Who doesn't love a cool new gadget to play around with right? So imagine my joy when my box from Transat Electronics finally came today
Opening the box, I found a nice little black receiver. I'd say about the same size as my CNX and CW boxes, and smaller than iPro. Typical connections in the back which include (but not limited to) Composite/SVideo/Component outputs for video and Digital Toslink Output for audio. Interestingly enough, there's only one USB port located behind the front flip. I mention this because there is PVR capability on this box and not having a USB port in the back would make using an external USB Hard-drive slightly inconvenient. The remote itself is quite comfortable and ergonomics. Buttons are responsive though I would've liked some buttons to be rearranged (no big deal). The dongle itself (Internet Weather Forecast hub) was included in a separate box along with 2 serial cables and the power adapter, no ethernet cable though.
Now onto the receiver itself. I did some reading before installing the receiver so I already had an idea of what was to be done. I download the latest factory beta v1.5 (
HERE) and the latest fix (
HERE) and placed them on a USB stick. Plugged it into the box and was recognized immediately by the receiver. USB window popped up letting me choose the file I wanted to flash. Very convenient
So I flashed 1.5 first, box rebooted by itself, then I chose 1.85 and flashed that as well. After that, I proceeded to Activate my KBox Hub. I did this by plugging the Hub into my computer via black NULL serial cable and ran the Activation program (download
HERE). Followed the 3-step instructions and waited till program said KBOX hub is OK. I then proceeded to plug it into my K1 Plus and connected the ethernet from the router. I did have to disable my MAC filter to let it connect to the router to find out the MAC address which was nowhere to be found on the packaging.
When everything's set up, the scanning begins. What I found quite inconvenient is the fact that there are two separate sections for configuring up the Satellite settings (Dish Settings) and scanning those Satellites that you just saved. I could not scan the satellite which I just locked in, but had to save then exit out and go to Scan. The whole process took roughly 10-15 minutes for my three satellites.
Now onto TV watching. Standalone mode works very well. Just had to turn on Autoroll and made sure Standalone is chosen. Then I went to channel 200 and waited 2-3 minutes for keys to roll. Channel changing is very fast. Did I mention that remote is very responsive? The EPG is also quite eye-pleasing and fast. Pressing the yellow button led me straight to channel 418 where EPG was populated. I would've liked to see some sort of internet guide download and progress bar though. Picture quality is also VERY nice for an SD box. I have a Panasonic 42" 720p and the picture looks very good (see screenshots). Audio is also loud and clear (there's actually option to boost or lower audio volume when you press one of the colored buttons). The multi-picture also works though it won't give you real-time feeds of several channels. What it does is shows the inactive channels on the screen as static images. You can then pick a channel to watch and that channel would become a live-feed.
IKS mode also works if you want to use that. Turned all Aurotoll off and chose IKS mode. If the light on the HUB is a steady green, you're good to go. Channel changing is faster than I expected
The PVR is pretty straight-forward to use. While in EPG, you can look up a program and click on it. There are two options. Press once to simply watch that program when it comes on, or press twice and have it recorded onto a USB drive. I tested it with my 4GB FAT32 Flash Drive and it worked great.
So overall, the K-BOX's K1 Plus is a very good receiver with lots of neat little features for everybody to play around with. There's no reason not to have this box as part of your arsenal. The team behind it are also very good as you can tell.
THE RECEIVER: 9/10. Lacks additional USB port and some other minor quirks.
TECHNICAL FEATURES: 9/10. Slightly confusing menu and no real-time multi-picture.
PERFORMANCE AND OVERALL IMPRESSION: 10/10. All the minor inconveniences and flaws won't detract from the fact that this box works perfectly. Doesn't take that long to set up. And quality is awesome. I'd gladly recommend it to anybody who's looking for a new receiver to buy right now as it's future-proof with IKS.
Hope my opinion of this box has helped you in making a decision
Thanks again Transat Electronics for the super fast shipping from CANADA!