1. TEST REPORT Miniature HDTV Satellite Receiver
Icecrypt
• extremely tiny but fully equipped Linux receiver
• includes a sophisticated blindscan mode
• less than 1 second for FTA channel zapping
S3500HDCCI
• can be upgraded with lots of useful applications
• uses a very powerful chipset
TELE-satellite Magazine
Business Voucher
www.TELE-satellite.info/12/01/icecrypt-S3500HDCCI
Direct Contact to Sales Manager
98 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 99

2. TEST REPORT Miniature HDTV Satellite Receiver
12-01/2012
Icecrypt S3500HDCCI
Extremely small and
extremely powerful
0.4
Ferrari Engine
in a Mini Morris
You could easily pass by You might be a little bit sur- nicely in hand though its rub- power up asks you to se-
and do not pay any atten- prised that there is neither a ber keyboard is rather typical lect the OSD language. The
tion to this unpretentious SCART connector nor three for not so expensive models. choice is pretty wide: Eng-
small box. Actually it is that color RCA outputs with CVBS But this is not the end of lish, French, German, Dutch,
small that you could put two video and stereo audio but the surprises. When you con- Greek, Spanish, Arabic.
S3500HDCCI receivers side closer examination reveals nect the S3500HDCCCI to Italian, Portuguese, Turk-
by side on a single page of that there is a mini jack con- your TV set and see its full ish, Russian, Polish, Czech,
this TELE-satellite magazine. nector between HDMI and color on-screen graphics and Swedish, Suomi, Danish,
Placing it near a 50 inch flat S/PDIF ports. Having suit- when you experience the Norwegian, Slovenian, Slo-
panel TV creates an amusing able A/V cable (mini jack to speed of operation you can vak, Macedonian, Romanian,
impression. It is like putting 3xRCA) you can easily route not believe that it all comes Serbian, Hungarian and Thai.
a mouse near an elephant. analog video and audio to from this tiny box. And that‘s The next installation step is
However, the possibilities of your old TV-set or VHS re- not all. It is a Linux based re- the selection of local time
this “mouse” are astonishing! corder if you still have one. ceiver! It means a possibility zone and turning on or off
Its front panel is very as- Additionally, there are: 12 V to install many interesting pl- light saving time.
cetic – just three buttons and DC power input connector, ugins and add-ons available When you are through with
a single status LED shining RS-232C port and a connec- on the Internet for this kind these basic settings, S3500H-
either in red or green. How- tor for an optional infra red of receivers. S3500HDCCCI DCCI takes you to the ser-
ever, as soon as you look receiver if you want to hide is like a top class receiver vice search menu. Before the
at the rear panel you start the S3500HDCCCI but still without some not-so-neces- search, you have to select
thinking that perhaps your be able to control it with its sary features. But the power the right satellite and check
very first impression is quite remote control. Of course, a of its processor, capacity of the configuration of your an-
wrong. PCMCIA connector for plug type power supply unit internal memory or Inter- tenna system. The Icecrypt
CA modules, card reader slot, is also included. net related functions are the box is compatible with all
USB for external memory or A look at the remote con- same as in top class receiv- DiSEqC protocols (1.0, 1.1
hard disk, Ethernet for con- trol units leaves no doubt ers. Even blindscan channel and 1.2). We checked during
nection to the Internet, HDMI - S3500HDCCI is equipped search is available! Can you our test the operation with
and optical S/PDIF ports are with PVR functions and even believe it? 1x4 and 1x8 switches as well
not necessarily the things some trick modes normally OK, but let’s start from as a DiSEqC motor. Every-
you expect to find in a simple associated with much bigger the beginning. This Icecrypt thing worked perfectly. You
small box. receivers. The remote sits receiver right after the first can use any type of LNB with
100 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

3. 1 6
the receiver: single, univer- turned off. The S3500HDCCI this feature that you do not With the arrow buttons you
sal or unicable. Of course, all found 894 TV services and ever want to switch back to navigate among the screen-
LOFs are supported. 221 radio services. When we traditional an information shots deciding which channel
There are no fewer but five turned the Network option box with only present event you want to see live.
channel search modes: Au- on, the channel search time shown. Other satellite receiv- An interesting solution –
tomatic, Manual, Advanced, increased to 6 minutes and ers offer you a possibility to not so popular in other re-
Fast and Blindscan. Auto- 20 seconds but the box was see the future event after ceivers - is regarding chan-
matic scan is a most common able to find 21 additional TV pressing right arrow. But if nels from a single satellite
search mode based on the services. The scan ended up you love channel zapping, like one of the favorite lists.
factory preprogrammed sat- with 915 TV and 221 radio the Icecrypt solution saves For example, you can have
2 ellite and transponder data. channels. 7 you time and increases the the favorite lists: Drama,
There are 162 satellites avail- After testing the Automatic pleasure of playing with your Sports, News, but also As-
able from all over the world! search mode, we did the re- receiver. tra 19.2° E and Hotbird 13°
In the unlikely event that the set to factory defaults and Another improvement is E. Thank to this, you do not
satellite you are looking for is started the Blindscan. We the ability to set the audio need to have an extra button
not on the list, you can add set the receiver to scan the volume as normal, increased on the remote called SAT or
it manually as there are four whole band and both polari- or decreased for every chan- something like that. We like
user defined positions added zations. We were prepared nel independently. Every sat- this approach and recom-
at the bottom of the list. The for quite a long wait but to ellite fan will appreciate this mend the other manufactur-
Manual search mode let you our great surprise, S3500H- feature. Thanks to that you ers to adopt this idea.
choose a specific transpond- DCCI was through after can zap channels more com- EPG works in two modes:
er to search. The Advanced merely 10 minutes and 15 fortably without any fear that grid mode and list mode. The
mode is similar to Manual but seconds. It announced it had suddenly you will wake up grid mode is a table in which
3 you can define audio, video found 918 TV and 221 radio 8 the whole house by entering a channel name is shown in
PIDs and detect in this way channels. The results are im- a channel with unnaturally the first column while the
normally hidden channels. pressive. Icecrypt box did a high audio level. Once you channel events are shown
The Fast mode is a search really good job! pinpoint such channel, you as rectangles in the same
dedicated for a particular We searched a number of set its audio to be 30% down line, to the right of the chan-
satellite provider. Presently other satellites using our DiS- and every next time you nel name. The length of the
S3500HDCCI has two pos- EqC motorized dish as well visit the channel its audio rectangle is proportional to
sibilities here: Canal Digitaal as DiSEqC switches: 1x4 and is somewhat muted. It also the event duration. The list
and TV Vlaanderen. 1x8. Everything worked per- works the other way - if you mode shows the event titles
The most exciting mode is fectly. Occasionally, S3500H- find a channel with too low of the present channel listed
naturally the blindscan. The DCCI halted during a channel audio, you can set it individu- one below the other. While
receiver scans the frequency search and we had to restart ally to be played 30% louder. the grid mode is more con-
band and tries to detect tran- the scan. However, this did The pleasure of operat- venient when making deci-
4 sponders without referring to not cause any loss of previ- 9 ing the S3500HDCCI is ad- sions what to watch on which
any preprogrammed tran- ously stored channels. ditionally increased due to channel right now or in the
sponders data. In this way, it Channel zapping is fast and trick modes it offers: picture near future, the list mode
can discover also the brand pleasant in S3500HDCCI: less in picture and mosaic pic- is quicker when you want to
new transponders that did than one second for the FTA ture. Picture in picture lets find a favorite event in the
not operate when the manu- channels and a little longer you easily choose a channel more distant future. EPG
facturer was releasing the for the scrambled channels to monitor in an inset, in- S3500HDCCI allows you not
firmware and created satel- what is natural as descram- terchange the main and the only to mark an event for
lite and transponder data bling takes extra time. An monitored channel or show automatic recording but also
for S3500HDCCI . There is information box that appears them in equal size side by to set a reminder. If you do
no need to scan always the right after a channel change side. And everything with so, three minutes before the
entire band in both polari- is clearly designed and apart just a single button press. start of the chosen event,
zations. The receiver allows from the typical data, it can The mosaic shows you 12 you will see a message tell-
5 10
you to specify narrower fre- show you something extra. If frozen screenshots of 12 dif- ing you that in three minutes
quency range and choose po- set so in the Display menu, ferent channels (assuming your receiver will tune to the
larization. the information box shows there are 12 or more on the other channel to present you
The Automatic search of you not only the title and current transponder) and one the event.
ASTRA satellite on 19.2° East start and end times of the channel active in the middle. All channel edition func-
took 3 minutes and 45 sec- present event but also the ti- tions that you may ever need
6. Info box can be set to show
onds with the network option tle and start and end times of present and following events are there. You can delete,
the following event. It might 7. A/V Output Settings move, or copy a channel to
1. Configuration menu
2. Installation menu
at first sound as a negligi- 8. Dish Settings one of many favorite lists
3. Storage Manager ble improvement but after a 9. Network Settings and so on. And also here you
4. Service List Manager very short time of using it, 10. We installed the free have a feeling that the user
JpgViewer plugin downloaded
5. Recording Options you feel so comfortable with from the Internet interface has been thought
102 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 103

4. 11
over profoundly. There are receiver will work on every
no unnecessary button model so some experiment-
presses required. If you want ing may be necessary. Among
to move or delete a bigger the most exciting possibilities
number of channels, it does is the web browser. We in-
not take you that long as in stalled a viewer for JPG files.
the other receiver models. That’s because on our TV-
Excellent job! set, the S3500HDCCI tended
Not only during channel to display 4:3 JPG photos
edition but also in normal stretched unnaturally to a
12 viewing, when you invoke 16:9 aspect ratio. To get cor-
the channel list with the OK rect proportions, we had to
button, you have plenty of degrade video resolution to
possibilities to sort channels 576p. The plugin solved the
and search for specific chan- problem for high video reso-
nel or provider names. At the lutions. All our photos are
beginning, it may look a little shown correctly now. That’s
bit confusing – that many op- a small example how useful a
tions you have. Fortunately, plugin can be. Where to find
everything is so logical that plugins? The most conveni-
you master handling your re- ent way is to start with the
ceiver in a short time. And Internet forums dedicated to
because the S3500HDCCI is Icecrypt receivers and then
13 exceptionally fast, running explore the forums for other
even more complex functions Linux based receivers. As we
that require a lot of naviga- noted, some plugins original-
tion over menu structure is ly developed and tested for
as immediate as simple func- the other receiver brands will
tions in other receivers. also work when installed on
Speaking about the menu, S3500HDCCI.
as soon as you enter it, you Many plugins require con-
realize how configurable your nection to Internet. Achiev-
S3500HDCCI is. The list of ing this with the S3500HDC-
things is very long – you can CI is simple: you only need
get a good feeling on what a router supporting DHCP.
you can do with this receiver Everything goes automati-
14 by looking at the screenshots cally. However, if you wish,
we did for you. Even such you can configure your con-
small things like the timeout nection manually. But this is
of the volume adjustment not all. The receiver can con-
bar graph can be adjusted. nect with a Wi-Fi network via
Satellite fans will be delight- an external USB device. It is
ed having that many possi- somewhat slower than a ca-
bilities at their fingertips. ble connection but if you do
And as we are at the cus- not have a PC network avail-
tomization, we would like to able in your living room –
remind you that the Icecrypt that can be the only option.
receiver is Linux based. This Consult the user manual for
means that you are able to compatible USB devices.
15
install plugins and add-ons Icecrypt box has a USB
developed for this and similar port as well as all required
receivers. Not every plugin buttons on its remote con-
developed for Linux based trol, so it must be ready for
11. Free TV+ lets you choose PVR operation. And indeed,
from YouTube and Earth Touch not only regular recording
services
and time-shift functions are
12. Searching Queen clips on
YouTube provided. You can record as
13. Service List many as three channels at
14. Searching specific service the same time while watch-
on the list
ing two others (using PIP
15. Satellites are regarded as a
kind of a favorite list function for example). Of
104 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

5. 16 20 22 23
17 21 are interchangeable between 16. EPG – grid mode Expert Opinion
the two models. For some 17. PIP mode works perfect for
HD channels Extremely powerful and fast HD PVR receiver
people who would love to
18. Mosaic View matching the top class models.
have not one but more Ice-
19. Simple Service List Almost endless configuration options but still
crypt receivers in their A/V
cabinet this may be a prob-
20. Selecting soundtrack + very user friendly.
1080p video output.
21. Picture viewer
lem. But for a vast majority 22. A recorded file is about to be All DiSEqC protocols Jacek Pawlowski
of users, this problem is only played Very good video and audio quality TELE-satellite
Test Center
theoretical. 23. Radio channel Small power consumption and extremely eco- Poland
friendly power saving mode
All the reception tests we venient to connect an exter-
did proved that S3500HDCCI nal USB HDD and keep there
It can halt occasionally during channel scans and you have to
has a very sensitive tuner all your multimedia files. – restart the scan then.
and can deal with very weak Before we end this report,
18
course, one can take full ad- simpler and cheaper chipset? signals as well as signals with we would like to mention
vantage of such great per- And as you already know, it small and high symbol rates. one important feature of the TECHNICAL
formance having not one but worked as fast as in its big- Sometimes when you switch box. This is the power sav- DATA
Manufacturer Icecrypt, Great Britain
two tuners. If you think you ger brother. Evidently, the to a low symbol rate channel, ing mode. Normally, when
Fax 01795 427 666
might be needing concur- chipset is not any simpler like 2000 kbps, you have to this mode is not activated,
E-mail info@icecrypt.com
rent recording and watching and cheaper. That’s why we wait longer before you can the receiver consumes about
Web page www.icecrypt.com
channels from different tran- titled our report as we did. watch it. It is not one second 10 Watts in normal opera-
Model S3500HDCCI
sponders, you should think of You take a seat in a small but 3-4 seconds before the tion and 5 Watts in standby.
Function HD PVR enabled satellite receiver
another Icecrypt model – the Mini Morris, press the pedal receiver locks to the signal. Switching from standby to
Input Signal Standards / , MPEG2 and MPEG4
two tuner STC6000HD PVR and you get flattened by ac- This happens also in other operate takes only 4 sec-
Input Frequency 950 ~ 2150 MHz
that we presented recently in celeration produced by its receiver brands as most of onds. But when you acti-
Symbol Rates 2-67.5 Ms/sec for and
TELE-satellite 10-11/2011. engine. Evidently, this is not the receivers are optimized vate in the menu the option 2-52.5 Ms/sec for
Actually, when we turned what you expect from a small for higher symbol rates. called “Power saving”, the
19 DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2
on the small S3500HDCCI, and apparently lower perfor- Except for a small prob- power consumed in standby
Audio AC-3 Dolby Digital and MPEG 1 Layer 1,2 and 3
we had the impression of mance product. S3500HDCCI lem with the aspect ratio of drops almost to zero (well
Video From 480i through 1080p
a déjà vu. The OSD looked by no means can be named photographs when watched below 1 Watt). The receiver
Number of Channels Stored 10.000
pretty much the same as in low performance. On the in high resolution settings, consumes almost no electric
Power Supply AC 100 ~ 240 V 50/60 Hz
STC6000HD PVR. OK, we contrary, this is the top class we did not encounter any energy. Naturally, it has to
Power Consumption 12 V/2A plug adapter: 24 W max (10W in our tests)
said to ourselves, that’s a product stripped from the problems when dealing with take longer to wake up from
Dimensions 220 x 35 x 145 mm
reasonable approach to re- second tuner, VFD display multimedia. MP3 files as well such a deep standby. And
use thousands of lines of and a few interfaces that did as AVI and MPG files were this is 35 seconds. It is up to
ENERGY
software code for the next not fit on a small rear panel. played back correctly, not to the user, but we think that DIAGRAM
product. But will this soft- But the speed and power are mention of course the play- many of them will choose to
ware work fast enough in this unchanged. back of recordings done with be eco-friendly and turn this Mode Apparent Active Factor
Active 25 W 10 W 0.4
small box, presumably with Even the remote controls the receiver. It is very con- option on. Apparent Power StandBy 13 W 5 W 0.38
Deep StandBy 0W 0W 1
Apparent Power
Active Power
Active Power
First 10 minutes: operate mode, next 5 minutes: standby mode
(power saving ON), last 5 minutes: standby mode
(power saving OFF).
106 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 12-01/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 12-01/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 107