unless they start acting like a proper company, i will not be adding new machines.”

EDIT: ViX image is now available!

My suggestion is that you use BlackHole ViX image. Its around 103MB in size and it takes around 1 minute to load it into flash and start booting. Update procedure is the same as with other Vu+ boxes but i will write it again:

1. Unzip or unrar your favourite image (BlackHole for example)
2. Format stick to FAT32
3. Copy the folder to the root of the USB stick
4. Connect USB stick
4. Turn on VU + Solo2
5. Press power button to start

BOOTING SPEED

I was impressed with speed of boot time from completely cold state (OFF) to operating state (TV picture). I measured around 30 seconds. Amazing time! 1.3 Ghz really shows its power here. After booting we are presented with Vu+ original Enigma 2 image. Nothing special here as it looks and feels the same as on other Vu+ receivers. Setting the receiver is easy and shouldn’t take a lot of time especially if this is not your first Vu+.

PICTURE QUALITY and ZAPPING SPEED

Channel switching is very fast and it could be even faster if Enigma 2 wouldn’t be the bottleneck here. New chipset has too much power for Enigma 2 which was originally made for 300Mhz MIPS Broadcom CPU. My measured speeds for FTA channels on same transponder are around 0.7 seconds. Encrypted channels open a bit slower. You can expect speeds around 1.3 seconds. 4.2.2 feeds sadly (still) do not work and they probably never will. Picture quality is great and on par with other Vu+ receivers. There was fear that Solo2 wouldn’t perform so good because Quad which is using the same chipset (7356) had and still has many problems with picture quality. Till now (22.12.2012) they still haven’t fix all image problems. But ibelieve that they will, so no worries Gigablue users!

PIP

Picture in Picture works just fine and you can watch two HD channels at once and they can be on different transponders or they can be FTA or encrypted. Duo for example has poor PiP function but that is because of chipset limitation. Solo2 of course has chipset which supports HD PiP with smooth picture, it is not slideshow like with Duo. Sadly there is no dedicated PiP button on remote control, which is the case with Xtrend receivers.

RECORDING

Recording works flawlesly and it doesnt matter if you use hard drive or NAS. By flawlesly i mean recording of 6HD channels + 1SD channel. It does not matter if you watch encrypted or FTA channels, it works in both cases. This is of course just in testing environment. In reality you will never record so many channels but as you can see its possible. Recordings are stored in .ts files and this is not a surprise.

VIDEO PLAYBACK

Video playback can be difficult to test because there are so many different files out there. I tested a few .av, .mkv and .mp4 files and they worked perfectly. Wmv files on the other hand currently do not work! Subtitles were ok but i suggest that you rename them, so they have same name as video file. I also tested one blueray video with bitrate 40Mbit/s. Video didnt play flawlesly because after one minute picture stopped because of buffering. I guess this will be tweaked in future driver releases but i am not 100% sure. Vu+ is known to have poor drivers and Duo still has problem with some .avi files and it has been on the market for two years now! Regarding sound playback i can say that i tested .flac and .mp3 files. They were working fine.

TUNER SIGNAL

Signal is a bit better than with Uno or Ultimo. I tested all three receivers with same dish and LNB and i got higher signal levels with Solo2. I was also able to watch some frequencies that previously had too low signal quality. My conclusion is that Solo2 tuner are better than those in Uno and Ultimo. Great news for those who are struggling with bad satellite reception of some border satellites.

INTERESTING FEATURES

Web browser actually works quite well but it is pain to use it with remote control. Something like Logitech K400 with touchpad would be nice but i do not have it here so i cannot test if it actually works.

HbbTV is useless in my country because no TV station supports it, but i checked ARD HD channel on 19.2E and HbbTv was working fine. HbbTv can be a resource hog but only 28% of memory appeared  to be used at the time.

Transcoding function is very useful addition of this receiver. What does this function do? It transforms high quality video to lower quality one so you can watch it on your phone via 3G connection for example. Yes, you can watch your favourite TV channel in your school using 3G or WiFi if you school has it. Really nice feature! I was able to test it and I can say that it works fine but it is in its early stages of development.

CONCLUSION

Solo2 is receiver packed with powerful chipset, lots of RAM and some interesting features like transcoding. Currently I only see one problem and that is lack of image choice. Currently we have only BlackHole and VTi and that’s not enough. I personally only use OpenPLi on all of my receivers. If you do not care about images then buy it as soon as possible. It has very competitive price of only 329Eur in German stores and you 100% cannot find better receiver for this amount of money.

SCORE: 8/10 – I would give 9 if receiver had OpenPLi support which i use on all my other receivers!