The Topfield in common with all similar twin Freeview Hard Drive recorders can only record directly from their own tuners.
I think you need a recorder that also has a DVD recorder; these have (or usually have) the neccessary encoders for other sources. No experience of these myself but someone else will no doubt give more useful details. Post question on the general PVR forum perhaps.
There are more esoteric (and expensive) solutions I believe. e.g. The Reelbox which can provide a range of different hardware options I believe. (at a price).
Richard is quite right - to record the output of a satellite receiver you need something that has an MPEG encoder in it. That generally means you need one of the following recorders:
1) Tivo
2) Archos AV hadnhelds or similar
3) HTPC running MCE
4) Reelbox
5) any DVD recorder (with HDD can make life a lot easier for editing!)
6) err....
7) .. I think that's it
If you don't want channels with Sky's encryption, aren't bothered about MHEG in terrestrial channels, and you have lots of money, you could consider the Topfield 5400, which has one satellite tuner and one terrestrial one.
I'm in a similar position to the OP. My options were, buy a Triple Dragon (€359 from www.satplace.de); buy a Dreambox 7025 (€599 from the same place: twin tuner, HDD ready and unfortunately no em*s yet, so bung a Dragon in); buy a ReelBox and bung a Dragon in that.
As OP has a Technomate I'll assume he's not interested in S$y....
