Hi all

I'm thinking about getting a Toppy to replace my Sky+ box, but I'm a little concerned by the fact that it drops you back to live TV the moment a recording finishes, regardless of what you're watching at the time.

I know this is meant to be a useful feature, but I'd like to choose whether to use it or not myself, and take my chances with adequate padding.

Is there any way of switching this feature off, maybe through a tap or something?

And are there any other major annoyances with the Toppy?

Cheers

Nic

I don't think this is true although I've not used my Toppy without TAPS for such along time I could be wrong.

I believe that the Toppy only jumps to Live TV if you are Chase playing the recording that finishes.

Could someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Captain747480

yup i think he's right, also toppy creates a bookmark if it jumps to live tv - so pressing yellow puts u right back to where u were. its being looked into on the toppy forums

Which 'He' is right?

Hi Nic,

Do NOT buy a toppy, they suck! mine went back for a refund pretty quickly due to an endless list of problems.

I now have the Humax 9200T, and it's in a different league (a much better one).

Only my opinion of course, but I wouldn't swap my humax for anything else.

You have been warned..

Your Top 5 Humax wish-list includes functionality that is all covered by the Toppy (and only the 1st requiring the addition of a TAP).

To me, the Humax looks like an interesting machine - but it also looks like the Toppy did when it was first released i.e. some key bits of functionality missing and a couple of high profile bugs. The difference is that the majority of these issues are now addressed on the Toppy, whereas you yourself seem to be experiencing at least one of them on your Humax.
Last edited by jon_c : 29-11-2005 at 08:59

Thanks for these replies, guys - I'm feeling much reassured. And it's the TAPs that really attract me to the Toppy, so I'm afraid the Humax is out Mr Gadget. But I'll bear in mind what you said.

Cheers

Nic

Nice description of the problems you had with your toppy?
my toppy neither sucks or blows as it doesnt have a fan, its justs sits there without making much ( or sometimes no) noise.

As for problems, apart from a few MHEG related issues ( that also have bought down other boxes) theres not been anything major ( yet)

Why not list some of the problems you had with your toppy so that other people can compare your expeiriences, offer solutions and advice to any one thinking of buying or not buying a toppy.

The humax 9200 makes no noise either, it's completely silent, and you'd never know that it has a fan. I personally think that a fan is essential in these machines to avoid overheating problems.

I can't spare an hour to list all of the problems my toppy had

I Read In T3 Magazine In October That The Two Cons For The Topfield Are That It Is A Little Noisey And That The Fast Forward/rewind Are Only Speed 6 And Not Any Faster.
Is This The Case?
I Think I Would Want A Faster Forward/rewind Speed As 6 On The Sagem7280 Was Far Too Slow (it Went All The Way To 600!
With Regard To These Tap Things I Dont Have A Pc So Will I Still Get Them Via An Oat? Or Am I Going To Miss Out ?
Please Help Because My Sagem 7280 Is Absolute Junk Its The Worst Thing I Have Ever Bought!
This Is The Last Time I Will Have The Money For A Pvr So I Want To Get It Right.

It's not noisy at all - there's not even a fan in the box. Some older models did have a slightly louder hard disk, but recent ones have a quieter one.

As for fast forward, the maximum speed with picture displayed is 6x. You can scan much faster by holding down the FF key, and moving along a scroll bar. You can also jump directly to a percentage by typing that in, eg 50 to go to the half way point of a recording.

Nigel.

I can see not - you seem far too busy reporting issues over on the Humax thread.

Seriously though, you obviously had a bad experience - no one's trying to gloss over that - but that shouldn't colour the overall positive experience of (and I suppose I'm going out on a limb here) the vast majority of Toppy owners - prior MHEG issue aside. There's certain things you just can't do with a Humax (and I'm not talking about chase play - ho-ho) - automatic timer creation with JAGs, for example.


It would be interesting to hear the views of others that either have both machines or have switched - I would expect the second set of users to be a small one, however, and the first to have a more reasoned list of pros and cons.

Thanks For Reply.
What About Taps Do I Need A Pc To Get Software Updates?
Are Topfield Still Doing Updates?
What Problems Will I Encounter By Not Having A Pc?

In fairness, the MHEG issues which twice brought down the Topfield did not affect any other boxes. On both occasions there was a specific fault in the way that the Topfield dealt with changes the BBC had made, not a general problem affecting a variety of boxes.

You will need a PC to download TAP's.

If your firmware is from after August (which it almost certainly will be) you won't need a PC to get firmware updates as they will be available Over the Air.

Now that I've helped you can a please make a request that when you post you don't start every word with a capital letter, it does make it very difficult to read

Also in fairness I've had other occasions where other MHEG issues crashed some machines I have (Humax etc.), but didn't break the Toppy.

The stb's use different MHEG engines, which have different bugs, so crash in different circumstances.

Edit: I'm not excusing Topfield here, or Humax, or any other stb manufacturer. There is no excuse for manufacturers shipping firmware that crashes.

I aPoLoGiSe! whats firmware?

Not to discount other people's answers here, but to look at it from a different angle - what did you not like about the Sagem? From what I understand, there are a lot of things to dislike about the Sagem, but if you expand on what really annoys you about it, there are a lot of people here who may be able to help you make a decision who know more than the magazine reviewers.

I Didnt Like The Fact That Its States I Can Record Two Progs At Once At Then When I Tried To A Box Came Up Saying I Couldnt.
I Didnt Like The Fact That Teletext Hardly Ever Worked
I Didnt Like The Fact That Everytime I Switched It On It Insisted On Doing A Channel Search.
I Didnt Like The Fact That From Standby It Took Ages To Come To Life.
I Didnt Like The Scratch Scratch Of The Hard Drive (neither Did My Cat!).
I Didnt Like That To Search Different Channel Epg I Had To Change Channel.
I Didnt Like The Remote Control (cheap Trash)
I Didnt Like Paying For A Product That Must Have Been Released By Sagem In The Full Knowledge That It Was Substandard.

No PC ==> No TAPs ==> Horribly gappy EPG.

Do not buy a Freeview EPG machine - get a 4TV one. I can live with the Toppy's EPG because there is a TAP which alleviates a lot (but not all) of the problem of the gappy Freeview EPG. Otherwise I'd be wishing I still had my Fusion. Your options, in my opinion, are Fusion, Thomson, or Inverto.

However, I wouldn't go back! But I have a PC and therefore the ability to use TAPs.

Mmm, even worse than I thought!

Well, none of the others are that bad! I hope you've got your money back.

I'd have to go with Inverto for you, based on my previous post - 4TV EPG, it's quiet, better remote control than Fusion.

Back on topic.

The toppy was bad at dropping you out of what you were watching at a drop of a hat. Alot of these problems have been fixed with firmware upgrades.


One or two remain and I think are being worked on.
In the mean time there is a TAP which fixes one of the problems called myresume (or simlar).

The toppy is an excellent box although I won't recommend it if you were hoping to create DVDs from it.

I've found it amazingly easy to create DVDs, but then I'm using a Mac to do it; very fast and straightforward indeed.

Nigel.

Creating DVDs using a PC isn't that hard. After a period of using ProjectX and Nero Vision Express and having a few problems I've now changed to using PVAStrumento instead of ProjectX, there's less fiddling around and I can choose the audio stream from within NVE if that's a problem. Making DVDs takes a little time although most of this time can be spent doing other things whilst your PC gets on with the 'number crunching'.

My main problem with creating DVD's is that the sound is out of sync with the picture.