ICY BOX IB-MP3012DVB-T

Important note: the HD TV tuner in this media centre is a DVB-T tuner rather than a DVB-T2 tuner. This means it cannot pick up HD Freeview channels in the UK. It should, however, have no problem picking up HD channels in other countries or SD channels in the UK.

Interface needs revisiting

The casing is small and in metallic black and grey. There's a fan to make sure temperatures don't get too high but it's very noisy when running. During film playback, this isn't too much of problem as the soundtrack generally covers the sound of the fan but if you're recording something overnight in your bedroom, you'll need some strong sleeping pills!


Neither particularly nice to look at nor all that well designed, the remote does nevertheless have a few backlit buttons, notably those for the digital tuner recording features and navigation through menus.
Which brings us to the interface, a reminder that not all manufacturers make much of an effort here. Sure, it's easy to move between menus but really very little effort has been made with the graphics and you'll see that it's more or less identical to most other digital tuner recorders.

Note that photos can be displayed as thumbnails (12 / page). This is always practical when you're looking for your favourite portrait.


Only artwork integrated in M4A (iTunes) music tracks can be displayed, which is a shame for tracks in other formats. Tags are displayed for mp3s, OGGs and Flacs.

No particular problem when it comes to playing files

There weren't any nasty surprises when it comes to multimedia compatibility. The IB-MP3012 does its job and decodes most file formats well. There's no jumpiness during full-HD playback, even with high throughput. DTS and Dolby Digital decoding poses no problems with stereo or 5.1 transcoding. You can also get bitstream, but only the core part of DTS HD MA and Dolby TrueHD is conserved.

Connectivity: only one thing missing, the card reader

There are plenty of audio / video outs with HDMI, component, composite, coaxial and optical. USB peripherals can be linked up to the two host ports, one of which is at the front of the centre. File copying to or from the internal hard drive is pretty fast (17.3 MB/s).

The Ethernet 100 Mbps network connection can handle a fluid level of playback. Once again, you can copy via the Ethernet 100 Mbps, at 6.9 MB/s, which is okay. The only regret here is that there's no memory card reader.