Hi, before you chase me back to the open forum because Tevion/Aldi have so little kudos they are not allowed their own sub-section can any of you help me with this request? The year return-for-cash warranty is nearly up on the 1620, so having learnt my lesson the £100 coming back will be spent on a proper pvr, and at the moment I think I prefer to the Topfield to the Humax. I know I have to wait for the 5810, (although the 5815 seems to have some very desirable options, including I understand auto-troll prevention), but have any of you guys connected a Topfield to a Dvico TViX M5100SH? www.dvico.com This is a lan attached media server that supports two usb host sockets, so it looks like the answer to the problem of 'recording' digital signals and being able tp play them around the house without tying up my pc re-processing the signal from a proprietary format to something undertood by simpler devices. I am looking at an additional Topfield rather than Dvicos' own digital tuner as the Topfield has twin tuners, and the options to upgrade it with the opensource freeware. Now if I can also get this to work with HomePlugs over the power lines in my house that does seem a complete victory.

I can't help you with all the rest, but you don't HAVE to wait for the TF5810. The TF5800 is a great machine in its own right, and there may not be too much to distinguish the two in the future.

Glen.

Unless the TViX device is linux based (and you can hack into it), you won't be able to get it talking directly to the Toppy. Sadly, the Toppy uses a custom USB protocol rather than appearing as a mass storage device.

Well thanks for that! None of the other forums have suggested that the 5100SH is hackable, or even offered an idea of the operating system it runs. I guess the 5810 is going to be mainly improved Freeview, not a change to its OS. No need to ponder about the Topfield then. Lets see if the Humax is any better.

The Humax too uses a proprietary protocol on the USB port, so you'll face exactly the same issue - and arguably with fewer options for tinkering.

Some Toppy users have got connectivity up and running on NAS/media server devices from Buffalo, and you can then play stuff back on a media streamer that talks to those.

Well thanks for that as well. The TViX 5100SH can 'see' (sorry for the imprecise terminology, but you know what I mean) up to four hard drives in a network, so if I had one of these Buffalo or I guess a 'Slug' with the Topfield hanging out the back of it that might work. Can you offer any links or do I just toddle off to the Toppy Forum, bidding a fond farwell to the Aldi/Tevion sufferers on Digital Spy?

I can't off the top of my head; frankly I'm up to my armpits in real work today, so you'll get a quicker answer asking the boffins on the Toppy forum, I think.

You might want to consider Babel TV if you're in the £300 devices market. Bar the lack of RGB, it's pretty close to an ideal unit in theory. In practise, it might prove irritating having to log on when you want to watch telly.

Thanks for the suggestion. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...php?p=18991019 - 74k Is about all I can find, no website for variations on Babel TV, or Dawe Vision the notional manufacturer/designer. It seems to be a double revenue source;- high purchase price , and then additional monthly charge for online storage. I'll let some others buy first and see if they find any true advantages.

Ditto. I think they're off to a bad start by trying to make it a service. People that have Freeview generally don't want to pay extra for anything TV related and this device is firmly in the TV related category. The fact that it's a non specified cost per month per GB makes it worse, because you don't know if it's going to be £1 or £20.

http://www.babel.tv/ is the product site. It's hardly a website for people interested in how it all works or what future models there might be. There are a few tech specs on the news page, but no pictures of the rear panel anywhere, so you have to trust them with the connectivity.

On another forum marcdavis suggested Slingbox. I thought this was exclusively US and unsuited for UK DVB-T signal inputs. Looking at the website it has no scart input, relying upon S-video, component or composite. The Pro seems to have an analogue tuner only. But the concept is appealing as it transpires my mobile, Nokia E65, is one of the few with Sling pre-installed. Should have read the instruction manual more thoroughly. Anyway the 5100SH is still not showing up in My Network Places, so I need to understand this before ' not another bloody box' (quote from wife) appears.

With the old Pace Freeview adaptor for the main tv dying,

7-y-o unable to watch Cbeebies,

the task became more urgent.

Comet swung it decisively, by offering the Humax 9200 for a straight webprice, 'Collect from Store' £149.99.

I'll wait for the 5100 to see if I can attach it to the network.

Weird. Comet were doing an online code for the silver one at £150 until last night, and now they've just reduced the price. I guess black must be the new, erm, black, and the silver ones aren't selling very well.

I just got the last two silver models from my Yeading, West London branch. Their computer showed just one in stock, apart from the 2 on display. I offered to take a black one for the same price, on the basis I was leaving with 2 or none, unless a Managers' Special took a shop soiled one below the ton mark. A physical search, 'Please just wait a minute Sir', found another, - the last still boxed. Probably see the black one at £150 next weekend as the stock controllers at Comet HQ mop up the Aldi 1620 returners like myself.

Did you get your money back OK? It's almost a year since I jumped ship from the earlier Technosonic PVR-101 -- I always found the "R101" moniker quite ironic (the airship and the 1984 room). I also had a Tevion 1620 for a short time.

For all their faults, the Technosonic/Tevion did enable me to see how useful a PVR could be, and struggling to get recordings off the hard disk taught me an awful lot about disks, filesystems, MPEG2 Transport Streams and reawakened my hacking...err...programming curiosities, so a Toppy was the only choice really.

Yet to return it. I have until the 27th of Nov., and I still have a second hard drive (200Gb) of recordings that I need to reclaim. Did you use the oft mooted Lorian disk extraction software or something else?

'2nd hand' Topfield alert. John Lewis High Wycombe Extreme right hand corner of a/v display. Two 250Gb 5800 Toppys at £199. 'Returned unusable' Spoke to a chap who bought a Panasonic dvd recorder last week. He saved £80 just for having no packaging.

I heard Aldi were trying to reduce their "no quibble" guarantee to 3 months, but you'd certainly have more than a few quibbles with the Tevion...

Err... you could say I used an early version.

Finally gave up after 11 months plus .. waiting for the fix(es) to Tevion 1620. The manageress at the Blackpool store gave me the 30 days no quibble spiel and that they could not take it back as it was now under the 3yr Tevion Warranty. I stood my ground and reminded her that I had purchased this under the then 12 month no quibble guarantee. I stood my ground and gave me back the full refund. Interestly enough they never inspected the contents of the box!

Welcome and well done.

Have you bought a replacement?

If you want a Humax, check to see if Comet are still offering them at £150.

Hi 1620martyr,

I also had the 1620 PVR and was one of the beta testers for the new SW, I also had the option of testing all the software we were given to test but it still my 1620 had problems,so like you and many others I returned my 1620 to Aldi.

I was going to buy the Thomson from Aldi with my refund, but Tesco did a better offer on the Thomson 6300 TUTV box at £79.97 a saving of £10 so I bought from them.

For us the Thomson is very good we have had a couple of recording problems but out of all the recording made it must be 99.9% ok. We don't use the TUTV side so have the full use of the 160Gb HDD, some people say they don't like the HDD and fan running all the time, however, we DON'T hear them and as I said to one person the fans and HD's in your computer rull all the time and you don't get people moaning!

So for £80 I would say a big yes to the Thomson box.

HolidayBob.