I came down to two possible replacements, the Humax 9300 and the Topfield.

The Humax doesn't seem to squeeze as many channels on screen EPG as the DHD4000 could, which is a shame.

I'm very tempted by the Topfield 5810 but there seem to be a lot of unresolved manufacturer bugs which are fixed by 3rd party TAPs. Whilst this is all well and good, why is the manufacturer not resolving them!

So I wonder if anyone else has moved on from the DHD and if so to what?

Not yet. My minimum requirement for upgrading is that the replacement should be HD-ready. Which rules out all current models, I think...

thomson dti6300, standard def, has had software issues, but the searchable 14 day tv guide is a winner, i service humax boxes and the epg population speed is a joke, can take days !!

Can't believe it's still a struggle to find anything to compare with the DHD4000. Who on earth is designing these things!!! It's unforgivable when you've got a hard disc in there to not cache the EPG and update it each time the unit is powered on. In fact, it must be sitting in RAM while it's being used, so why not just keep the RAM powered up while in standby?

Plus you have to put a decent speed processor in so you're not hanging around.

I see also the 9200's have been slowing down since the retune and Humax don't seem to be taking it on board.

The Topfield looks like the ideal machine but it has issues of its own. Most of the irrational behaviour can be TAPped out but the newer 5810 has fewer TAPs available. Basic stuff would bug me with it, like when a timer event starts it interrupts whatever you're watching with its output. You have to re-select the TV input since you also can't put it back in standby while a timer is going. It's this kind of basic behaviour that would really bug the hell out of me! If a PVR has a timer from standby it should do nothing with the TV until you press the power button. Similarly powering off during a timer event it should appear to drop into standby and carry on recording.

The last one I considered was the TVonics DTR-Z500 which since it's designed here could possibly have the same appeal and intuitive nature as the DHD4000. I found a lot of reports of them locking up and the manufacturer being unhelpful.

So I've still got the DHD4000!

Interesting. Been wondering what I'd choose if the DHD went south but sounds like the best bet is to fix it, at least until DVD-T2 is receivable (could be 18 months away as the first round looks like it will be very low power). Be interesting to see how long the EPG updates keep coming as I think the 4TV platform is defunct for new machines?

Also been using a Sony DVD/HDD but it's only single (digital) tuner. Works fine and has series link and all from the freeview EPG but I prefer the DHD.

Main issue I found was with the HDD - you can get IDE ones still but they're all 7200rpm so higher current drain and more heat than the original. I thought I'd got around it using a SATA to IDE bridge and a 2.5" hard drive. It works fine but stutters when you rewind and I'm not sure if the MTBF is shorter on them. I did the capacitors in the box so it's good to go for a few years yet. I often wondered whether the 120GB drive I replaced the stock one with years back caused the caps to die early because of it's increased current drain.

I was also conscious that it's something I would spend some money on resurrecting considering it's old technology which could be rendered useless if the EPG went or something else in it died. I thought at least the 2.5" HDD would be some use!

I also have an LG DVD recorder with HDD and nothing about it is as good as the DHD. The EPG is a few channels at a time and is slow. The programme management forces thumbnails on you and is slow. Its only saving grace is the ease of which you can move programmes off the HDD onto DVD, however none of the record settings take the incoming stream to disk - they all recode to a variety of other bitrates.

Are you sure that's the HDD? The final version of firmware introduced a bug whereby that (or something very like it) happens if you have subtitle recording enabled.


Not had the caps go on either of mine, but my main machine has a separate PSU just for the HDD, because the replacement I had lying around drew too much current for the onboard PSU. Adding that has made the machine incredibly stable, leading me to believe that almost all stability problems on the DHD4000 were PSU related.

I have turned subtitle record off and it did improve the shuttling backwards and forwards once I'd turned it off. What I get is it's fine going forward up to 64x but if you go in reverse 2x or 4x the movement isn't as smooth as I recall from the 3.5" disk. This is playback only, no recording (though I guess the box is probably dual channel buffering anyway).

I had the typical PSU problems, when I powered the DHD down it took ages for the disk to gain speed. The capacitors looked fine when I took them out, none were bulging or leaking.

On all channels? I know there are some (lower bitrate ones, I think) where it's not as smooth. I've always assumed this was something to do with the encoding used.

Interesting! I hadn't made that connection, but going through my library the only channel that stutters is Quest. Programmes from BBC, ITV, Channel4 and five are all perfect. Quest stutters and looks like the box is going to crash.

Thanks for clearing that up! A little more confidence for the SATA drive then!

Duplicate

....and the power supply has just gone on mine, or at least the capacitors. Still, it ran continously for 5.5 years (5 years with the upgraded disk) so that's not bad really.

Sent off for the PSU repair kit, so hopefully it will be back in service soon.

I bit the bullet and found a Topfield 5800 brand new on ebay for £139. Out of the box it was good enough but once I'd loaded the MyStuff 6.1 TAP into it a different world emerged. I now have an EPG that fits more information on than the DHD4000, ten channels down the screen and user selectable across (I've set 2 hours). Proper series link using Freeview+ or a plain text search, or a combination. The option to record an alternative if there's a clash on the main (i.e. off ITV2, plus ones or sign zone for example). With the USB port on the back I can retrieve the transport stream and convert to AVI or burn to DVD. It passively auto-pads start and end, using one stream/tuner if they are sequential programmes and places an index mark when freeview says the programme has started so you're unaware of this extra padding.

The Topfield does a couple of stupid things though. When it wakes to record something, it brings up pin 8 on the SCART which causes the TV to select it. There is a TAP to deselect it, but you still end up being interrupted for a few seconds. Also if you try to power off when a timer is recording it brings up a box asking if you want to cancel yes/no. If you chose no it doesn't power off.

But on balance it has the ability to do everything the DHD4000 does and much more, with MyStuff and many other TAPs able to customise it to your every need.

I still have the DHD, I didn't expect to use the Topfield for so much so quickly...

Well I've replaced the capacitors, easier job than I was expectinging, and the DHD sprang back to life. Disk sounds a bit ill though, although it was before. Lots of clicks and beeps. Might have to put the original 40Gb disk back in.

Currently playing with a Freesat Humax HDR which isn't bad. Havn't used it in anger yet but so far so good. DHD4000 is earier to use in dumb ways (remote layout, recording history screen - so simple, so superior to anything else I have seen).

The DHD4000 was pretty solid for me which is why whenever it did go wrong it was all the more surprising - it is a simple box but it was reliable. I put the original drive in it (which had seen little use) and it's not locked up in the last few weeks since the Topfield has been doing all the work.

The Topfield has locked up once on me - a corrupt EPG causing MyStuff to reboot the box each time. It would have prevented it recording anything after the problem until I reloaded it, disabled the TAPs and cleared out the EPG. Quite a nasty one!

The Topfield is similar to the DHD4000 but a lot more complex with MyStuff though in that comes the flexibility on recording options. I have to say though having lived with the DHD4000 for however many years I'm used to managing programme clashes manually and haven't used much in the way of searches on the Topfield as a result. It just fits with me to look at the EPG and set programmes the night before.

What if you're a complete amateur (me) and don't understand half the stuff on this forum ?
About 4 years ago I got a 4000 out of the box and it worked perfectly (including revolutionising the way I watch TV).

After the Winter Hill retunes appear to have wrecked its reception, what box do I now get ?
Or since my TV is old (but works perfectly) is there a recommended TV with built in twin tuner PVR ?

There's another thread hereabouts with some people who are not having problems off Winter Hill - it might be worth a dip in there to see if they come up with a conclusion (be it too much, too little signal etc).

I have the Topfield and it's really good, but as a bog standard box it's basic, and with MyStuff it's complex and comprehensive. I know one day my parents DHD4000 will clap out (or when Crystal Palace switches over) and I wouldn't have a clue what to suggest to them, but I know the Topfield isn't the box for them.

Well, the 160Gb disk I fitted five years ago finally got too crotchety - playback was pausing when it recorded something else, so I've retired it and put the original 40Gb disk back in. Coupled with the new capacitors it's now purring along nicely.

Should last now through to DSO (May 2011 for us) as long as the EPG keeps going that long. Hopefully there will be a worthy sucessor available by then although I'll be mostly using Freesat now.

Unless somone put a trapdoor in the 4TV code it only uses Now and Next if there is no EPG.

I'm surprised when Thomson dropped this model they didn't just re-write the code to use the Freeview EPG. Of course when the DHD4000 was launched there was no EPG and at the time I was eternally grateful this came out with one!

The Topfield is purring along nicely. I had no repeat of the lockup but the thread I started on toppy.org.uk has had other people affected and it looks like it's being actively investigated now with captures of the EPG files which caused it to lock.

While I first started using the Topfield I set one-off record events as I used to on the DHD4000 before. But I've found it's just as easy to set a powersearch. This searches text in the EPG and uses the series link data to clear out duplicates. Since I started doing that, now when I bring up the EPG most of the programmes I would otherwise record have been set already.

I can manage clashes manually or give the searches differing priorities such that one can override another if a clash occurs. Normally though it just finds another showing of that programme at a different time and records that instead.