Hello all, this is my fist post in this friendly and infomative forum - so here goes.

I'm looking to buy a new digibox for my girlfriend to replace her disaterous Digifusion. Despite all it's problems she liked the ease of use and the EPG. The Toppy seems to be the most stable box around at the moment and most of you here seem happy with it, but would it be too technical to use? This is not meant as insult - she just wants to load up and go out of the box and doesn't have access to a computer (other than bringing the box over to my house). Is the Toppy that simple to use and what is a TAP? Presumably, downloads like MYStuff and EPG Navigator are variations of EPGs but do you need a computer to keep updating them?

I'm torn between the Toppy and the Humax 9200.

Sorry to go on a bit, I hope I make sense - I suppose the bottom line is that I just want a stable, easy to use PVR that does what it says on the box.

Many thanks for any help and advice you can give me.

Nick.

The Toppy is easy to use straight out of the box, no need to add anything.

A TAP is an add-on program you can install on your Toppy. The most popular ones seem to be EPG replacements. Personally I quite like the Toppy EPG as supplied but many people prefer other layouts so customise their Toppy. You don't have to however.

If you haven't found it already www.toppy.org.uk is a good source of info on the Toppy.

Tricky one. If your GF is happy to just pick up individual programmes from the EPG as and when necessary, then the
'vanilla' Toppy is fine. SWMBO was happy with it for about a week until she asked me if I could

1 automatically record anything to do with 'gold' on QVC
2 sort out some way of skipping past the ads in Corrie

If your GF has any similar requests, it's TAP time!

K

The toppys native User interface is relativly straight forward, and easy to use as it is, a tapless toppy is pretty much rock solid ( ie no crashes or lost recordings in normal use.)
When you get a toppy, dont be tempted to put Taps on it, get used to the box as it is.
If you want to go down the Tap route, most of the Taps are relativly straight forward, and easy to use, if you have any questions on Taps or the Toppy then either here or epsecialy http://www.toppy.org.uk is the place to ask.

dont be put off by Taps, they might sound complex, but all you do is download them to your P.C, then transfer them to a Toppy - if you dotn like them, then its just a matter of not using them.

Ive got a few screenshots of various toppy menus and stuff online at
http://www.rtmtft.plus.com/toppy/
although the picture quality isnt that good - as it was done with a camra pointed at the telly.
when i get round to it, i will be changing the photos using a screenshot tap, and adding a few more Tap screenshots ( mystuff and epgnavigator)

The Toppy isn't too technical, especially since she's used a PVR before. The manual isn't very good - the terminology is not very UK. The EPG is not as good as Digifusion's 14 day guide in my opinion, and the Digifusion records in standby which is very nice. Despite that though, the Toppy is great, it just takes a bit of getting used to, and if there's something you don't like, there is almost always a TAP that will make it better. If there's anything you can't work out how to do from the manual, there's always help at toppy.org.uk

Thanks you all for your helpful and informative responses, the screen shots were very useful Richard.

The Toppy it is, so just about to order it pronto.

Thanks again, Nick

I'll play devils advocate then.

Bearing in mind your statement re no PC

Having both I would have to say Humax....why?

The vanilla Toppy epg is nothing to write home about, prefer the look of the Humax, and the way it populates. It also has a basic search function within the utilising the freeview epg.

Cost...Humax is now available for under £200.

Updates...to date toppy has only had 1 OTA compared to Humax (admittedly to fix some bugs).

I also think the Humax user interface is superior.

Humax recent update has added chase play (toppy already had), and auto-padding, as well as 'fixing' some bugs.
(Repeats of this update - 9-11 June and 13/14 June)

Link to Humax manual -pdf

Don't take the number of 'over the air' updates as an indication of the level of support Topfield have provided. We've had around 5 firmware updates over the last year (the last of those 5 being the broadcast OTA). There's the prospect of another one in the next few months that fixes some of the more commonly mentioned niggles.

If GF has similar request suggest candidate for XGF.

Fortunately my wife just wants to record anything to do with food ! What can I say - she has some of her priorities straight at least.

Re original question - my 9 year old has no problems using Toppy inc word search recordings. Setup of TAPs is akin to installing your average PC program in complexity - i.e. bung em on and read the manual only if really desparate.

Yeah, but in my experience the average 9 year old can program a VCR. I never could.

Toppy was a piece of ... cake.

So I should apply to make SWMBO an XSWMBO - possibly more expensive than setting a control timer (close choice though!)

K

I have both the Topfield and the Humax and I would definitely go for Topfield.
Out of the box there's not much to choose between them - both have good points and bad points. However, with taps loaded, anything the Humax can do, the Toppy can do better.
The only place the Humax still wins is in its far superior front LED display.
The main advantages of the Toppy over the Humax as far as I'm concerned are:
You can use folders to put your recordings into (I miss this badly on the Humax);
The hard disk is bigger (250 compared to 160gb)
With taps, you can improve on the epg and if you want you can use data from the web;
As mentioned before with a tap you can record by keyword.

Both are great machines, and I have had very few problems with either of them.

Oh - and The Toppy comes in a choice of colours!

One can imagine in a few years time that the display on the front of the Toppy will be so sophisticated that, instead of just saying, "P 4", it'll announce, "You are watching Big Brother 12: why?"

OTOH, BB may get his own back by demanding that PVR manufacturers install webcams into PVRs so that BB can check up to see that you are watching him.

Is that what you want? 'Cos that's what'll happen!