I'm currently waiting for the 545 HS to appear before replacing my lightning damaged 530. Reading different threads, the Topfield box seems to get good reviews, and sounds like it is a similar spec to the Pioneer and much cheaper. Yet I never see any direct comparison between the two - are the two fundamentally the same thing, or are they fundamentally different things??

Should I be looking at things like the Topfield to replace the Panny, or am I barking up completely the wrong tree - I'm quite good at that.....

The topfield is a PVR for DTTV. It records to hard disk only and has no DVD recording ability, nor can it record from an external source such as a Sky or cable box. So yes, it is a fundamentally different thing to a DVD recorder.
Last edited by Cobson : 01-09-2006 at 16:10

Many thanks Cobson - understood and much appreciated. Will go swap trees

I too have a faulty Pioneer 530 however I was waiting until the 545 becomes available to replace it. I have been thinking things through though and have come to this conclusion. The 545 will be at least £350 and will have still only 1 Digital tuner. I have just bought the Humax 9200T which has twin digital tuners for less than £160 and a Pioneer 393 DVD/DIVX player for £55 pounds. In reality I can suck stuff off the Humax and master my own DVDs on my computer, and the twin tuner will be great because *sometimes* there are two programs worth recording on digital only channels. In the next year or so the price of these combined DVD/HDD recorders must drop significantly and twin tuners will be standard then.At this stage I may choose to purchase one but at the moment the cost is not justifiable.

Sam.

No the new Pioneer DVR-545HX (digital) will cost about £420-£430 at the begin but later ti will cut down a little... the 540HX stay at between £340-£380

the 545 has add up some more feature then the price will add up a little when it release end of October-begin of November.