Topfield Decoders

[Puncho]

Does anybody have any info about these Topfield Decoders are they as good as my mate is trying to tell me they are

TIA

[ding70]

http://www.topfield.co.kr/
hope this helps:

[BobBxB]

Depends on how great he is trying to tell you they are. Personally though. I gave the Hummie to the little lady and the Topfield is all mine.

[woollyfree]

Originally posted by "BobBxB"

Depends on how great he is trying to tell you they are. Personally though. I gave the Hummie to the little lady and the Topfield is all mine.

Do you have any problems at all with the Topfield?

I've heard mixed reports about their recording ability/quality.
I've an EmTech that seems to skip a frame or two every so often when playing back recorded files, but works perfectly when time shifting. :?

[BobBxB]

Woolyfree
I will try to post this again after it was lost with the changeover.
I am extremelly happy with the TF4000PVR. I have no frame losses that I can see in any recordings. I have always recorded shows and watched them later. As you can imagine the tapes wore out fairly regularly and the quality was anything from acceptable to utter crap (depending on how new the tape was) Now I can record up to about 32 hours of shows and watch them later. The quality is excellent. As good as the original.
There are a couple of minor things that I can live with as far as not being perfect.
1.... If you try to press too many controls one after the other you eventually get a black screen and a message saying the signal was lost. But if you time shift the signal is fine. Not sure whether this is in the STU or the CAM at the moment. Will figure it out one day.
2.... The remote control is not as easy to use as a Hummy. You have to press quite firmly to get it to respond. (this though is inherant in many remotes with quite a few buttons).
3.... The remote control to the STU will not react as fast as most. You need to have a delay between button presses. This is quite annoying at times.
4.... The recorded video cannot be replayed without the card in the box. This is only an observation. But, I think any recording could be decrypted prior to going to hard drive rather than decrypting every time it is viewed.
5.... Only 59 minutes of time shift. They could have put an indefinate time on it.
These though are the only complaints I have with it. All very minor. I still prefer it to the Hummy and if I need to Allcam I can do the CAM. The Hummy's main claim to Fame is that you can allcam the box. But you could put an Allcam Cam in it and it would do the same.
The TF4000 is my preferred box and I have no complaints about it.
In fact I love the fact that I can record up to 32 hours on a 40GB HDD. The recording time can be set to way above 100 hours. I never got to the highest figure before I gave up looking. I can record a few hours of shows and if I want to keep a 2 hour show from that for a while I can just copy record it. I can even do this in fast forward with no degradation. I can re-record a 2 hour show in less than 10 minutes.
With Time shifting I can tape an hour show in seconds as long as it is just finishing.
All in all though. It is the best recorder I have ever owned.
Hope all this helps with your decision.
Regards

[woollyfree]

Thanks BobBxB.
I did read it last time, but it's still good to see it here for others to see. I didn't know about the 59 minute time shift limit though, the emtech will do it as long as you like. ( Or should I say it seems that way, 1.5 hours the other night :wink: )