This document provides a test report of the Icecrypt STC6000HD PVR HDTV combo receiver. The summary is as follows: 1. The STC6000HD PVR is a well-designed receiver with an elegant appearance and intuitive on-screen interface. It has strong performance for both satellite and cable channels. 2. The receiver supports all relevant satellite protocols and has a large channel memory capacity. It was able to find over 1700 TV and 1300 radio channels during testing. 3. Testing showed the receiver has very fast channel scanning speeds and excellent signal reception for both strong and weak signals. The blind scan mode was also able to find more channels than other modes.

1. TEST REPORT HDTV Combo Receiver
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Icecrypt
STC6000HD TELE-satellite Magazine
Business Voucher
PVR
www.TELE-satellite.info/11/11/icecrypt
Direct Contact to Sales Manager
• Superbly designed and manufactured
remote control
• Very fast Blind Scan
• Many useful features
• Well thought-out EPG and channel handling
• Very large channel memory makes the box
well suited for motorized dishes
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2. TEST REPORT HDTV Combo Receiver
An Aristocrat
10-1
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Icecrypt STC6000HD PVR
Well designed features in a
well designed box
among Double Tuner Boxes
You can tell right from the readers. just the first one of three suits your needs.
start that this Linux based Let’s start with the box. such ports – the other two The remote control is
receiver is a top class model. Its front panel is equipped are located on the rear pan- rather large but that makes
Even the cooling slots on the with a large 12 character el. it very easy to operate. The
top cover are arranged in a bluish white dot matrix vac- The rear panel has eve- labels are very legible. Sur-
nice pattern - not just in a uum fluorescent display. It’s rything you might expect. prisingly, the remote control
simple grid. This initial im- not all that bright so won’t There are two tuner inputs does not come with a stand-
pression is confirmed again distract you when watching with corresponding looped- ard rubber keyboard. Each
and again as you familiarize TV in a dark room. through outputs, HDMI and button has its own micro-
yourself with this receiver. The VFD shows the channel S/PDIF digital video and switch beneath a cap. Eve-
And it’s not just the look name, menu name or time. audio outputs, all sorts of ry microswitch generates
and feel of the box and its There are only five buttons analog outputs (composite/ a very distinctive clicking
remote control, but also on the front panel: channel RGB/YPbPr video and stereo sound and has a very crisp
the style of its on-screen- up/down, volume up/down audio) as well as a number feel to it. Its operation is
graphics. However, behind and standby. It would seem of data ports: two rear USB very reliable.
all of this elegance must be that their purpose is more ports, an e-SATA port for an Every push of a button is
exceptional performance, to quickly check if the box external HDD, an RS-232 in- registered by the receiver
otherwise, what’s the point? is operational than for any- terface and an Ethernet jack and you don’t have to worry
The buyer of a luxury car thing else. for a local area network. about how fast you push a
automatically expects that As is typical, the right The sample that we re- series of buttons; the box
its external appearance hand side of the front panel ceived for testing came with reacts instantly to your ac-
and internal comfort will be is actually a drop-down flap a DVB-S2 tuner and a DVB-C tions.
complemented by a power- behind which you’ll find two tuner. However, any combi- This is due not only to
ful engine. But what about universal smart card read- nation of DVB-S2, DVB-C, the design of the remote
the STC6000HD PVR? We ers, two Common Interface DVB-T or DVB-T2 is possi- control unit but also to the
examined this receiver very connectors for CA modules ble. You can order a version high power of the micropro-
closely for our TELE-satellite and one USB port. This is of the STC6000HD PVR that cessor unit and the amount
0.5
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3. 1 6
of memory installed in the be displayed with strange
STC6000HD PVR. fonts.
The STC6000HD PVR’s But as soon as you switch
User Manual is very well the OSD language to Rus-
written and very well organ- sian, the program name is
ized. The explanations of displayed properly using the
the receiver’s functions and Cyrillic alphabet.
features are detailed and The next step is setting
precise although the screen- your time zone. Daylight
shots are a little bit too small Savings Time is also sup-
2 and are hard to read without ported. The STC6000HD 7 advanced and fast scan. vide you with a convenient
a magnifying glass. PVR can be set up to behave More advanced readers speedy channel search.
On a few occasions when like an alarm clock. It can would know that the auto- The satellite list of the
we wanted to refer to the automatically turn on and matic search is based on the STC6000HD PVR contains
user manual, we found what display a selected channel at transponder data for every no fewer than 162 satel-
we were looking for very the preset time of day. This satellite preprogrammed lites from all over the world.
quickly beginning with the is an interesting option for into memory by the manu- That’s a huge number but
index (located at the very a total TV addict for whom facturer. The manual mode there was one satellite miss-
beginning of the manual) starting a day with a favorite allows you to search only ing: Express AM4 at 11.0°
and then jumping to the TV channel in the morning is one transponder that you west. So we used one of the
right page. It’s a well struc- an absolute must. A sleep select from the list for a giv- four “spare” satellites in the
tured user manual. timer can also be configured en satellite. list (called User 01 through
The OSD is in full color and here. The advanced mode lets User 04) and edited it.
3 high resolution - exactly as After finishing these “ad- 8 you not only select a specific Next it was time to check
it should be for such a high ministrative” tasks, it was transponder but also specify the receiver’s channel scan-
class model. When turning time for more interesting video, audio and PCR PID’s ning speed. As usual, we se-
on the receiver for the first steps – setting up an an- of the channel you want to lected HOTBIRD at 13° east
time, the STC6000HD PVR tenna system and searching find and process. Blind Scan as our test satellite. The
asks you to select a lan- for channels. When you en- is still something fairly new STC6000HD PVR came with
guage. The receiver comes ter the antenna setup menu, to satellite TV but is quite 99 transponders stored in
with an extensive choice you can immediately see common to terrestrial TV its pre-programmed memo-
of OSD languages: English, that all DiSEqC protocols are sets. The box scans the fre- ry for this satellite. The au-
French, German, Dutch, supported (1.0, 1.1 and 1.2) quency spectrum and when tomatic channel scan with
Greek, Spanish, Arabic, along with USALS (which is it detects a transponder, it network search turned off
Italian, Portuguese, Turk- also sometimes referred to tries to recognize its param- took 7 minutes and 22 sec-
ish, Russian, Polish, Czech, as DiSEqC 1.3). eters. Generally, Blind Scan onds. 1274 TV and 383 radio
4 Swedish, Finnish, Danish, The LOF’s of the LNB are 9 channels (FTA and scram-
mode is still not completely
Norwegian, Slovak, Sloveni- selected in two steps. You reliable in satellite boxes bled) altogether were found.
an, Macedonian, Romanian, first define whether it is a because the transponder’s We reset the box and re-
Serbian and Hungarian. The single band, universal or SCR parameters can vary quite started the automatic scan
same languages are avail- model and then you choose a bit and there are no fixed with network search turned
able for the first preferred the right LOF frequency. channel plans. on. Naturally, the scan last-
audio, the second preferred The LOF cannot be entered The last option - Fast Scan ed longer – 10 minutes and
audio, the first preferred manually but the drop down - was a kind of puzzle to us. 5 seconds. The number of
subtitle language, the sec- menu offers you a long list After playing with the box channels found increased
ond preferred subtitle lan- to choose from: 5150, 9750, for a while, we realized that to 1454 TV and 384 radio
guage and the preferred 1000, 10050, 10300, 10600, this mode is used to search channels.
teletext language. 10750, 11200, 11250, for channels of specific sat- After another factory re-
We noticed that the choice 11300 and 11475 for sin- ellite TV providers. Our box set, we started the Blind
5 10
of OSD language has an im- gle LOFs and 9750/10600 had two such providers pre- Scan. The result was very
pact on the program name and 9750/10750 for univer- programmed: Canal Digital good indeed: 8 minutes
description in the channel sal LNBs. If you opt for an and TV Vlaanderen. If you and 30 seconds and 1477
info box. For example, when SCR LNB, you do not have a happen to be a subscriber TV channels and 409 radio
you watch a Russian chan- choice of LOFs. to one of them, it will pro- channels.
nel, the program name can In our model, the channel It looks as though the fu-
6. Information box of a radio
search was divided into two channel ture belongs to Blind Scan.
1. System Tools menu submenus: Satellite Search 7. Simple channel list shows It does not take much longer
2. Configuration menu and Cable Search. Satellite also current programs
than an automatic scan but it
3. Installation menu 8. Channel list
Search offered as many as consistently manages to find
4. Utilities menu 9. EPG in a classical grid mode
five different search modes: more channels even when
5. Info bar with extended 10. Detailed EPG of a single
information displayed automatic, manual, blind, channel compared with a network
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4. 11
12 search. The STC6000HD We checked the reception of
PVR lets you limit the blind very weak signals and very
scan to one polarization only strong signals (yes, this can
or to FTA only or TV only. sometimes happen in ca-
If you are the happy owner ble networks). The receiver
of the STC6000HD PVR and performed very well and
have the nature of a true was able to process signals
DXer, you should opt for the even well outside its speci-
Blind Scan rather than any fications.
of the other channel search For example, the
modes. Only in this way can STC6000HD PVR was able
you find channels that the to process cable signals as
others modes will be com- strong as +47 dBmV even
13 pletely unaware of. though the specifications
After a successful search only promise a range from
of the HOTBIRD transpond- -15 dBmV to +25 dBmV. To
ers, we decided to test its scan the entire frequency
USALS operation and force band, the box needed 7
the box to search 25 satel- minutes and 30 seconds.
lites from 30° west to 45° During our tests, we noticed
east. The process ended up that the receiver can recog-
with about 1700 TV and 1300 nize a change in QAM mode
radio FTA channels. The on-the-fly and process the
STC6000HD PVR’s memory signals without the need to
was only 30% occupied as rescan the band. That is un-
its capacity is 10,000 TV expectedly nice feature.
14 and radio channels. The box Before finishing the instal-
had absolutely no problem lation process, it is a good
receiving SCPC channels idea to check the A/V set-
and easily dealt with weak tings and see if they are op-
transponders. Obviously, timized for your TV set. Ex-
the tuner in the STC6000HD cept for typical settings like
PVR is quite good. picture aspect ratio, we can
After being that successful also set the HDMI output
with satellite channels, we resolution up to 1080p here.
moved on to cable channels. Not too many receivers
We used our cable head-end can do that. Most of them
equipment to generate a can only produce 1080i so
package of DVB-C channels. this is another plus for the
15
We tried all QAM modes STC6000HD PVR.
from QAM-16 to QAM-256. Note that if the resolu-
The STC6000HD PVR had tion is set greater than 576i,
no trouble locking on and there is no video output on
processing these channels. the SCART or RCA analog
outputs; there’s only a mes-
11. Mosaic view
sage informing you that the
12. Picture-in-picture – basic
mode resolution is set too high for
13. Picture-in-picture – side this output. Although there
by side mode
are receivers available that
14. Selecting the language of
channel subtitles can produce downscaled
15. Language settings 576i video on the SCART/
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5. RCA outputs while gener- There are two channel list few receivers out there that standby mode the box is nothing to be desired. The
ating an HD picture on the versions. One is accessible let you delete unnecessary almost completely off con- video and audio were per-
HDMI output, Icecrypt has in the classic way by press- channels from a long list as suming less than 1 W of fect and no MPEG artifacts
chosen not to do that. Nor- ing the OK button. The other, fast and conveniently as the power. We measured 0.8 were visible or audible. The
mally, it’s not a problem for a simplified one, is accessed STC6000HD PVR. W. However, switching back STC6000HD PVR not only
the user. It doesn’t happen by pressing the up or down Also moving channels is to operate mode takes over stored the audio/video of
too often where you need arrow buttons. The simpli- smartly organized – you do 40 seconds. If this is too the channel but also the al-
to watch HD content on an fied version shows just the not deal with each chan- long for you, you can choose ternative soundtracks and
HDMI output and still need a channel names in the left nel separately but mark a the shallow standby mode program description as
downscaled video version at column and the correspond- group of channels and then in which switching back to presented in the EPG. And
16 the same time. ing current program names highlight a position where operate mode takes only 4 that’s not all. It also record-
Right after the channel in the right column. In this the entire group should end seconds. The penalty is the ed subtitles.
scan, the box shows you the way you can very quickly up. Everything works very energy consumption. The You can’t edit the re-
first FTA channel. This is a scan “what’s on TV” at that fast – evidently the power of receiver consumes 15 W in cordings directly with the
small but nice feature: if the moment. the receiver’s main proces- shallow standby and is only STC6000HD PVR – you have
first channel in the list hap- The regular version pro- sor and the amount of RAM slightly less than what is to use your PC for this pur-
pens to be a scrambled one, vides much more informa- contribute to this. Overall, consumed in operate mode pose. However, you can set
you are not presented with a tion about the channels, sat- managing channels in the (20 W). bookmarks at any point in
black screen but instead are ellites and favorite lists. You STC6000HD PVR is excep- The STC6000HD PVR al- the recording so that you
taken to the first FTA chan- can not only sort channels tionally well done. lows you to record more can jump to it when watch-
nel. Channel surfing is a in different ways (by name, The Electronic Program than one channel at a time. ing it again. This is probably
pleasure. Switching between transponder, CAS, provider Guide is accessed with the The exact number depends the simplest way of getting
MCPC FTA channels takes and tuner) and filter them EPG button. There are two on the data transfer rate of rid of the commercial breaks
17 slightly over one second. by satellite or favorite group modes: grid mode which the connected memory de- that might be inserted in a
When you switch to a really but also find a channel by shows a multichannel view vice. The STC6000HD PVR recorded movie.
low symbol rate channel like entering the first letters of along a timeline and single has a special test function The recordings are stored
DIYALA 11071 [H] SR=2099 its name. channel mode. Everything in its menu. When started, it as files with a TS extension.
on Atlantic Bird 2 at 8° west, You can also assign chan- works really fast and navi- measures the performance If you use a suitable PC ap-
it takes about three seconds. nels to a selected favorite gating the programming of a USB stick or external plication, you can convert
Similarly, when you switch list. The receiver initially schedule is pure pleasure. HDD and displays what you this to a file that can be used
to a scrambled channel it comes with ten favorites As expected, you can mark can expect. to burn a DVD.
also takes longer – around lists with preset names: programs for recording di- We checked a contempo- Time shifting worked
2-3 seconds. Drama, News, Music, etc. rectly in the EPG. rary 8 GB USB stick con- equally well in our tests. This
You can watch scram- However, you can rename In such a classy receiver, nected to one of the receiv- function may be set to work
bled channels because the them as desired and even even the RECALL function is er’s USB ports. The receiver either manually –the box
STC6000HD PVR has two add additional lists. not a basic one. So when you informed us that we can ei- starts recording when the
18 slots for smart cards and More channel related op- press the RECALL button, ther record two HD channels Pause button is pressed, or
two CI connectors for CA erations are possible after a list of previously watched at the same time or record automatically – the box re-
modules. During our tests, entering the Service List channels is displayed. You one HD channel while using cords A/V all the time from
the receiver worked very Manager. In this submenu, can either press the RECALL the time shift feature. These
well with a SECA Nagravi- you can do all the tricks button again to choose the are excellent results that 16. Dish Settings menu
17. Configuring channel search
sion card as well as with a you’ve come to expect: de- very last channel or use everyone should be satisfied
18. Cable channel search
VIACCESS card. Of course, leting, moving, renaming, the up/down arrow buttons with! settings are simpler to set than
it’s always a good idea to locking or skipping a chan- to select another one and Based on these results, the satellite ones
consult the receiver vendor nel. What we would like to press OK. we attempted two HD re- 19. Channel manager
emphasize is the ease of use cordings simultaneously. 20. Teletext
to make sure that it will work There are two stand-
21. YouTube browser with
with a specific PayTV system of this manager. Everything by modes available in the The quality of the record- search panel activated
you are subscribed to. is optimized. There are very STC6000HD PVR. In deep ings when played back left 22. List of installed plugins
19 20 21 22
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6. the moment we switch to tire screen while the other is can navigate between them. matically add some time figure anything. Once con- pendent programmers.
another channel. The timer muted and shown in a small One channel is live, the rest before and/or after each re- nected you can watch video We expect that more and
TECHNICAL
DATA
buffer for automatic record- insert. You can choose the are shown as frozen frames. cording. If you want to re- clips on YouTube (a regular more interesting plug-ins
Manufacturer Icecrypt, Sittingbourne, United Kingdom
ing can be set, for example, second channel you want to When you surf between cord something important it menu option in the receiver) will eventually become avail-
Webpage www.icecrypt.com
to 120 minutes. see from a drop down menu. channels you often encoun- might not be a bad idea to or even surf any other pages able for the STC6000HD PVR
Email info@icecrypt.com
The STC6000HD PVR lets Of course, if your version ter some channels that are use this function because if you use a plug-in called and as an owner of this re-
of the STC6000HD PVR has very loud or others that are schedules may not always ceiver you’ll have a lot of fun Fax +44-1795 427 666
you not only play back pre- WebZeal. The WebZeal plug-
viously recorded content but only one DVB-S2 tuner, very quiet. Icecrypt has a be completely accurate. in is a web browser and was trying them out. Model STC6000HD PVR
also multimedia files stored you are limited to the same remedy for that. You can in- If you have access to the pre-installed by the manu- Last but not least, we Function Two tuner HD receiver with Linux OS
on your disk like: MP3, JPG, transponder and cable chan- dividually set each channel Internet, you can connect facturer. want to highlight the ability Choice of tuners , DVB-C, DVB-T or DVB-T2
MPG or DivX AVI. nels. You can also watch two audio level to be played nor- the STC6000HD PVR to your Since this is a Linux based to save your channel lists Input range of tuner 950-2150 MHz, -65 to – 25 dBm
The STC6000HD PVR has channels in equal size side mally, increased by 30% or LAN. It’s compatible with receiver, additional soft- and other settings to the at- Input range of DVB-C tuner 50 MHz ~ 1 GHz, QAM 16 ~ QAM 256,
so many functions and fea- by side. reduced by 30%. It’s a really DHCP routers so in most ware can be installed in the tached storage devices. It’s 1Ms/sec ~7 Ms/sec, -15 dBmV ~ 25 dBmV
tures that it’s difficult to list Another nice feature is the helpful feature. cases you won’t need to con- STC6000HD. This could be an excellent feature that will Input range of DVB-T VHF III: 174~230 MHz
them all. But we’ll try any- multi-picture display (or mo- You can configure the software downloaded from let you quickly restore all and DVB-T2 tuners UHF IV: 470~606 MHz
UHF V: 606~862 MHz
way. One nice feature is PIP saic display). You can watch STC6000HD PVR to auto- the Icecrypt home page - your channel and favorites
DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2
(picture-in-picture). You can nine or twelve channels ar- for example a new version lists after upgrading your
watch two channels simulta- ranged in a mosaic and you of WebZeal – or it could be software. USALS yes
neously. plug-ins developed by inde- Overall, the STC6000HD HDMI output 1
The main one fills the en- PVR is not only very el- SCART 2
egant and classy but also Analog A/V outputs 6 x RCA
extremely convenient and Component video output yes
fast. It will satisfy not only S-Video output yes
regular family users but also UHF modulator no
demanding DX-ers and sat-
0/12V connector no
ellite enthusiasts.
Digital audio output optical S/PDIF
EPG yes
C/Ku-Band compatible yes
SCPC compatible yes
PVR function yes
USB 2.0 ports 3x
Ethernet yes
E-SATA yes
Main processor STi chipset
Memory Flash ROM 64 Mbytes, SDRAM 256 Mbytes,
EEPROM 256 Bytes
Power supply AC 100 ~ 250 V 50/60 Hz
Power consumption 55 W max. (1 W max. in deep standby mode)
Dimensions 340 x 60 x 230 mm
Weight 2 kg
Operating temperature 0° ~ +45° C
ENERGY
DIAGRAM
Expert Opinion Apparent Power
Very fast and pleasant operation due to a pow-
erful processor and amount of RAM
Flexible design allowing various DVB tuner Active Power
+ combinations
Compatible with Linux plug-ins Mode Apparent Active Factor
Active 40 W 20 W 0.5
Numerous data interfaces Jacek Pawlowski
StandBy 30 W 15 W 0.5
Deep StandBy 4W 0.5 W 0.125
Elegant hardware and stylish OSD TELE-satellite
Test Center
Poland
Software occasionally hangs up (though you
can always restart the box with the standby button)
– Small bug for owners of motorized dishes: Blind Scan func- 5 minutes - shallow standby mode, next 5 minutes - operational
tion does not drive a USALS motor mode with playing back a recording from an external USB HD, last 5
minutes - deep standby mode
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