Thread: Buzz S2010f

The Buzz S2010F receiver is a rather new receiver on the market and a rather easy one to work with. The one thing I noticed right away (its written on the box) is it doesnt use the standard processor in it (the ST5518). This uses a NEC EMMA 2LL MPEG Chip-Sets in it. So we're working with something different than I normally use. I hooked up my motorized setup and turned it on. One it boot up I hit menu and went into the antenna setup. It defaulted to AMC4 so I went to IA6 (my true south). I was happy ot see “IntelSat America 6" instead of Telstar 6 as the name. This one is interesting as it has both a signal & quality meter with a bar and a separate spot with the “heartbeat” signal meter. This one is pretty neat. The menu is pretty self explanatory and you can just scroll down and change the parameters. This is nice for the newbie as I have worked with too many receivers with “hidden menus”. I consider a hidden menu where you go to the LNB LO frequency and hit “OK” or a color button it there is a menu inside that has Diseqc, LO freq, 22K and the such. Everything you need is on one screen There are a lot of transponders stored but I decided to do a blind scan. There is an option for fast or detail and can switch polarity (all, H only or V only). I used the fast scan. It is a very fast scan, but the one drawback is it only picks up the strong transponders. The fast scan blew every other blind scan receiver I have out of the water...although it really only grabbing the strong transponders was a bummer. So I decided to do a detail scan. The detail does take longer but it picks up everything, including things my other receivers didn’t pick up. It seems to lock the low signal channel where others just skip it. This has a very sensitive tuner.

I scanned in IA6 (via blind scan) and Nimiq1 (via satellite scan) and away we went. The onscreen when you press info gives you everything you need. Signal & quality bar, transponder info, and channel name. When you hit OK you get a pretty neat (and elaborate) screen. It has the channel list, in the corner is the current channel, below the channel list it tells you all the info on the channel (transponder, pids), signal & quality bar. This is pretty cool as you can see everything on one screen. I brought up the radio which has a background on it (I would have preferred a black screen). If there is an EPG it shows up. Since the only thing that really does is the audio channels, this is a moot point but I have a picture of it. This is if you press Info twice.

So I started doing some more scanning and playing. The detail scan is really good. I put it up against my other 3 blind scan receivers and it beat 2 of the three (Fortec & Pansat) and was neck and neck with the Coolsat. The Coolsat did win but the Buzz found 2 more feeds. One thing I really like is you press a button and the motor function pops up. Most of the receivers you have to go into the menu to move the motor (to nudge). Not this one. This is a major plus of the Buzz. I can fine tune the reception on the screen without having to go into the menu, select the satellite, find the transponder, then get into the motor menu, move it, then have to back out.

I went into the channel list and you can sort them by satellite, FTA or scrambled (this would work better if it was used for Globecast) or alphabetized. I sorted by alphabetized which was interesting. I wouldn’t suggest this option as the motor would move a lot (if you have a fixed dish its irrelevant and would probably work better). You can also “find” a channel by typing in the name. You type in the first letter and it shows on the right hand side the channels (in whatever order you have them...either alphabetized or numerical) the channels that start with that letter. It also has the option for 4, 9 or 16 pictures on the screen. One is live, while the rest are still frames. It does loop through the screen though. There is a variable zoom feature that works with a still picture or a live. You can select a section of the screen and zoom in.

It does have a real time clock that does keep time regardless of satellite and has 16 timers to set. Since I did not have this set up to a motor I couldnt see if it would record on various satellites, but I assume it would. I went into the channel list and was able to easily edit channels, sort them out, move & delete very easily.

One of the features I didn’t try out is the “Azan” feature. Apparently you can set it up to let you know when it is time to pray and will make an alarm, play music or show a video. I was able to set up my location and it told me the times to pray depending on my schedule.

Some of the features are

-Diseqc 1.2 & USALS
-22K option
-User friendly menus
-Various Languages for menu
-Very fast change speed
-8 favorite lists
-Channel sort by FTA, satellite, alphabetical order
-OSD
-Picture in Guide
-Background Graphic for radio programs
-Parental Lock
-40 step volume control
-Auto NTSC/PAL converter
-beep sound when you press a key
-very easy channel edit (move, change, rename, delete)
-very fast blind scan
-various scan options (transponder, satellite, PID, blind)
-AZAN
-universal remote
-S-Video/AV & SPDIF outputs.

All and all, this is a nice receiver and is good for the newbie or the veteran. It has the features a veteran would like and is easy enough for a newbie to operate.

The big plusses for me are
-easy to navigate menus. This has one of the nicest looking menus and it was easy to navigate through the options. Its pretty self put so anyone can figure it out.
-The scan I really like. When I am looking for a game or a news feed, I don’t have time to dwadle waiting for it to scan though the satellite. This gives me two options and the detail option is very quick. I put this right up with a couple other boxes on speed and it is more accurate than other boxes.
-the easy to bring up motor option. This is a HUGE plus in my book as I am always trying to get the “optimum” signal

There are only a couple minor issues and both are for the blind scanning
-the fast scan I wish would pick up more. I scanned G10 originally and it missed a few transponders
-I don’t know why but when you blind scan, it goes from 11.7MHZ to 13MHZ...Hopefully a software upgrade will make it stop at 12.2MHZ. Once it got past 12.2 it just scanned for nothing.

The Buzz does get me recommendation as a great unit for a 1st receiver or an additional one.

I’d like to thank Buzz Canada (
www.buzzcanada.com

) for letting me try out the Buzz receiver. If you want to order one, they have a order option at
www.buzzretail.net




specs can be found here

http://www.buzzretail.net/specs.html

http://www.buzzretail.net/specs.html

[/QUOTE]

It sounds great and it's a great & world class FTA receiver.
Thanks.

Thanks for your review, Iceberg...

I'll do some more copmparisons on the scan speed between the Buzz, Coolsat 5000, Fortec Classic and Pansat 1500 this week.

What's cool is the Buzz has a clock to show you how long it is taking to scan

Can't wait to see the comparisons data. I saw on their site that they have a PVR coming in April.

Nice review Tony. Too bad it doesn't seem to have a component out though.

Al

Originally Posted by sidekick

Can't wait to see the comparisons data. I saw on their site that they have a PVR coming in April.

Noticed that too

I have a couple cables to run (now that the 10+ inches of snow is slowly melting) so I should have some data this week.

Very nice receiver. But once again, I don't think it has any "Real" Blind Scan capabilities like the Fortec Ultras, Pansats, etc. If you delete all the TPs from a Sat and do a Blind Scan on that same sat, all the deleted TPs will be replaced via the software.

Example:
Delete all but one of the TPs from the AMC 6 list. Then actually Blind Scan the sat IA 5 as AMC 6. If "Real" Blind Scan, it should still find all the IA 5 TPs. All the IA 5 TPs should then be in the AMC 6 list. Right?

Originally Posted by PipeDream

Very nice receiver. But once again, I don't think it has any "Real" Blind Scan capabilities like the Fortec Ultras, Pansats, etc. If you delete all the TPs from a Sat and do a Blind Scan on that same sat, all the deleted TPs will be replaced via the software.

Example:
Delete all but one of the TPs from the AMC 6 list. Then actually Blind Scan the sat IA 5 as AMC 6. If "Real" Blind Scan, it should still find all the IA 5 TPs. All the IA 5 TPs should then be in the AMC 6 list. Right?

Sorry to be a pain in the butt, Ice. But if anyone wants "Real" Blind Scan, I don't think this one has it...I think...but maybe I did something wrong.

I think I know how a blind scan works. And yes I did that

I removed all the transponders in it and scanned. It found a few feeds on G10 that aren't were indeed feeds and weren't on any list. Also when I scanned IA6, there were some feeds that had different symbol rates then what was originally in there and it found those.

I'll try it again but this one did have a blind scan in 6K steps