Clarke Tech - the range

[BGonaSTICK]

The Clarke Tech company began in 2004 in Germany, and is named after the main man - Arthur C. Clarke

They all look identical from a fascia point of view, just the printed model number differs.

The 1500 is the base box - FTA only, although there appears to be plans for a '1500 Plus' - apparently the same, but with the addition of a single card reader.

The 1500, 2000 and 2100 are all MPEG-2 with both DiSEqC 1.2 and USALS, and will all store 5000 channels.

Of interest to feedhunters will be the fact that they all blind-scan too.

All in all, very similar in specification to the Technomates.

The down side?

No official UK distributor according to the website at http://www.clarke-tech.com/contactus.php

Still, a decent looking box - and popular in mainland Europe.

Patches are available for all three models, including TPS, but the patches don't look to be as quick to market as the Technomates for example.

These boxes bear many striking similarities to the Technos, but are apparently slightly different internally. They may well be manufactured by the same company though.

Never had my hands on one, so can comment further at this time.

STICK

[southernsatellite]

Yes the 2100 Clarke Tech is a great machine, I was playing with one the other day and found that once patched it opened the same packages that my Technomate 1500 did and the menu configuration is very similar in layout.

Once I found a satellite I could scan and then select which satellite to view and only the channels for that satellite would appear.

Build quality is excellent and has a vast ray of outputs, plus you can connect to it via USB and show photos or video through it.

The card reader is an omnicrypt type and coped really well with a DigitALB card and it has 1 CI slot.

Personally I am now thinking of replacing my Technomate with one!!

[solunauk]

Hi Joshjess, I just read the manual for the 2100 and there's no mention of a card slot/reader - just the one CI cam slot. Do you mean the DigitalB card worked well in the cam?

Sol

[Timewarp]

CT 2100 has cardreader.. It's almost same box as TM1500.

I have CT 1500, CT 2100 plus and TM1500. All software (CT & TM) comes from same source, usually it's released same day.

I like CT 2100 plus, because it's very fast to update using memory stick (USB port). Serial cable is not necessary.

[BGonaSTICK]

Thanks Timewarp

Welcome to the forum

[solunauk]

Thanks, Timewarp.

It's really strange that the manual says nothing about a card reader, even though the specs on the official website do confirm it has one. The datasheet says "Smart Card Reader 1 Slot (HTS 2100+ only)". Does that imply that there are two separate models of the 2100 - one with and one without a card reader?

Any idea what encryption systems the card reader will handle?

Sol

[solunauk]

OK, after further digging around, I can confirm that there is a 2100 and a 2100+ (also 1500 and 1500+). Both versions of the 2100 have one card reader and one CI slot. AFAICS the only major extra thing the Plus model has is a USB slot. There is no separate downloadable manual for the Plus, but there is a datasheet in English here http://www.clarke-tech.com/produkte?...ntryid=5&lang= (download link at bottom of page - Datenblatt).

From reading a few reviews with my very shaky German, I think the card reader only does Conax and Cryptoworks out of the box, but can be made to read other smart cards with the help of 'unofficial' software.

Lots to download and digest here: http://www.clarke-tech.com/infocenter?lang=

In the Digitalfernsehen test report downloadable from the above page, the 2100 is compared with the Vantage X221TS CI and the Openbox X-810, and it comes out pretty well - not quite as good as either overall, but it is very much cheaper than the Vantage.

Sol