Bravo for trying to balance the argument, but your bad experiences aren't exactly typical. Far from giving both sides of the argument, you're really trying to convince someone not to buy a machine that thousands of people are happy with.

My Toppy is by far my favourite (perhaps not technically 'the best') piece of equipment I've ever owned. Thanks go out to:

R2-D2
BobD
SimonC
EMJB
Bellisimo
DX
Deadbeef
bdb
nwhitfield
...that fellow who was banned...
...and those other unnamed heroes.

Glen.

PS: Yes, I've had a glass of wine tonight...

I think it's worth pointing out that there are times when I've hated our Toppy. The time that it decided to trim 25% off the ends of half our recordings because the disk had got too full. Then there was the time I crashed it with an unfinished TAP and it thought the disk was unformatted. With most of the other PVRs out there, you'd sigh, reformat and set up all your timers again. In both these cases I was able to recover some of the missing content, but I hated it for giving me the option of wasting an afternoon hooking it up to the PC and running a disk analysis.

Normality is restored when I sit down of an evening and watch an hour of a commercial channel in 45 minutes, discover that HIGNFY has a new run and it's recorded the first programme even though I didn't know it was on.

P.S. I'm not sure chocolate pudding with real home made custard has quite the same effect as a glass of red!

I've always loved my Toppy. My favourite experience is sitting up at 4am in my underwear after a bad Channel Manager experience, trying desperately to get out of the Main Menu and rescan the box. No-one told me to press Zero because TAPs could still run even when there were no channels.

Famous last words - I'll just do this then go to bed.

Glen.

Well that's fine, and I'm not trying to talk anyone out of buying one. But I do believe this is a machine for tinkerers and geeks (I really don't mean that unkindly). But you know how it is. Many people are complaining about the perceived complexities of the new digital generation, and how they resent being forced down that route. This machine does nothing to pacify such people. Can you really see old Mrs Bloggs at No 37 working one of these machines straight out of the box? She could do it with the Humax, but with the Topfield, in order that she doesn't miss the start or end of a slightly mistimed programme, she has to go to her PC (which she probably won't even have), and download TAPs in order to make it do what it should do straight out of the box. And we should all care that Topfield are prepared to sell Mrs Bloggs a machine that is going to make her unhappy. It seemes everyone who likes this machine, likes it only AFTER they have downloaded some TAPs. That tells me the machine they sold you wasn't adequate.

Old Mrs Bloggs can't deal with that. This is plain wrong, and we should create a holy stink about it.

You're digging your own grave here, mate. Old Mrs Bloggs who loves her Toppy and doesn't have a PC can't tell you because SHE DOESN'T HAVE A PC!!!!!!!!

Of the 8,000 users on the Toppy forums, only a tiny minority post their grievances. And I'm sure there are more people out there who aren't registered on said forums.

Glen.

With respect, mate might not be appropriate. I'm female.

How am I digging my own grave? I'm saying that people who are not PC or techno savvy, or have no way of updating their Topfield by installing the TAPs that most people in here seem to have found necessary, are stuck with the basic and lacking software. I'm not talking about forums or polls, I'm talking about plain common sense. You must know that most people just won't download TAPs, and so they are having to deal with the terrible EPG and lack of auto-padding that Topfield seem to do nothing about.

...yet seem to keep buying them, love!

Its only the geeks, the PC-savvy, and the freaks who post on these forums and its a MINORITY who complain. I don't like the Toppy without TAPs either (I nearly cried when I thought I had bought a lemon for 270 quid), but it seems to be a perfectly capable machine for thousands of people or they wouldn't buy it - its a numbers game, simple as.

Glen.

I don't think 'love' is appropriate either, do you?

People don't 'keep' buying them. I imagine most people only buy one. Once they have, they are stuck with it. I think they should be warned that the only way to get a decent working Topfield is to download TAPs, and this isn't a straightforward process. Most people just won't do it.

But you aren't stuck with it. If you've bought by mail order, you're perfectly entitled to send it back within 7 days under the distance selling regulations. You don't even have to supply a reason for the return. 7 days is easily enough to discover that you've made the wrong purchase.

I didn't say we bought it mail order. Nor did I say I wanted to return it. We will replace it within the next six months. But I only posted here to let others know about the Topfield's many shortcomings.

As previously mentioned I have gone ahead an ordered one from Dixons. As it will be going in my bedroom I am getting a little worried now about the noise. Can anyone please confirm the following:-

1 IF the machine is in standby mode (not recording anything) is it 100% quiet?
2 If it is in standby mode recording something am I correct in thinking all you 'might' hear is the hard drive clicking away?

I'm curious that every time you try to go online to sort things out, you're having to deal with Korean. I've never found that to be the case for the Topfield Korea site, which is in English (albeit not terribly good English). Nor is it the case for Topfield.co.uk either, which is an English site run by the UK distributor, without a whiff of Korean.

The original version of the PC utilities wasn't the simplest to install, but the current installer is much improved - download, run, click Next a couple of times, click Finish, plug in Toppy, tell Windows to set up automatically, and launch the item on the start menu that says 'Altair - transfer files using USB'

RedAndBlueArmy, yes, it is entirely silent in standby, unlike the Thomson which is whirring away hear in the corner. And yes, all you'll hear when running is the hard drive, which is silent on the vast majority of units.

Our Toppy is in the bedroom. In standby it is absolutely silent. When recording (esp when recording two channels) it used to "click" audibly. But there's a setting in the HDDInfo TAP that makes even that sound much softer.

K

Thanks nwhitfield and KennyT I feel a lot happier now.

I think I will have to see if there is anything on the Toppy site giving advice/tips for set up etc for new users.

Thanks again

Hmmm....

You ARE Mrs Moticon & I claim my £5!

I have read this thread, and as much as I love (and hate!!) my Toppy, I can see where people would find it annoying. It has been described as being suitable only for "tinkerers and geeks", which I am proud to say, I probably am.

A naked Toppy would be a horrible thing to have, it has the most hideous interface, EPG horrible, timers list indecipherable etc. But bung on MyStuff, and EIT2MEI (I used to use RT2MEI but it became too much hassle, even for me to keep up with!) and it is fantastic. Control timers in MyStuff are great, and as has been said, I often turn on my TV to find stuff recorded that I didn't even know was on.

As for the noise, I can't say I have ever noticed any great disturbance from it. You hear the odd rev-up as the disc spins to speed, but it doesn't really distract. If we all threw things out for making a bit of ambient noise, we none of us would have PC's or fridges, or water boilers etc.

I also love how easy it is to suck programs off the Toppy onto PC, either for archiving, or simply to convert to watch somewhere else, such as on my PSP on the go.

I have had a few crashes and reboots, namely BBCi crashes, and Teletext crashes, but like I say, I enjoy tinkering with things. Maybe I'm weird, but the foibles make it what it is.

No, because they are generally held (along with humax) to be the cream of the freeview PVRs. Ganders around this and the toppy forums (which you most certainly have) and that is the undoubted impression you gain.


To be fair I havent told the whole story, I have a TF5810 so there's (as I understand it) only 1 firmware so far, which also means Mystuff and suchlike don't work properly due to problems with the keymappings on the remote. So at the moment the toppy is also vanilla.

The sluggishness is a real surprise. For example using the EPG or flicking channels really does go press...... update..... press.... update.... press..........press........press...... update..... very VERY annoying.

Arrived late yesterday afternoon. Have not changed anything......... just quickly set up and recorded about 16 programs. All 16 showed recorded but two never had anything on it, just said 30 minutes and 0 MB

Loader C5.14
Device V5.4.10
Software Version Tf.NPT 5.14.08
Hardware Version V1.01
Last Update 4 March 08

Will pop along to Toppy.org later

Hi
With the Toppy being reliant on a computer for downloads has anyone used one via a Mac?
if you have are there any problems, differences or other issues that I should know about.

I never take it at face value that an item says it will work with a mac, I have gone through loads of nokia phones that claim they work with but do not.

There's loads of advice on using the Toppy with a mac on the Toppy website (link via here: http://www.toppy.org.uk/downloads/mac.php)

K

Topfield are shipping the units with the Freeview Playback firmware (the 5.14.08 above), which isn't as good as it should be and the likely cause of those 0MB recordings. You'd be well advised to install 5.13.65 instead until Topfield have ironed out the new bugs.

You would still expect something out of the box to record two basic programs
But I will continue

You would, especially for one of the more expensive boxes on the market. Unfortunately, Topfield have been a bit hasty putting this firmware on new machines before it's ready. You can put up with a bit of roughness around the edges, but fundamental stuff like failing to record leaves you unable to trust it. My first recording in 2005 failed to record the audio (subsequent records were fine), not exactly an auspicious start, but they fixed that bug within a couple of months.

Downgrade that firmware and you'll be fine.

Will do.........................just getting my head round TAPS etc