Orbit
Satellite Television and Radio Network

 

Orbit is a Middle-Eastern pay-tv provider, broadcasting from Arabsat 3A (26°E) and Intelsat 10-02 (1°W) satellites. The Intelsat position is not official and it is not known whether Orbit will continue broadcasting from there in the future. Both Intelsat and Arabsat beams can be received with a 85+ cm dish in Central Europe, although some transponders appear to be weaker and a small satellite dish could cause trouble in bad weather. A 120 cm dish would probably be the recommended size in most parts of Europe.

Orbit consists of Arabic and English speaking channels plus some crappy radio channels. Most of the English channels have Arabic subtitles that are very disturbing. According to Orbit, an option to disable Arabic subtitles should be added in the future. The two most important channels - Orbit News and Orbit ESPN have no subtitles.

The receiver is free for Arabic customers but Europeans must pay. Dealers in Europe have different offers and different prices but the price should not be higher than €400 for the receiver including at least 6-month subscription. In Europe, it is not possible to subscribe to the English channels only and therefore one must pay $40 monthly for the Mega option which also includes many useless Arabic channels. Payments are made online with a credit card. Orbit also offers 4 Pay Per View channels but only the Arabic movies can be ordered from Europe. A feature that enables hiding/displaying Arabic subtitles is active only on TV MAX (the PPV).

There are three different receivers (Sagem, Humax, Philips). All of them have one in common and that is NO SMARTCARD. The SECA1.5 chip is glued to the mainboard and cannot be removed. This means that it is not possible to watch Orbit without the supplied receiver, unless you're brave and not affraid to mess with the hardware. Don't try this at home unsless you really know what you're doing.

The Philips box is OK but not great. It looks good, has many inputs, outputs and unused features ready fot the future functions but the remote control is one of the worse ones. The main problem with the remote is that it has two sets of arrows, one of which is used for channel zapping and volume control only and the second one for menu navigation only and it's not easy to get used to this complicated system. It has a bright side, though... you can zap through channels and browse the menu at the same time.

DiSEqC 1.1 is supported, which means that the Orbit receiver can be used to watch FTA channels from other satellites but it is not possible to use DiSEqC motors.

The front panel has all the needed buttons - up, down, left, right, menu, ok, back, standby. Plus there are 2 unused card slots.

The back panel offers a few different ways of connecting TV and audio system. What I don't understand is why only one of the 2 SCART connectors has S-Video output (the VCR one). TV SCART can't do S-Video. USB and RS223 ports are unused at this moment. Digital audio output is very important since both the phono and also the SCART audio outputs are real crap! I haven't manage to connect analogue audio to my AV Receiver in a way where a buzzing sound wouldn't interfere. The buzzing sound, even though not very loud and audiable only in some situations, is really intrusive, especially when a subwoofer is connected. Since my AV Receiver (ONKYO) has only one optical digital audio input (the other ones are coaxial), I had no other choice than to connect my Dreambox to the analogue input (and the sound still stays crystal clear) and Orbit box connect to the digital one. I'm a person with very high demands when it comes to sound and video quality and I have to say that it took me many hours until I achieved the desired results with the Orbit box... but at least it's possible.

The installation is without any problems. I already had an activated box from the dealer so the only thing I had to do was register the box at Orbit's website to receive a password via satellite in 15 minutes. With the username and password, it is possible to log in to Orbit's website and renew subscription or just view the subscription status. All the technical specifications of the receiver are HERE.

The user interface sucks. At least 3 buttons have to be pressed before one can view current programme information. Navigating through Video and Radio mosaic is pain in the ass as it is very slow. Also displaying the channel list and selecting a channel to zap to takes at least 5 steps: displaying channel list, selecting channel selection(!!), activate channel selection(!!), selecting the channel, pressing OK. Too complicated. That's why the easiest way to switch between channels is to remember channel numbers (which, by the way, cannot be changed) and enter them manually or by pressing arrows up/down many times. The function of zapping between two channels by pressing ZERO on the RC isn't implemented..

The 7-day EPG is one of the stronger sides of this receiver. It is quite easy to navigate through channel listings and search for programmes by genre. Setting up a timer (reminder) is also possible.

The channels is what makes Orbit so unique. Orbit is the only pay-tv provider to carry CNBC-US (12 hours a day), MSNBC (about 10 hours a day on Orbit News), Good Morning America live and also The Today Show live and of course ESPN with many live broadcasts. Plus there are some game shows and older TV shows on other English channels.

The English Channels are:

Orbit has it's own ratings system. All programmes are rated R1/R2/R3 or X, where X means Fashion TV or The Sopranos. There are no Arabic commercials but the shows are interrupted with Orbit promos. Except Orbit News, 50% of the promos are in Arabic.

More pictures: http://drhans.jinak.cz/paytv/orbit2/orbit_pic2.zip
Forum topic: http://drhans.jinak.cz/forum/showthread.php?threadid=67

In conclusion, I must say that Orbit won't fit everyone. It's only for those people who want news coverage from the US 24/7 in a style that can't be seen anywhere else in Europe and a sports channel that's a mix of ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic. However, if you're looking for movies and porn, look somewhere else because Orbit will not satisfy you. Plus the picture quality is not very good.

Please note that some of the Orbit News' programmes can be seen on other channels, namely on MBC4, CNBC Europe, VoA and occasional feeds at 15°W.

 

Other resources:

Unofficial but very helpful Orbit forum: http://www.orbitforum.net