For some months now,when one has enquired when a firmware update will be made available,the response is "beta ware is being tested".
I am becoming somewhat frustrated that faults such as the slow refresh rate of changing subtitles,and the capture of all receivable stations by auto scanning still remain unresolved.

The new firmware will be ready when it's ready, as I've said many times.

Yes, there are some niggles, but by and large, the box is very stable and reliable, and so I see no need to push harder and rush something out. The subtitles are pretty near the top of the list, and Topfield want to get those absolutely right, because they're a very important thing to do.

There's been lots of work going on, like the new manual that's just arrived in the UK. And work on the other models; sure, I'd like to have had a new firmware sooner, but I'd also like to avoid a repeat of some of the issues we had last summer, where new firmwares introduced their own problems, as well as fixing others.

To me, it's important to try and make sure that doesn't happen - and if that means waiting a bit longer, and spending more weeks testing a beta, then I'm quite happy with that.

The auto-scanning is irksome, but I'd hardly rate it high on the frustration scale myself - how often do you scan, after all? Even with all the beta firmwares I've been using, I've hardly ever had to re-scan.

So, the response is still "Beta software is being tested." It's not the same beta it was last month, and there'll likely be another one along soon. But beyond that, I can't give a time frame.

Ultimately, of course, you can be as patient or impatient as you choose; it just won't make any actual difference to when things happen.

Nigel.

Hi Nigel,
I returned this week from a lengthy trip abroad to find that Channel 5's frequency had changed,so a rescan was necessary.It was a highly convoluted exercise.
The subtitle problem has existed from day one,and given it's importance to the hearing impaired,it is not unreasonable to have expected a solution by now.Other manufactures have got it right from the outset
Terry.

If you use the automatic Scan function, you will know that its incredibly s l o w, as well as the fact that you can end up with duplicate channels if your in the path of more than one transmitter - which can cause all osrts of problems.

This will speed up the channel Scans and eliminate any chance of duplicate channels from other transmitters ( and its nothing to do with Taps)

Go to http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe?DX=L&OS=
to find you local Transmitter

Write down the UHF channel number for Each mux ie
Mux 1 uhf ch 49
mux 2 uhf ch 23
Mux A uhf ch 26
and so on ( examples are for the waltham transmitter)

then in the toppys settings for tuning, just scan the relavant UHF freqeuncies, this will eliminate any duplicate channels, and substantialy increase the scan time, as the toppy only has to look at 6 channels, and not sixty one.
http://www.toppy.org.uk has loads of info on the toppy.

I can't guarantee anything about the next firmware, but I can say with a high degree of confidence that subtitle performance is dramatically improved - it's been the focus of lots of the testing, and we recruited some testers who rely on them to help make sure we had input from the right sort of people.

I'm hoping we can get it spot on, however, rather than merely 'dramatically improved.'

Nigel