Topfield Release Tf7000hdpvrt High Def. Pvr 17/11/2006

[deangelj]

i think the moral of the story is to try the PVR you are looking at before buying especially if you have had one in the past that you are going to compare ease of use, conveniance, remote, GUI etc. make sure you see it working hooked up to a TV. they are very frustrating things to not have when used to having them, especially since the Toppy gets so hyped up. i mean fancy not having having a button for changing PIP channels and having a playback window permanantly displayed onscreen.....

im sure i will be able to live with these things in time but i might ask the question about swapping it over.

Press the white button to bring up the channel list in the PIP window. (if this doesn't work then upgrade your firmware). You also have 2 sizes for the PIP window and can choose to move it around the screen if it obscures an important bit.

And about those screen shots, the LG shows a thumbnail with a trimmed program name while the Toppy shows the full program name - hmm, I think I'd want the latter.

I think you're looking for an excuse to go back to the LG. Good luck!

[thudabot]

deangelj i was saying that there's no button for changing the PIP channel without going to the channel list everytime i want to change channel.

and the LG has trimmed program names because i have edited them to those names otherwise it has the full program name.

and no i'm not looking for an excuse, i'm pointing out what i think are flaws with the Topfield

i have firmware v0.95.02 March 8 2007 i will upgrade and see what happens.

Edited January 21, 2008 by thudabot

[50mxe20]

deangelj i was saying that there's no button for changing the PIP channel without going to the channel list everytime i want to change channel.

and the LG has trimmed program names because i have edited them to those names otherwise it has the full program name.

and no i'm not looking for an excuse, i'm pointing out what i think are flaws with the Topfield

i have firmware v0.95.02 March 8 2007 i will upgrade and see what happens.

That is quite an early f/w update.

My advice, although I'm no expert.

Go to 0.70.30 (14 Sept-07). Also do an HDD reformat. Follow the steps outlined on the forum which involves powering down at each step and unplugging from the wall. A bit tedious but possibly worth it.

I went to 0.84.00 and I have a couple of issues (with copying MP3 folders) that I didn't have with 0.70.30 so I felt I went back a bit.

The 14-Sept-07 release seemed pretty stable in my mind.

The 13-Dec-07 release was recalled and although I have it I have not installed it because of that.

[thudabot]

cheers lyle and everyone else will get a usb thumbdrive and give the f/w a go

[thudabot]

thanx guys, bonehead and lyle, firmware worked and fixed what i asked for.

[eleventyseven]

thanx guys, bonehead and lyle, firmware worked and fixed what i asked for.

Great news!!

[thudabot]

lol except the time seems to be an hour out wrong side of daylight saving

[50mxe20]

lol except the time seems to be an hour out wrong side of daylight saving

+8 and tick the DST box?

[Stephen S]

Hi

I am looking at getting an additional HD PVR.

The 7000HDPVR still seems to have some issues.

Any idea how long topfield are going to keep developing new firmware for this model given it is being replace by the 7100?

Is it worth waiting for the 7100HDPVR?

Is the 7100 likely to suffer many teething problems (like the 7000 has) or are most likley to be ironed out pre-launch?

Any idea on when the 7100 will be available?

With my current PVR I have used IceTv and OzTivo for the EPG neither of which is overly satisfactory.

My panasonic plasma can display the networks EPG's for a week ahead and these are quite good with good program descriptions.

I gather the 7000 enables you to use these to set recordings if you don't want to use IceTv. Does the unit give you the full show descriptions in the week ahead EPG?

Is the 7100 also going to make good use of the over the air EPG's?

I was given a price of $700 for the 7000. Had a copy of the $649 receipt from HN posted in the forum but could not get it matched even at another HN - go figure (receipt is now neraly a month old)

Any ideas on what the 7100 is likley to sell for?

Cheers Stephen

[50mxe20]

I'd take a good long hard look at the Beyonwiz.

[Vortical]

Hi

I am looking at getting an additional HD PVR.

The 7000HDPVR still seems to have some issues.

Any idea how long topfield are going to keep developing new firmware for this model given it is being replace by the 7100?

Is it worth waiting for the 7100HDPVR?

Is the 7100 likely to suffer many teething problems (like the 7000 has) or are most likley to be ironed out pre-launch?

Any idea on when the 7100 will be available?

With my current PVR I have used IceTv and OzTivo for the EPG neither of which is overly satisfactory.

My panasonic plasma can display the networks EPG's for a week ahead and these are quite good with good program descriptions.

I gather the 7000 enables you to use these to set recordings if you don't want to use IceTv. Does the unit give you the full show descriptions in the week ahead EPG?

Is the 7100 also going to make good use of the over the air EPG's?

I was given a price of $700 for the 7000. Had a copy of the $649 receipt from HN posted in the forum but could not get it matched even at another HN - go figure (receipt is now neraly a month old)

Any ideas on what the 7100 is likley to sell for?

Cheers Stephen

The 7100 is still a little way off as far as I know but the box is extremely similar to the 7000 with an extra front usb port and 10/100 ethernet network port and WLAN via a usb dongle.

That's as much info we know at this stage when looking at the Korean Topfield HQ Website..

Firmware development will continue with the 7000 as far as I'm aware to at least fix all remaining issues and any features added to the 7100 will probably be added to the 7000 where applicable provided it doesn't involve wireless, ethernet or the front usb port.

Whatever you see as your EPG on your panasonic should be identical on the 7000.

As far as price goes your guess is as good as mine.

Edited February 4, 2008 by Vortical

[Tassie Devil]

Just heard back from iTopfield.

Nothing I did, but both motherboards in the two 7000's sent to them had to be replaced. It appears they were in an early batch later withdrawn from sale. Maybe that explains why the one purchased from Hardly Normal was only $699. But it means AUDIOLAND ONLINE were also peddling Toppys with early motherboards even as late as Xmas, despite their claim the units were "factory refurbished". I would suspect even their "new" ones might not have been so new after all but who knows?

So I have another bargain $699 Toppy here - wait to see if it also decides to jam on "RUN".

They are still working on the new firmware - release probably next week. It has been a frustrating ride. I'm due to install the one coming from Sydney in a Hobart friend's home next weekend but it is doubtful it will arrive in Launceston in time so I might have to postpone that visit. I was intending to give him the working one here if this happened but cannot do that if there is any chance it has the early motherboard. Not so sure talking him into getting the 7000 was such a good idea

Such is life

John

[Tassie Devil]

Just talked to Topfield again and I should correct something in the previous post.

The fact that some Toppys freeze up and others do not is as much a mystery to them as it is to us. Possibly there was a batch made which was more susceptible than others - they are not sure. Some freeze up, others do not. So to be confident they replaced both motherboards in the units sent to them. There are not two different boards out there as I said above - I misinterpreted.

They are expecting to be able to solve all this with the new firmware but we will have to be patient as it could be near the end of February before we see it.

Anyway I hope my Hobart friend will not have this problem, but no guarantee It has been touch and go but it looks as if it will arrive back in Launceston in time for me to take down on Friday. I might be a bit more careful about recommendations in future because of the obligations it entails. But the bottom line is that problems with firmware aside, + a couple of minor niggles, the Toppy 7000 is far ahead of any of the 6 PVRs tried out here.

John

[thudabot]

am i right in saying that this unit cannot edit recorded programs?

i cannot find anywhere to do this

[nova artist]

he manual does indicate that some editing is possible, and I have tried to edit via the pressing play button while playing option which brings up the green bar along the top, using the side arrows (V+, V- keys) to move the bar along, pressing the white button to designate areas to delete, and all I get are greyed out areas that don't play, but still take up room on the hard drive. Thus, I have not really edited anything at all, as technically its still all there. More like a pretend or pseudo edit feature on the Toppy 7000HDPVRt

[pgdownload]

As NA says, you can do rough "cuts" but its not really much use as the whole file always remains until you delete it all. The one advantage might be that copies all point to the one file. So if you had The Simpsons - Lost - Family Guy, in a single recording you could copy oit 3 times and edit it to create 3 seperate programs with no increase in space used.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[Tassie Devil]

am i right in saying that this unit cannot edit recorded programs?

i cannot find anywhere to do this

I'm not sure if editing facilities are useful on a PVR, particularly on the 7000 which has such a brilliant FF speed of 250x the junk is quickly bypassed. You could edit on a Strong PVR I had some time ago but there really was little point as it was messy and time consuming. The only really useful place to edit is on a DVD-R (or of course a PC) for making DVD archive copies. I do quite a lot here on the Pioneer which has excellent editing facilities. However cutting out the ads and other junk is time consuming and, IMO, not worth it for many programs (particularly movies on the commercial channels cluttered with so many ads, logos etc) as the commercial DVD are so relatively inexpensive these days.

BTW the Toppy 7000 which came back with the new motherboard and updated software is behaving ok. But so is the other one with the Dec firmware, so far that is. We actually cleaned out all recordings the other day so did a format of the HDD. But all recordings are now done in SD using the Toppy's upscaling and a bit more on the DVDO to bring it up to 1080p. Despite what others say, the results we get, from where we sit, are just as good as HD recordings on either the 70" Sony rear projection TV or the 90" wide screen from a Sony VW200 projector. Some friends are visiting at the moment and they confirmed that the upscaled SD looked just as good as the HD broadcast so it is not just my fantasy

John

[thudabot]

hate to say it again as i know how defensive you guys are but the LG is so much better in so many ways. the LG is not perfect with editing but with any program of under 2 hours is works perfect.

the more i use the toppy the more i think anyone who would use the LG would agree. even after i've learned most of the buttons and functions which of course are different between the 2 units. the list is getting bigger and bigger.

[bl0cka]

Can someone please explain to me about the "reserve space for new recordings" feature?

By "new recordings" does it mean timer recordings an ad-hoc recordings, excluding timeshift?

So if I wanted to allocate 10% of the HDD to timeshift archiving, would I set the "reserve space" feature to 90%?

Would this mean that timeshift archiving would just delete the oldest files of timeshift archiving once it's allocated 10% is full?

What do people have this setting on and why?

[pgdownload]

I'm not sure if editing facilities are useful on a PVR, particularly on the 7000 which has such a brilliant FF speed of 250x the junk is quickly bypassed.

Agree except that 'topping and tailing' is very useful given the amount of padding you usually to timers these days (some of mine have 60+ minutes of padding). If you have plenty of disc space then its not an issue but if its getting tight then a single file covering a couple of shows might take up 20+ Gb and you can't free up any of that (on the 7000) until every show has been watch by everyone that wants to.

I always thought the LG was a neat little HD unit (esp a such a great price historically) its 1.7 tuner being its main caveat. From all reports the editing functions were best ignored as they always took ages and often had dodgy results. The "smart" skip button was also a joke. Of all the PVRs the LG cme closest to being a knockout product save those unfortunate drawbacks.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[hallycat]

I purchased a Topfield 5000PVRt a few months ago and am very happy with it.

Now I would like access to the HD channels and am seriously considering the TF HD 7000 and HN have them on sale for $688.

Now I would like to ask all the users of the 7000 is it worth buying? It really is an extravagance for me so I have to justify the expense. I will also be taking on extended warranty. Essentially, I am very happy with the 5000 but would like HD and will I be as satisfied with the 7000? I don't want to fork out $800 and not be happy.

All comments welcome.

[Tassie Devil]

I purchased a Topfield 5000PVRt a few months ago and am very happy with it.

Now I would like access to the HD channels and am seriously considering the TF HD 7000 and HN have them on sale for $688.

Now I would like to ask all the users of the 7000 is it worth buying? It really is an extravagance for me so I have to justify the expense. I will also be taking on extended warranty. Essentially, I am very happy with the 5000 but would like HD and will I be as satisfied with the 7000? I don't want to fork out $800 and not be happy.

All comments welcome.

Go for it. The pathetic 5000's FF & RR are completely different on the 7000 and just about all is an improvement (re using it as a "stand alone", not in conjunction with a PC). As I've posted up above it scales up SD rather neatly so the HD function is only something to use if there is different programing to Sd (hasn't happened here yet but might have in your area). The length of recorder timing is still a but flakey like the 5000 but at least they now show a finish time beside the recording length. The menu system is much better.

We have had a few problems in the past but the October firmware is generally stable. Regardless. there is new firmware due for release any day now.

That is a good price and it might drop slightly in the future, but not substantially. Yes. I did get the extended warranty - they talked me into it from the point of view of covering the HDD. HDDs do have a limited life so maybe it is worth it, maybe not, that is a decision you need to make for yourself.

Bottom line, it is the recorder of choice in this house and I've experienced 5 others.

John

[diesel]

Agree except that 'topping and tailing' is very useful given the amount of padding you usually to timers these days...

Editing on the BW P1 is used religiously in our household. Topping and tailing soft padding from recordings is a breeze with the P1 and is used to increase space on the HDD.

We also use it to delete shows after they have been watched in cases where we have multiple shows on the one recording. It is quick and easy to do using the coloured buttons (three button presses - yellow to 'mark in A', blue to 'mark out B' which then brings up a popup menu with options to delete 'AB', keep, move, copy etc. It's also handy to quickly remove ads before transfering to PC for burning or if you are real fussy, you can edit to the last frame on the PC then burn to DVD. By removing ads first, it can take quite a large chunk off the transfer time.

[pgdownload]

Hard one to answer. Quite a lot of people have a 5000 and 7000 using each for SD and HD only respectively. (Although there may be an issue where the remotes clash I believe?) Why do you want access to HD? Picture Quality or the shows? If the later then you could always grab a $100 HD STB from Dick Smith for live viewing? If you didn't have the 5000 I'd say get the 7000 as its starting to settle down in the reliability/feature stakes, however $800 (have you included a HDMI cable?) is a fair wack for what might be only the occasional show.

As well next year the networks will be able to multicast SD channels so the HD channel (might) just revert back to mirroring the main SD channel (but I tend to doubt it though)

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[Vortical]

Can someone please explain to me about the "reserve space for new recordings" feature?

By "new recordings" does it mean timer recordings an ad-hoc recordings, excluding timeshift?

So if I wanted to allocate 10% of the HDD to timeshift archiving, would I set the "reserve space" feature to 90%?

Would this mean that timeshift archiving would just delete the oldest files of timeshift archiving once it's allocated 10% is full?

What do people have this setting on and why?

Reserved Space Option Description

If you want to preserve the empty space of the hard disk drive

to some extent at all times for scheduled recordings, set the

Reserved Space option to anything other than Disable. With

this option enabled, the digital receiver will delete the oldest

files. In the recorded programme list, the files about to be

deleted are displayed in orange or yellow. Orange-colored files

are older than yellow-colored ones.

The description above is from latest topfield manual updated only a few days ago

http://www.i-topfield.com/data/download/TF...t-Aus-8215e.pdf

So to put it simply it automatically deletes the oldest recordings to achieve your desired percentage of free HDD space at all times so the HDD will never fill up.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Vortical