It's definitely a telephone Tony. Looks like this...

It comes up when the mute line is considered active. Only appears in DC mode too for obvious reasons. It will appear if he has it set to active on +12v since it seems to float up to +12v. Well it does on mine anyway.

Miguel: The fix to remove the icon is in emplode go to File->Configure Player and select the Mute tab. Change the section after "when" to "never" and resync.

I doubt very much that will fix your problem with the remote though.