Hi, I'm new to these boards but am considering buying a Freeview PVR and would like your advice/opinions. From what I can gather the two most suitable boxes seem to be the Humax PVR9200T and the Topfield 5800T. What I would like to determine is if any owners of these boxes have any tips or advice one way or the other.

From what I've read, owners of both boxes seem very happy with their purchases but the Topfield may be a slightly more mature product (fewer minor bug) and with slightly better features (e.g. S-Video socket) whereas the Humax is slightly cheaper and may receive some significant updates in the near future. Cost isn't my major concern but I do want to get something that will give a good few years service for my money.

At the moment our main Freeview access is from a Philips IDTV which I bought in 2001 that, in most respects, has been a huge disappointment. Particularly, it has never been updated, doesn't have Teletext or interactive features, is difficult to record from and most annoyingly suffers from clicks and sound dropouts. However, I recently bought an Oggle Freeview box for the spare TV in the bedroom and , whilst the text is a bit on the slow side, the reception has been perfect. This has restored my faith in DTT and my next step is to replace the TV receiver and VCR - hence the PVR!

My intention is to connect the PVR to my Yamaha AV amplifier and use the TV as a display unit only. The AV amp can accept composite, S-Video and component (but not RGB) connections (I have a spare SCART to S-video/component/L-R audio cable so I do have connectivity for this) and I also have spare optical and co-axial digital sound input sockets in the amp.

The main aim is that we can have a reliable receiver and recorder and that we can record programs that may be overlapping. Or watch a previously recorded program whilst recording another. This would particularly be for odd BBC4 documentaries (that my wife doesn't want to watch) or the numerous half interesting films and shows that are stuck on in the early hours. There is very rarely anything I want to watch before 9pm and I'm usually nodding off by 10.

I also intend to buy a DVD recorder at some point (but not immediately) so I would be interested in how easy it is to transfer from the PVR to DVD. This would be for taping programs that we want to keep and not likely to be available elsewhere (I think we have a tape of old Jack Dee shows somewhere - so this sort of thing).

I'd also be interested in how you rate customer service (after my dreadful experiences of Philips).

So, is this a reasonable plan, is there any point getting an optical sound connection and which will give me the best service? If it's any help I'm currently favouring the Humax box but only really on cost with all else being equal.

I'm cross-posting this to the Humax board to get their owners views.

Thanks in advance....

Re Cliffs post in the Humax forum:

The Toppy can output component through the scart socket, so connect this to your amp.

FWIW I got a Toppy rather than the Humax for 2 reasons: 1, Chase Play; 2, more than 20 timers. I don't know if Humax have now fixed these limitations.

Ooh, something to get your teeth into here.

I had a 9200T and a Toppy. For various reasons but none to do with the quality of the box, I sold the 9200T on eBay. I actually slightly preferred using the 9200T but but Mrs r MKII has control of the TV zappers pre-midnight.

Either box will suit fine unless you want to chase play, in which case I think the 9200 still won't do it.

Both boxes only output digital optical, no digital coax. But as there is no AC3 sound on Freeview that really makes no odds.

FWIW, I wouldn't bother connecting the video out from the box to the AV amp. I have a NAD T752 that will upconvert to component but I just didn't see the point. Just connect the PVR to a scart connector on your TV and use the PVR zapper to control the TV (you'll have to set a reasonable volume on the TV though as neither 9200T or Toppy remote volume controls override the TV volume like I have seen the Sky remote do on a TV identical to mine). By all means connect the digital optical on your PVR to the AV amp, then you can just forget about the volume bit above.

Regarding DVD recorder. I'd not bother. You can archive recordings that you wish to keep to a laptop or other PC connected to the PVR via UAS2. The Toppy has the USB port at the back and the 9200T has it at the front. You can then use various softwares to demultplex the recording, convert it to a format that a DVD will accept and wither burn the DVD or forget the last bit and just save the .mpg or .rec file on your PC. With either of these options you will not have to carry out the digital to analogue conversion that will take place if you archive to a DVD recorder via scart.

If it's spinning a coin time, I'd say go with the Toppy, just because the main importer: Turbosat is one of the best companies to deal with I have ever experienced.

Anyway that's my 2c worth.

Plus awkward padding and not a good implementation of the Freeview EPG. Toppy has similar problems with both but you can install TAPs on the Toppy which make things perfect in terms of padding and much better in terms of EPG. Seems there was something else about the Humax I didn't like but I can't remember what it was...

no chase play from a designed in UI isnt in yet as with any of the planned features. There is a debate going on as to whether it should be relased in a couple of weeks with the saving the EPG to disk or delay it so that the bug fix comes out first. Either way, dont bet on it happening in a couple of weeks. More like a couple of months at this rate!


My instints would be to go for the one that offers the most stuff that I would like to use if money is still not a problem. I'm getting a Topfield soon so it will be interesting to see how it lives up to the hype. At the moment I think the Humax will turn out to be the better alrounder PVR come the summer, but in a lot of cases there is sound reasoning to buy based on what a PVR can do out of the box now and take manufacturer promises with a pinch of salt if you are skeptical. You could be waiting months and months otherwise when at the end of the day its only a PVR.

Try telling that to the guys who spent years on the Panny thread. or even worse the "OTHER" thread.

April 3rd perhaps ?

OK. At the end of the day its only a Humax or Topfield PVR.

You got to admit the prerelease Panny thread and the 'other' thread that dare not speak its name filled many a dull hour! They had everything. Both are maturing by the looks of things. Any chance of a sequel in the pipeline: Die another PVR or Two Weeks NoPVRtice. Isnt the Deawoo suposed to be out in June?
Last edited by marcdavis : 24-02-2006 at 18:46

I told people not to bet against you but would they listen? Seeing as you've got the 3rd I'll take the 1st April

You're right there, marc. DS just ain't the same place without the fisticuffs.


LOL. Somehow I just can't get excited about a Daewoo.

Thanks! This is more for future compatibility as I plan to get a large screen plasma or LCD TV in the future (maybe a year or two) and the component output would be ideal.

Thanks for the reply. Do you know if the optical output actually works or is that just there for future use / internatinal compatibility?

Oh dear! The "OTHER" thread? Is this an in-joke that I'm not meant to ask about?

I'm beginning to favour the Topfield slightly. However could anyone give me any guidance on the following:

TAPs : This sounds like an interesting feature but how much of an effort is it to download and install these? Is there a chance of fouling up the whole box?

Availability : Just how available is the Topfield? I did a few searches on Internet based suppliers I've used in the past and those that do sell them seem to be "Temporarily out of stock"?

It should be fairly available; www.toppy.org.uk/shops.php lets you find them in your region of the country.

TAPs are very simple to copy over the USB connection, and you can't trash the box with them - just hold down 0 on the remote and it ignores them when it starts up.

Nigel.

It's the original Inverto PVR thread. On other make's threads here on DS, some people might get mildly annoyed if you mention another brand of PVR or made a criticism. On the Inverto thread, well, suffice to say, mildly is not the word. It became all out war. Very sad. I think it was all down to the fact that they had someone from Inverto posting there and they were afraid he'd go away if anyone said anything in criticism of the Inverto, regardless of the truth of it. The "support no matter what" types were only a small minority of people using the Inverto thread, but they easily became the voice of the thread. Spoiled it for the rest of us.

Kept us all coming back for more though, didn't it.

@ IDalek: I didn't mean to imply that the Digital Optical output on the Toppy doesn't work: it does work but it just doesn't output AC3 sound because there is no AC3 stream broadcast alongside the Freeview Video stream. It still outputs Nicam stereo though. OK, I'll rephrase that, it outputs somehting to my AV receiver.

Digital Satellite channels on 19.2°E and 13°E output much much better quality sound.

When ive atempted to copy a DVD onot my toppy, ive only been able to get audio out of the optical conection, improbox shows the DVD rip as having Dolby Digital sound ( the double D logo appears), so i would guess that the optical out is outputting AC3 dgital audio.

Thanks. I think that's exactly what I wanted to know - i.e. can I connect it an AV amp.

Oh yes. I have mine connected to the Digital Optical link of my NAD T752 and it works fine.

I just had a look on the Topfield PDF manual (OK I was looking at the sat version but I think they are both the same) and it actually says Dolby Digital on the front of the box.

I know it switches the sound profile on my AV amp.

One other thing that nobody else seems to have mentioned, the Toppy will output YUV component from the scart which the Humax won't. The guys who have never owned either but think that they know the Humax is better don't know this of course but I shalln't tell them in their area for fear of flying teddies.

This may not be important to you now, and indeed may never be but just suppose your AV receiver has YUV inputs (I know mine does) and you wanted to use the AV amp as the video switcher for your HT set up. Well, you can do it with the Toppy but not with the Humax (unless you output S-Video and I know these amps are supposed to upconvert S-Video to component but you can't get more bandwidth out than you put in, if you get my drift.

You have such a way with words! Always a pleasure to read your posts!

Gracias. De nada.

This is how you download and install Taps:

click on a link to download a tap, to your p.c
connect the toppy to your P.C via USB*
open up the transfer program on the P.C, switch on the toppy ( if its not already on)

using the transfer program (altair)
navigate to the folder where you downloaded the tap ( ie my documents/downlaods)
double click on the Programes folder in altair
click on the tap
click on the green 'transfer' arrow

job done.

on the toppy go to the archive, then press >> to move to the programmes folder then select the tap and press OK, and the tap will start.
if you want the tap to start each time you switch on the toppy you can move it to a folder called Auto Start

I think someone did point this out and, yes, my AV does have component inputs. This is really more for future compatibility as the best my current TV can do from the AV is S-Video (which actually works quite nicely) but I do intend to get some sort of large (i.e. at least 40") screen in the next couple of years.