Barry,

Yup I'm tempted but £75 was going to be my "jump in" price. £96 is just a wee bit too much - another twenty and I could have a TWIN tuner FVRT100 at Dixons. Course for another £20 on that I could have FVRT200.... Maybe I should just buy a £240 Toppy and be done with it?

Cliff

Trouble is that you can't actually order from Boots at the moment, looks like they won't accept orders until stock arrives. Thats a shame because with the triple advantage points promo just now you would effectively get £22 off the price of the box and if you order via a cashback site like Quidco another £8 cashback so total price would be £161

You would not regret it I am sure

Whilst I am tinkering around with the Humax, the Toppy is busy recording progs from jags epg set as searches, and also some downloaded via digiguide. Got another EPG to look into now as well, that someone posted to toppy.org yesterday.

If you won't miss the dosh and like to play with new technology you won't regret buying the toppy. If you get bored with it theres always something new to play with!

Good bean-counting there!


The Humax 8000 is so cheap now that I might have to research that for my parents, and I've just discovered that my friend has had one for a while, so I can check it out properly. Given the prices mentioned in this thread, I don't think I would consider an Inverto over a Fusion any more.

I'm getting eager for this next Topfield update - it sounds like a sizeable change. I hope there are a good few bug fixes too...

I can't seem to figure out how to do add a bookmark. I've heard Improbox does it automatically, but how do you do it without TAPs?

Whilst replaying your recording, bring up the progress bar by pressing play......whilst this is on screen:

Green to set a bookmark

Yellow to jump between bookmarks

To remove a bookmark, jump to it and press Green again.

HTH

Empire Direct have got a lot of flak in the past, what's their service like now?

I tried to buy a black PVRT5800 from Empire Direct on 10/11/05, which their website said was in stock. Got an email at the end of 11/11 saying that due to circumstances outside of their control, it wasn't in stock, and to give them a call in case they could source an alternative product (eg the silver model).

I would have been happy to go with the silver model, and so gave them a call. On phoning them, I was told it had never been in stock, and neither had the silver one. Personally, I thought this was a bit rubbish since one of the main reasons (apart from price) that I went with them was that they had what seemed like a stock-level check on their website, but was prepared to leave it and take my business elsewhere. To my surprise however, the guy on the phone brought up the fact that it would never have said "in stock" on their website, as this was a physical impossibility. This decended into a farcical "I can assure you it does"/"I can assure you that would be impossible" debate which I just couldn't understand why it was worth their while to start up - surely it would be common sense customer service to just apologise and say you'd look into the problem, that it shouldn't happen or something like that. The silver one still claims to be in stock on their website... although the black one does now say "due soon" *sigh*

I took my business elsewhere, and have since bought one (which claims to be in the post, after 1 day) from superfi - more expensive, but giving my money to people who haven't treated me like rubbish Oh well...

I experienced the exact opposite with Empire Direct. At 11am on 14 Nov I phoned to check they had a silver Toppy in stock. They did, so I ordered one via the Internet.
Within 2 hours they'd phoned to say it would be delivered in 24 hours...and it was!
So no complaints from me...the Toppy's pretty good, too!

Wow... I guess I must just have been unlucky enough to hit a duff employee when I phoned. Glad you had a better experience! Although it does make my whole experience even more confusing, since they actually did have them in stock all along...

I've heard too many horror stories about Empire in the past which is why I asked if they'd improved.

Wonder if super-fi will price match...?

Just phoned and spoken to Empire....

They do have some silver in stock, but no Black panthers
They tell that they will have some in on Friday, so I have ordered one....we'll see if they speak with forked tongue.

Steve

My experience with Empire Direct was OK, even though they are not as responsive as other companies, e.g deceased unbeatable and Turbosat. But they do deliver at the end and no money of mine was taken without delivery.
Tanya

Had my Toppy (silver) delivered today from ED ordered 16/11/05 when priced at £238.95 so very pleased and no complaints about ED. I may have been a lucky customer.
Now I have to read the info at Toppy.org.uk to get the best from it.

Sure I will be posing some questions soon (after digesting the FAQ) as the manual is not that good.

DiddyDave

Understatement there!!!

My resons for cosing a toppy were/are
No fan - virtualy silent
P.C conection for achiving and burning recordings to DVD ( for long term storage)
Taps that can change and vastly improve the performance of the toppy
User upgrade able - no need to wait for OTA updates do it yourself, after my expeiriences with the Goodmans GDB2 this self upgrade facility, to me is essential..

and probably a few other reasons that i cant think of right now.

I'm about to get rid of my Thomson 2300 - I'll try and get my money back but failing that I need something to steady a wobbly table.

Anyways - the Toppy sounds like the replacement for me - I'm looking for a PVR with TUTV - can I confirm that if I buy a new one it'll have all the updates in place? Or will I need to download them? Advice would be very much appreciated on this

If you buy from Turbosat, I think it will have the latest software installed. I don't know about other places. Turbosat aren't the cheapest but I think they have the best customer satisfaction, so that's worth more than the price difference.

Thanks for that - I'll give them a go!!

Ask them if they'll Price Match, you may get lucky!

...and if they don't, try Heathrow Systems. It's the same company as Turbosat but, depending on who you talk to, they price match differently (at least, this was my experience).

FWIW I got mine from Satellite Centre recently and it had the latest firmware. Maybe they in turn get them from Turbosat - aren't Turbosat the UK importer?

If I did it again I'd pay the extra £15 and buy from Turbosat. Sounds like they deliver quickly, which certainly wasn't the case with Satellite Centre on this occasion.

Thanks for the advice everyone. One more for the ignoramus here: When it arrives, how do I tell if the firmware is up to date?

The Upgrading FAQs on www.toppy.org.uk explain how to check the firmware version - it's via the menus, and pretty straightforward. Current version is 5.12.09.

Nigel.