TEST REPORT Satellite Receiver

Venus New
Millennium II-EP
Motor control made easy
These days Asia takes
much of the lead in satellite
receiver technology, with a
constant stream of receivers
The Venus motor mounted appearing from such places
on the Venus dish as China and Korea. Here
TELE-satellite presented though, our Asian voyage of
in previous issue. The
discovery takes a different
satellite receiver Venus New
turn to meet only the second
Millennium II-EP is optimized
receiver we’ve tested from
to control this motor
Indonesia. Clearly made with
the Asian market in mind, it
is a basic free-to-air receiver
with a built-in traditional 36V
positioner. It comes from the
Venus brand, which will already
be familiar to regular readers for
their innovative segmented dish
that we tested in issue 08/2008 and
this receiver is especially designed
to work with the Venus motor, which
we will present in a next issue.

The receiver is housed in a full-sized black

case, measuring 300x200mm and 60mm high.
Basic controls are available on the front panel,
where there is a red LED display of the current
channel’s number, which gives an almost retro look.
The grey remote control does all it needs to, but it would be

0.57

nicer perhaps if it matched the
colour scheme of the receiver
itself.
Rear connections are limited
to the most frugal require-
ments. There’s a single
antenna input along with
spring terminals to connect a
36V motor. There are no Scart
or digital outputs – just a pair
of composite video outputs and
the usual UHF antenna loop.
Stereo audio outputs are also
present, and the back panel is
completed with a 4-pin RS232
connector.
Our test receiver was sup-
plied with a manual in Indo-
nesian only. No doubt if and
when the New Millennium is
sold in other countries, it will
have a manual in the required
languages. But a good test of a
receiver’s ease of use is to find
out if it can be used without a
manual. The menu entry “Pen-

52 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-11/2008 — www.TELE-satellite.com


gaturan Sistem” led me to the
receiver’s setting screen where
the menu language (“Bahasa”)
can be changed between Indo-
nesian and English. The menus
themselves are basic, and the
text somewhat blocky, rein-
forcing the retro feel some
more.
Initial Setup
The internal positioner works
very much like the stand-alone
positioners many of us may
have used in the past. 60 posi-
tions are available to be stored,
which can then be assigned
to one or more satellites
when scanning for new chan-
nels. Each satellite position
is referred to just by number
with the satellite’s name being
set later when channels are
scanned. Therefore keeping
a careful note of where each
number points is necessary to
avoid later confusion!
There’s no automatic setup
by using satellites at each
side of the viewable arc, and
nor is there any provision for
setting east and west limits in
the receiver. This means the
user would need to ensure the
limits on the dish motor have
been set correctly to avoid any
accidents. DiSEqC is included
for switching between up to
four LNBs.
After the satellite positions
TELE-satellite World
Download this report in other languages from the Internet:
Arabic ‫ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ‬
Indonesian Indonesia
Bulgarian Български
Czech Česky
have been set up, finally it’s German Deutsch
time to get scanning for chan- English English
Spanish Español
nels. 18 satellites covering the Farsi ‫ﻓﺎﺭﺳﻲ‬
Asian area are already pro- French Français
Greek Ελληνικά
grammed into the receiver, Croatian Hrvatski
Italian Italiano
so if these are receivable it’s Hungarian Magyar
a simple matter of assigning Mandarin 中文
Dutch Nederlands
the correct positioner number Polish Polski
to them. New satellites can Portuguese Português
Romanian Românesc
be added as needed, with Russian Русский
their names being editable. Swedish Svenska
Turkish Türkçe
The usual up/down buttons
are used to scroll through the Available online starting from 26 September 2008
alphabet to set each letter of
the name, but don’t go too fast
as both the up and down but-
tons go upwards!
Adding new channels is
again simplified to the bare
minimum. If like me, you don’t
enjoy the confusion sometimes
caused by network scans and
transponder lists, you’re in
luck – there’s none of this.
Channels can only be added
to the receiver by blind scan
or manual entry of frequency
data.
Blind scanning shows up one
omission from the receiver’s
software. Whilst it can drive
a universal LNB perfectly well Main menu
with full user control of the
local oscillator frequency and After this, we then need to
22kHz tone, there’s no facility change the local frequency to
to scan the high and low bands 10600, turn the 22kHz tone
in a single sweep. To cover the on, and scan again to get the
full Ku band we have to make remainder of the channels.
two scans. The first, with the The receiver remembers the
local frequency set to 9750, will LNB setting for each channel,
scan up to around 11.500GHz. so once committed to memory
www.TELE-satellite.com — 10-11/2008 — TELE-satellite & Broadband
www.TELE-satellite.com/...
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ara/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/bid/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/bul/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ces/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/deu/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/eng/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/esp/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/far/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/fra/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/hel/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/hrv/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ita/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/mag/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/man/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ned/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/pol/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/por/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/rom/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/rus/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/sve/venus.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/tur/venus.pdf
they appear correctly when
selected.
The blind scan is not very fast
even when using the quick scan
option. The two scans required
to find everything from HOT-
BIRD took a total time of 56
minutes, but with most Asian
satellites transmitting on less
transponders this is not really
a matter. Pressing any button
on the remote aborts the scan,
10-11/2008
VENUS NEW MILLENNIUM II-EP
Easy to use receiver for big motorized
dishes at an economic price
53
saving any channels already
found. Duplicate channels are
not added at the end of the list,
unless their parameters have.
As with many blind scan receiv-
ers the discovered symbol rate
is slightly inaccurate, most
often in the region of 30 above
reality. Adding individual chan-
nels is best done manually,
so being forearmed with a
SatcoDX chart is useful. Fre-
quency, polarity and symbol
rate are all needed. This time
all channels found are added
symbol when scrolling through
the unsortable main list. The
P+ and P- buttons are used to
navigate between the chan-
nels marked as favourites.
Radio channels are added and
edited in the same way as TV,
but from a separate list and
menu entry.
Everyday use
When it’s finally time to
watch some TV, pressing the
OK button gives us the list of

Blind scan in progress

cal search commonly seen on Picture quality is OK, bearing

many modern receivers would
be a helpful addition here.
When a channel is selected for
viewing from this list, the pic-
ture zooms out from its small
window to fill the full screen,
which is a nice little touch.
in mind that we have only UHF
or composite video outputs
to choose from. Widescreen
transmissions are catered for,
up to a point. The receiver
always assumes a 4:3 TV is
being used, and black bars are

Blind scan options

to the end of the list, whether
they are duplicates or not.
Organising channels once
they have been scanned and
stored is kept to basic level.
Each entry in the channel list
can be moved up and down
the list, marked for deletion,
or added to a single favour-
ites list. The favourites list
can’t be viewed or edited on
its own – favourites can only
be located by finding the heart
all stored channels. This list
can be reduced to each indi-
vidual satellite by using the
MENU button. The P+ and P-
buttons allow selection of the
next or previous satellite.
This list always defaults
to showing all satellites, so
remembering channel num-
bers or using the favourites
function might be preferred
over lots of repetitive scrolling
and searching. The alphabeti- Channel list

54 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-11/2008 — www.TELE-satellite.com

used at the top and bottom the rest are freeze-frames.
Expert Opinion
of the screen if a 16:9 trans- Teletext is unavailable. +
mission is detected. Everyday Uncomplicated channel data storage and edit-
viewing, once we have the
channels and satellites set up Summary ing
Easy handling of a 36 V motor
as we need them, is simple and After the initial setup, for Blindscan makes it usable for satellite DXers
easy enough. Zapping between everyday TV viewing and chan-
channels is fairly fast, and the nel-surfing the New Millennium - Andy Middleton
TELE-satellite
Test Center
EXIT button is used to switch II-EP does the job well if not No Scart or digital outputs UK
to the previously viewed chan- too much further editing and
nel. sorting is needed. The receiver
is best when it comes to handle TECHNIC
Audio channels and PIDs can the Venus motor which he does DATA
be quickly edited if needed, rather superbly. Despite a few Manufacturer PT. Subur Semesta, Jln. Kamal Raya No. 8,
which is a bonus when a chan- places where the menus could RT. 0014/RW. 09 Tegal Alur, Jakarta Barat 11820
Tel +62 21 5559733
Fax +62 21 5559805 / 5555009
Email subur@dnet.net.id
Model Venus New Millennium II-EP
Satellites 60
SCPC compatible yes
USALS No
DiSEqC 1.2
Scart connectors 0
Symbol rates 2-45 Ms/sec
Audio/Video outputs 4 (two video + left/right audio)
UHF output Yes, channels 21-69
0/12 volt output No
Digital audio output No
EPG No
C/Ku-band compatible Yes
Power supply 100-240 VAC, 50-60Hz

ENERGY
DIAGRAM
Channel info & blue bars

nel changes PIDs – we don’t be made tidier or easier to nav-

have to fear going back to blind
scanning or manual frequency
entry just to change this small
detail. The INFO button gives
a helpful screen detailing the
channel’s name and param-
eters, plus allowing quick fine-
tuning of the dish position.
The EPG button on the
remote instead gives us a “PIP”
display of 9 channels. As usual,
only one of these is live and
igate, its basic design meant
that I had little problem finding Apparent Power
my way around the receiver
without having to try to consult
the Indonesian manual, so that
test is won easily.
Active Power
The nature of the receiver Mode Apparent Active Factor
would opening up the spectrum StandBy 18 W 10.5 W 0.58
Reception 21 W 12 W 0.57
of multi-satellite reception to
people who may usually be put
off by the cost of a receiver
with a built-in positioner.

www.TELE-satellite.com — 10-11/2008 — TELE-satellite & Broadband 55