Sat
May
13
2006
Geek Heaven
I’ve finally taken the plunge and joined the ranks of owners of my first PVR – A Topfield TF5000PVRTMPB – otherwise known as a 5000 Masterpiece.
This device is a TV geeks dream come true. I confess to enjoying watching TV. Always have done as a means to relax. I probably watched too much as a child and teenager, but these days it’s more limited by work and family commitments.
I have quite eclectic tastes – from high quality, mind-challenging drama on the ABC or SBS, through to quality documentaries, and one into the mindless entertainment that the commercial channels serve up.
The VCR was a gadget that was truly revolutionary in it’s day. I recall we rented our first couple of VCR’s because the cost of buying them was too high.
But the PVR – especially one as powerful as the Toppy just redefines how we use and view TV from the ground up.
Things that impress:
- Reception. We are in an excellent reception area. No question. We get great analogue reception, with the exception of SBS, which is a bummer. Could probably improve it with a separate UHF antenna. But no longer need to. The digital reception on all channels is absolutely outstanding.
- Twin Tuners. Meaning that we can record two programs on different channels at the same time (Three, with the DVD Recorder also connected!), while watching a program recorded earlier. This is just great for coping with the tastes of five adults living in the same house. The tuners are SD (Standard Definition) as opposed to HD (High Definition), but very few programs broadcast at the moment are in true HD, and we don’t have an HD tv either.
- Hard disk based. Nothing new, I know, but new to us, and just so nice not to have to scrabble around looking for a tape or DVD that I can re-use. The 160Gb HDD in the Toppy will hold about 44 hours of SD tv. The HDD is also an industry standard drive and therefore upgradeable, so when the warranty runs out, I can drop a 300 to 500Gb HDD in if I wish.
- Pause/rewind live TV. This is magic. Working from home means I often get phone calls at all hours. An average night at home will mean 2-5 calls. I can just hit “REC’ and record the program I’m watching (assuming one of the tuners is free and not recording something else), but the Toppy has a feature called ‘Time Shift’ where the last hour of whatever channel(s) are viewed is recorded. So it’s like having an hour’s live TV buffer at your finger tips. Last night, I wanted to make a couple of espresso’s before watching ‘Rose and Maloney’. So, I hit ‘pause’, and then ten minutes later, clicked ‘Play’ and watched the whole thing at our leisure. If it was a commercial channel we were watching, we could have caught up with the live broadcast by zapping through the ad breaks. Now when the phone rings, I won’t miss something I was in the middle of.
- TAPS. That stands for ‘Topfield Application Programs’ These are small programs written by Toppy enthusiasts to enhance or modify the way the Toppy works out of the box. There are heaps of these, some free, some shareware.
- ICEtv This is the only Australian EPG, but it’s a beauty. Using the Toppy’s USB2 port or a wireless approach, a subscription to ICEtv will mean that a 7 day program guide for all channels will be uploaded automatically to the Toppy. So recording is a case of hitting the ‘Guide’ button on the remote, and scrolling through the program guide on screen. Touching another button sets up the system to record that program automatically. Weekly or daily programs can also be done automatically. A feature for recording whole series will be available soon too.
I could go on, but that should give you an idea of the ability of this device. Now I’m wondering how hard it is to write TAPS for it… Hmmm.
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And the price?
What do you mean by “a wireless approach”? Wi-Fi built in, but no Ethernet port?
So, the ICEtv – the thing I found useless with G-code was that the TV stations, even the ABC, don’t follow their published times, and the G-code didn’t compensate for that. Does ICEtv/the PVR record either side of the scheduled time?
Can you take shows recorded onto the HD and transfer them to another PC? You mention the USB, is that only to add external storage?
— Simon · May 13, 12:51 PM · #
Price? The Masterpiece is pretty pricey – around the $790+ area. The straight 5000 model with 96.5% of the same features is down around the high $600’s. Mine was a rare ‘seconds’ (brand new, but with a damaged box) at a substantial saving off that.
At the moment, the USB port serves (in it’s native state) to: update firmware, transfer TAPS, update ICEtv (or other free EPG’s) – all via an attached PC.
ICE market an ASUS wireless router with a heavily customised O/S, that will do all of those functions via your wireless LAN, seamlessly.
Other solutions have been tried (e.g. a USB > Ethernet adaptor), but apparently don’t work well. Future models of the Toppy are touted as having wireless capability built it.
ICEtv – Currently, ICE triggers the recording based on the info from the TV stations – which means it’s prone to the same issues as Gcode, etc. But the ICE TAP can be set up to record for x minutes longer than the programs advertised time, to catch the inevitable overruns.
A program-based schedule (as opposed to a time-slot schedule) is in beta, using signals via digital radio freqs, that the TV stations broadcast when programs start and stop. But the TV stations are not playing ball very well, and it’s unknown when this will come to pass.
Shows can be t/f to a PC via the ASUS router or the USB port. I believe a TAP is available to automatically schedule such wireless transfers, which would be cool to do when we are asleep.
I also have my standalone DVD Recorder attached via analogue composite video, but haven’t tried for quality yet.
— NeilA · May 13, 01:14 PM · #
Two more benefits:
1) You get an extra TV channel that’s not available on analogue: ABC2. There’s some good stuff on ABC2—especially concert videos.
2) And you know what, you can actually record two shows at once and watch another live (at the same time). The trick is, two of them have to be ABC and ABC2 (because these ar multiplexed into the same digital bitstream). It MAY even be possible to record three at once on this basis, but I haven’t tried…
Richard.
— Richard · May 15, 02:26 PM · #
Hey Richard,
Course I knew about ABC2! ;-)
And I knew we could record two shows simultaneously while watching a pre-recorded show, but can you watch a third live show? If so, using what tuner?
— NeilA · May 15, 02:31 PM · #
There is a trick, per the earlier comment. Two of the shows must be part of the same multiplex—so that you don’t NEED another tuner.
It caught me out one night when I was watching ABC2 while recording another channel. A timer was due to start on ABC, and I expected to get kicked off ABC2 when that happened. But I didn’t. The Toppy was recording one ‘channel’ from the ABC multiplex and I was watching another—both from the same tuner. I thought the recording had failed when I didn’t get kicked off ABC2 and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out just what was going on.
BTW, you ARE using JustEPG with ICE, aren’t you? It’s WAAAAAY easier to choose a program than with the standard ICE view.
— Richard · May 15, 05:20 PM · #
Ah! I see now you were talking about ABC/ABC2 ;-)
I haven’t loaded JustEPG yet, but have it here ready to go.
— NeilA · May 16, 05:32 AM · #
I just have this comment about DVD players. Why is it that now they are so cheap? It is because they make the so they may break and you have to buy another one. It cost more to get my DVD fixed than to buy another one. But here is the catch. I don’t want a new DVD. I just wan the one I have working. It cost me $119. Now it lasted several years before it broke then I bought one that cost $30. It broke after 3 months. Now I have a DVD my dad bought me it is new. So my point is the amount of money spent on a DVD player I would rather just get it fixed. But now you can’t find a fix it shop. They say buy a new one if you do. Now my VCR has never broken down. The VCR is a RCA brand.
— EDEN · Jun 6, 08:16 PM · #
Yeah, this ‘throw-away’ mentality is frustrating. I understand the economics of it, but it’s hard to come at tossing out equipment that has 98% of it in working order!
Don’t know what the solution is… :-(
— NeilA · Jun 7, 09:02 AM · #