...I have one question that I can't immediately see an answer to (mainly cos I don't know the right terminology to search for!)...

Other HDD recorders (e.g. Sony ones) have various recording formats/speeds/qualities, which enable longer play times. Does the Toppy have the same thing or is it just one format (88h on 160Gb version)?

Thanks

K

No, it never re-encodes / compresses it just records what is broadcast.

This means you allways have the best quality, but can not compress recordings.

You do however have 160GB to play with and when it's nearly full it is time to be honest with yourself and delete the stuff you were never gonna watch anyway.

Apart from being a bit techie it is a great machine through and certainly the most fully featured and flexible, though not out of the box.

I used to have a thomson = only a 40gb hardrive and I always used to run out of space. Now I have a Humax 9200 which also has a 160gb hardrive.
Its very hard to run out of space = I have managed to use around 50% maximum = thats around 50 hours worth!
The Thomson had a compression system since the hardrive was so small. Absolutly no need for compression on a 160gb hardrive. Compression always murders the picture and sound quality anyway. If you need more space, think about copying some programs to a PC and burn to DVD. You could of course also try upgrading the hardrive to a bigger one, but I would seek advice first, no one with a humax 9200 has bothered since no one whats more than 160gb.

The other problem the thomson had was, when you scheduled a recording, it would reserve the disc space for it immediatly. The humax does not. When you have a small hardrive and you schedule a weeks recording, you would run out of disc space before it had even recorded anything do to the reserved disc space!

Thanks guys.

My last decision, then, is whether to go for the 160Gb or 250Gb version of the Toppy. Worth the extra £50-odd?

K

Well, do you tend to go for long holidays, or want to keep whole series on there?

If you don't, and you'll have the computer reasonably close to the Toppy, or don't mind experimenting with networking it, I'd just go for the standard model, and transfer off stuff if the disk is getting full.

Nigel.

OK. Ta.

BTW. How long a movie can you fit onto a 4.7Gb DVD?

K

Depends on what you are using to shrink the source material.

Roughly two hours, I'd say - but it depends a lot. If you're making DVDs from your Toppy, the most sensible way is to avoid re-encoding, and save at the same bit rate as the original broadcast, otherwise you have to wait hours for the burn.

So, a film like Minority Report on BBC1 comes in at 5Gb and won't fit in without re-encoding. My recording of Downfall from More 4 is about 4Gb for 3 hours, while Good Will Hunting, lasting 2 hours 20, comes in at 2.8Gb.

Nigel.

I was confused by that for a few seconds, then I remembered that the different channels transmit at different bitrates.

Thanks all!

K

250 Gb is 150 - 200 hours of recording. If you have that much "cherished programs" stored on your Toppy, and it goes phut (like any hard disc device can), you will be seriously p*ssed off! I agree with Nigel, go for the cheap model and spend the difference on some method of archiving to DVDs.

Dual-layer DVD writers for PCs are only about £40 now and neatly solve the "can't fit a film on without re-encoding" problem.

Could anyone tell me if there is a a new machine on the near horizon and is the 5800 the current one to go for ??

(hi by the way I'm new )

(Thought I'd use an old thread to ask my similar question)

mikemikemike,

Nope the 5800 is the "current" model unless you think you might want a machine with one Freeview tuner and one satellite tuner in which case the 5400 may be worth a look.

Cliff

Or two DVB-S tuners and two DVB-T tuners....

I'll get me coat.

Rhubarbe

Have you seen this, knowing you, you probably bought one already, if so any good?

http://www.turbosat.com/acatalog/Per...PVR_Units.html

Tanya

just a friend has seen some interweb stuff about a 5000 and he thought there was a new new all singing all dancing machine due shortly ??

I think he may have got confused with some aussy site?

There is a box due in other areas with wireless connectivity, probably going to be called the TF6000, but it's not shipping yet, and in any event will be largely equivalent to the current 5000 model sold in Europe and Australia.

That means a) likely quite expensive and b) without support for interactive services (MHEG).

There will be a UK version, but my sources tell me it's several months away - nearer the end of this year than the beginning.

Nigel.

Does anybody use the MHEG?

@ tanya

I tried three of these little things (not the one from Turbosat) and even though I can see the mast on Winter Hill from my kitchen window (when it isn't raining), I couldn't get a signal stong enough to lock onto. I have heard reports that they do work well in some areas but you can't just assume that because you're in a Freeview area you'll be able to use one.

By far the best route for getting DTT on a laptop would be to wait (couple of weeks I expect) for a wireless USB dongle to plug into your laptop and the much vaunted twin tuner USB tuner from Nebula Electronics. Then you can have true wireless TV on any laptop with a wireless USB dongle. Well, you can 'til Cliff reads this and sets me straight.

Thanks for the info, will now do some research...
Tanya

Ummmm... food for thoughts
Tanya

OK, got it - super box, crappy manual! I'm sure I'll be back on here asking bl@@dy obvious questions but I managed recording two channels at the same time last night, that was a lot easier than I anticipated.

So far, impressed.


K

Don't think I ever read my manual....

Whne you say wireless, Nigel, do you mean wireless USB, or wireless ethernet? If the latter, why not let us have 100baseTX too as well as wireless?

I think my manual is a photocopy! Doesn't help when trying to work out which of the coloured buttons it's telling me to press (where's Ted Lowe when you need him!!?)

Some obvious questions (tried searching but I'm not sure which key words to use to avoid getting 100 irrelevant posts!)

Obvious question #1: (still using EPG out of the box)

OK, so I've set up a bunch of things to be recorded via the EPG. Is there a 'review the list' option somewhere - I can only find something similar for the 'manual recordings'... (I probably pressed the wrong grey button!)

Obvious Question #2:

Will the EPG know if a programme is running a bit late?

K

The answer to question one (Menu/Recording/Timer something or other) is in the FAQs on www.toppy.org.uk, as are lots of other useful questions and answers.

The answer to the second is no, there's no equivalent of PDC reliably broadcast on Freeview.

Nigel.

You're a star!

Tx

K