Ive had a skin full of my useless bloody Thomson its off back to Argos Sunday!

I think it's fair to say that the Umax ans Topfield are amongst the best PVR's out to date (I think) Ive tried the 9150 but never liked the EPG.

So does anyone feel like explaining why the Toppy is regarded are one of the best..... please

Thanks

It isn't one of the best. Well, out of the box it is not. I was disappointed with my 5800 two years ago.

But now I love it, because I connected it to my PC and got fiddling and fixing everything I wanted. So that means my EPG has exactly the number of lines on it as I like, and stretches for 3 hours because that's what I want, and it's not see-thru cos that drives me nuts, and displays in the exact graded colours I have chosen and uses a Tahoma narrow font that has been impeccably anti-aliased and is the size that I like.

I don't like the Freeview Plus features that depend on the broadcasters sending the right data, so I have set automatic padding to start recording two minutes before the start time regardless. It stops recording six minutes after, unless the broadcaster hasn't signalled the end of the program, whereupon the toppy keeps recording for up to two hours. Series link can easily go wrong so I record by title or part thereof. The benefit of this is that it will catch Doctor Who this year and next while series link will forget about it after it isn't on for a week.

The above features come courtesy of computer software add-ons (TAPS) that you can choose to download into the toppy.

And there is sooOOO much more. But you get the picture.

The Topfield 5800 works very well out of the box.

I link mine to my iMac or PowerBook via a USB lead and that allows me to customise it using downloadable TAPS. MyStuff is probably the only TAP that you will need. The padding feature allows for all but major Wimbledon driven schedule changes.

Did anything manage to cope with the final episode of Robin Hood changing from BBC1 to BBC2 last week?

David

Oh now that sounds good, something to mess around with!! Had a quick look on YouTube for the 5800 and found a vid of someones modded EPG screen and it looked great, just what I'm after.......!

Don't suppose you fellas know where I could find some piccies for the standard 5800 EPG and signal meter screen...

Cheers

Try Toppy.org.uk which has all the info you could ever want. There is an online version of the 5800 manual which contains pics.

He has

Gonna have to buy one now.... fair to say they ain't so hot but very customisable and stable with the right setup........?

Yes?

Yes

For stabilty try the pre-patched firmware 5.13.65 from the toppy site.
And for some usefull initial features try the MyStuff TAP, but only after a couple of days of using a TAPless topfield so that you can see what a barebones Topfield is like.

Hi, if you have not yet purchased a TF5800 you can get one on ebay for £105.50 with a 250Gb hard drive delivered, here is the item number, Item number: 110414063559, I already have two TF5800's and I have just bought one from this guy on ebay for a friend, it was delivered in next to no time by City Link and it's look's like new I think they are ex display items, you get 14 days warrenty but I have to say I have had absolutly no trouble with my two 5800's and the one I purchased from the guy on ebay is performing without fault, hope this helps.
Jed.

I've had my TF5800 since it was released in June 2006 and i LOVE IT! I've even messed around with other boxes out there on the market and NOTHING compares to it!

What is also so great about it is that you can update it with TAPS so that the box works more to your liking. Even the little things have been thought of to make everything as easy as possible. I love it and would only replace it with a new Toppy when Freeview HD is available later this year.

Can you force a 16:9 picture to appear 14:9 on an old tv?

Are they quiet in operation? I hate fan noise.

Also, I read a review from about 2 years ago, which said the remote had been redesigned, which made replacement software unworkable. Has this now been fixed?

I downloaded the manual for the Topfield TF5810PVRt and was unable to get a clear answer to the above.

I too am very frustrated with the bug-ridden software that seems to plague all PVRs. This box sounds like the answer, but I would hate to pay a lot of money only to find it had built-in limitations I couldn't change.

Just been looking at these on ebay.

I'm a bit fired up here and quite keen to get one of these secondhand - but is there a reason to prefer the TF5800 model to any other Topfield?

Must say, the ebay prices on the Topfield TF5810 aren't much better than a new one from play.com

Ok, browsing this forum - not noisy. But still not sure about these:

Still not clear on the 14:9 display. Maybe there's a TAPS for that.

Does the 5800 remote work with most TAPS? Think the reviewer may have been talking about the "new" 5810.

Take a look at the forum at the site mentioned in post #5

Yes, I've just come back from toppy.org.uk - and while there's a lot on remotes, a search on 14:9 in the forums throws up NOTHING. It's mentioned in a general description on aspect ratios in the FAQ. Again, the online 5800 manual only talks about 4:3 and 16:9 - which in my experience means no 14:9.

Now both the Humax and Vestel pvrs have a 14:9 setting. Am I to asume that the great "Toppy" does not?

Never mind. A google search does lead to mention of 14:9 on the toppy forums. But a direct search on the forums doesn't. Go figure.

a) As you have now discovered, the Toppy does not have a 14:9 option (but TVs sometimes do). It's pretty much a given that the official manual/docs will not mention a facility that it doesn't have!

b) My post was in relation to your three posts in a couple of hours, with no replies.

c) With that in mind, and the fact that the aforementioned site is frequented by a number of knowledgeable and helpful Toppy owners, that might be a more appropriate place to seek any further help or answers to any other questions.

The Toppy unfortunately not have a 14:9 mode, though I seem to think is can display a 16:9 image within a 4:3 screen (ie letterbox mode).

The toppy does not have a fan so is silent apart from the harddisk (which is in itself fairly quiet). The disk will spin constantly if you have the 2 hour buffer tuend on (so you can rewind live TV). If you turn this off, the disk will spin down 10 mins after the last disk access.

The 5800 and 5810 are technically very similar, the main reason to choose the 5810 abouve the 5800 is the ability to connect via HDMI and upscale the picture. It's also a bit more modern looking etc, but if this is not important to you then the 5800 is a fine piece of kit, and with a good slection of TAPs is rock solid and bulletproof.

Pretty much every TAP will work fine with the 5800 and it's remote. I really don't think you would regret making a purchase. Mine has gievn me years of service, and it it ever breaks I'll be buying another as I've not seen another PVR that comes anywhere close in this price bracket.

@hgt @mossy2103 - thanks for that info.


But actually, I think it may have it. There is also a TAP to force the 0 button on the remote to cycle through the 3 options. If it lives up to it's promise the Toppy will indeed be great, and outperform the PVRs I mention above.

Am a fan of Digital Spy, which is why I began my investigation here. But @mossy2103, you were quite right, the toppy forum is the place to really find out about this box. Which begs the question why the Topfield has a dedicated sub-forum here, only to be used as a jumping off point - while other less-well-supported PVRs must make do under the general PVR category.

Anyway, ordered my 5800 refurb, and now can't wait for it to arrive!

Well, my vanilla (TAPless and unpatched) Toppy only cycled through 16:9 and Zoom (which were the two modes that my TV switched at). I used a firmware patch to disable that rather annoying facility so I cannot say what it does on my newer Panny TV.




Make sure that you load up the latest recommended patched firmware for the model concerned (as listed on that site) - the improvements do indeed make it one great machine. And keep a look out for the upcoming latest version of a TAP called MyStuff version 6 (still being beta-tested by a group of Toppy owners), as it will bring with it the equivalent of Series Link to the stable firmwares which don't support Freeview+

The Toppy fully supports the DTG guidelines for 4:3, 14:9, and 16:9.

If you have the Toppy set for a 16:9 TV then all you get is either 4:3 or 16:9.

If you have the Toppy set for a 4:3 TV then you can get 4:3, 14:9 letterbox and 16:9 letterbox, depending on what the broadcaster specifies.

Note you can't choose either 14:9 or 16:9 letterbox. The broadcaster specifies which one should be displayed and the user can zoom between that letterbox and 4:3 center cutout, but not between 14:9 and 16:9.

e.g. On the BBC Eastenders will be a 14:9 letterbox while a movie will be 16:9 letterbox.

Of course that is for a Toppy out of the box - you can get TAPs that allow you more control over the letterbox format.

My understanding exactly. However, you would be hard pressed to get that information from the Toppy manual. Also, it must be the case that some PVRs and STBs do not support the DTG guidelines for 14:9 and 16:9 - I've tested 2 or 3 recently - as they only show 4:3 or 16:9, even when a 4:3 tv is selected.

Will do. Sounds very interesting.

I now have a 5800 and the following is an accurate summary.

@hgt @mossy2103 - you were right. The Toppy does not have a 14:9 setting - not in the manner of a Vestel PVR which can consistently force 16:9 to appear 14:9.

The Toppy seems to sit somewhere between my other Zoran-based PVR, which ignores the broadcaster's AFD flag and hardly ever outputs 14:9, and a Vestel, which will do it all the time if you want.

Yes and no. The deep letterbox TAP will force an unwanted 14:9 into a 16:9, but not the other way round - because, according to the author: "If the AFD value is 10 (normally found on Channel 4), then nothing can be done and you are stuck with Deep letterboxing."

Hmm. I have a £16.50 freeview STB that does it just fine.

However good a patched Toppy is in every other respect, this appears to be one of its few shortcomings.

Probably one of my best ever buys. Kitted out with MyStuff (TAP) it does everything I need. I have had mine for 3 years now. Aside from a few re sets it just works.
The only problem I have had is a buzzing hum. I fixed it by opening the box and padding the hard drive.

At this point in time I would wait for the large hard drive to be incorporated, mine is 250gb which is fine but a 1 tetra would be an archive.

Look on the toppy forum, there is a load of information there.