and apparently there is a delay on some parts required to finish the unit off. The guy from Topfield said that it would definitely not be available this financial year and possibly not until August/September.

He did say though, that there is a successor to the TF5000 coming out in the next month or so. He could not give me any details except that it would have a larger HDD and some other goodies that would be well worth the wait.

Forgive me if this is old news.

this is not old news but it is very bad news.

well good news for the sd toppy getting an upgrade - I was sure this was going to happen given all the goodies on the new hd unit.

but bad very bad indeed to hear the delays on the new hd toppy.

Bugger.

I want an HD model to go with my HD projector. I can't really imagine what upgrades the current 5000 needs, seeing as how we can replace the HDD ourselves.

Sounds like the Aussie version of the UK TF5800PVRt model* will be released. Theirs has a 160GB HDD. What other "goodies" I don't know unless he is referring to it being modified for ICE. The UK 5800 has has MHEG (no use here, but hopefully ours will have MHP for future use, although I doubt it at this stage, seeing as it hasn't even been introduced here yet apart from the ABC's limited trial).


*The UK model was expected to go on sale next week.

How about a DVI/HDMI, Dsub or Component output?

DVI/HDMI/HDMI for SD LOL
Mind you, I guess there are a few DVD players out now that have chipsets that support upsampling. But there aren't going to be any major chipset changes for the Toppy, it would be silly, since the 7000 is coming (at some stage or another!)

Component for SD.... it does have component already.
Regards

double post

DVI can make sense if you have a panel display. I for one notice a visibly better picture from dvi (even on SDTV) on my plasma. That said I for one would not be giving up my dvi socket on the plasma to hook a toppy upto it. But can understand this might be a need for other people.

Nothing wrong with suggesting better connectivity on the toppy. I for one would appreciate either a rgb dsub or component output on it. And no the toppy does not have component output sockets on it - just scarts and s-video last time I checked.

Tony I can understand that with your loewe profil scarts on the toppy might be all you ever need but for others I'm sure better connectivity options on the toppy would be most welcome. They might never come as you say but this for me atleast would be most welcome.

The Topfield does support component, over the R,G,B conductors in the SCART connection, accessed by a very simple adapter, only $15 at most places, or using the Topfield supplied SCART-component cable! (Of course, component must be selected in the output menu).
But how many DVD players (SD MPEG decoders, just like the Toppy) have DSUB connections?
Remember, this is SD, so a DSUB/VGA connection will only give 15kHz output, which is not supported by 1/2 the projectors etc that have a HD15/dsub input!!
The only way to make it supported would be to put a de-interlacing engine in there, which would mean basically ripping the full guts out except the PSU and putting something else in (and then the SCART passthrough etc chipset would have to be ditched too, as it is only spec'd for normal SD PAL/NTSC too).
And de-interlacing video source material (no two frames from the same moment int time) looks terrible (normally rather than pumping out better resolution, they double the height of each interlaced field by doubling the lines, and send them out like that). And of course, what is the bet that the broadcast material is never flagged correctly and the de-interlacer is nearly always permanent stuck in crappy bob rather than take advantage of film mode (where every pair of frames is from the same moment in time, so weaving the fields together results in both better resolution and the 30kHz rate that VGA normally requires as its minimum at the same time).

Regards

Bugger... delays..

Oh well hopefully the "goodies" for the 6000 will include an ethernet port.

PS - It seems no one wants to be the first to release a HD PVR on the market.

No, no-one wants to be the first to release a *lemon* on the market.

I wonder if Topfield will have a stand at the Melbourne Home entertainment expo? Any one know?

After DGTEC took those honours for the first HD STB, can you blame anyone for not wanting to follow in thier footsteps?

I wanted to get a Toppy but require component output. I have only read reports about the crappy component out of the toppy even after the initial "fix" with no-one reporting good component output without resorting to buying an external RGB to Component converter for over 100 bux. I even ran a poll about it and found absolutely no-one reporting good component out without an expensive converter.

Now that the ABC has abandoned 1080i, I'm no longer interested in a HD recorder, but the improved 5000 might be just the ticket (here's hoping for an ethernet connection and genuine quality component connection out of the box)

Actually the native component is quite good it's just the that colour is over-saturated by about 2db. This is nothing that you cant fix by turning down the "colour" setting on your display.

I found that the RGB-Component Transcoders output was not as clean as the straight component but at least the colour balance was correct. The cleanness of the signal (via rgb-component) isn't noticable on CRT Tv's but I found it was very noticable on my HiDef Projector beamed @ a 90" Screen.

I have an early Toppy and have had it modded to fix the component output. Looks great on my 32" panel at detault settings. This is comparing it to the picture from my DVD player that does component natively.

As I understand it they have fixed the component output since April last year.

Rob

An official explanation

http://www.topfield-australia.com.au/news.asp?newsID=24

Bugger!

Ahem. [Clears throat, repeatedly]

Ahem.


"What's that? Who had a go at Santa for the term "Mirage7000"?"

"Whats that, Skip? Santa was right?"


Santa Knows Best

By the way, I also stand by my bolder prediction that there may end up being little use for such a device* by the time its released, with the dismal state of affairs in FTA ATM...






______________________________________
*1 Machine : 2 HD tuners : Too high price

What a shame that the chief apologist for Topfield is on a sabbatical. Under normal circumstances we would have a good old ding dong flame war going by now.

Do you thing there is any coincidence in the timing of the sabbatical and the release of this news?

Particularly with the dismal state of HD in particular which is treading backwards. How many HD stations are we down to - two isn't it? Well that was last week, I haven't checked this week!

LOL! Good one.
I have to admit I was shocked to read Jai's message, last I heard not that long ago was that he was putting a rocket up the Koreans to get it sorted...
Damn.

I'm sort of hoping this delay will have two effects.

1. Topfield price the unit more aggressively to compete with the unit(s) already on the market.

2. My wife will have longer to get over the purchase of my projector before having to accept yet another purchase in the ongoing saga of the HT room.

Santa I understand your point about the dismal state of our HD network, but when watching a 110" image I'd take even a minor improvement of picture quality over some of the SD broadcasts. That said, (and I've commented previously) there are some SD broadcasts that are superb (Lost, Desperate Housewifes) and others that are atrocious (Medium, Survivor).

If all SD broadcasts were the quality of Lost I'd be happy with never upgrading to HD.

He got there, had a play with the 7000 then they broke the news to him.
They have to start the development program from scratch again with a new chip set.
What can you do?
Blame Direct TV in the US.

You are kidding me, right? This is the 2nd chipset change then!

any clues guys on whats behind the chipset changes - supply? capability? stability ?

Look it is only my opinion but I would guess that the "chipset change" is a furphy. We can surely surmise that the only component which could cause this much unforeseen and drastic delay is software? There must be some absolute show-stopper bugs in there. Of course Topfield would be reluctant to admit this as they would want to avoid any negative sentiment about the units ongoing reliability.

Well, that's made up my mind.

I was waiting for ethernet functionality, but I'm going to go with the Toshiba HDD-J35 and buy a Pioneer 920H from the UK instead. I held on for three months, but this is rediculous.

If the predictions people are making that the unit was going to be close to the $2000 mark, it makes the 7000 unattractive anyhow.

I still suspect copyright issues/obstruction ... There are too many similarities [to my mind] between the simultaneous and ongoing delays with Topfield and Toshiba given completely different units/developers.

Will be interesting to see if Strong and Teac are also delayed in parallel .........

Not really. It's quite likely that they use the same basic chipset from the same manufacturer internally.

Not that easy. The Toshiba keeps getting delayed as well. I'd really like to have a play with it though...

You know the instance I saw this topic I wondered how long it would take Santa to reply, nice to see he didn't disapoint

On a side note, could the delay be partly due to wanting to add better "copy protection", we have after all signed the US-FTA and we know they are all about protecting (themselves).

Still, lets face it, with only 2 HD channels left, does it really matter. And to be honest, wasn't it as much the ethernet port, linux OS, etc, etc that was just as much wanted in the 7000 then the ability to display HD streams (remember the 5000 can record them anyway).

At the end of the day, my 5000 will do me till it dies, or our FTA TV stations do, whichever happens first (right now I'll put $5 on our current TV stations, in its current state/configuration will die first, any takers

Television in the current format probably only has 3 - 5 years left. After that most "visual entertainment" will be streamed via broadband Internet on a subscription or pay per view type basis. The viewing screen will just effectively be a monitor and selection of "channels" will be via a PC or some new generation of STB that will effectively be a PC by another name (the PVR5000 is the first stage in this style of device). Already there are at least ten devices in Australia that are designed to stream audio and video from PC's (Netgear, Linksys, Pinnacle and others all have products). The only hold ups are the lack of Broadband speed (thanks again Telstra) and arguments over digital rights.
IMO the Topfield 7000 is really only going to be an expensive toy with a very limited shelf life. It may NEVER eventuate anyway.

You have to remember the chipset is what makes the box run, this was the second chipset the 7000 was developed on which did the job, the manufacturer of that chipset just signed a multi million dollar deal with Direct TV in the US to supply this chipset for there box, the plant is now running at full capacity and they have dropped all there other customers.
The 7000 is still there but the process has to be started again.
Topfield Australia has just lost a huge amount of revenue from this, if there was any other way the 7000 would have been released.
Watch the Topfield site they have another range of products not to far away.

I'd expect that would be grounds for a lawsuit from Topfield.

I'm thinking I might just buy a HD card for my PC and run that to my projector.

Im seriously thinking of just spending $2k on a DVDO iScan™ HD+ Scaler instead, then all my Input sources will have a better PQ on my PJ.

DVDO iScan™ HD+

[/quote]
Look it is only my opinion but I would guess that the "chipset change" is a furphy.
[/quote]

I could readily believe the chipset story. I work in a totally different industry, but have seen a similar thing where a certain component just can't be sourced by the contract manufacturers and suddenly everything is up in the air re: supply.

In that case, a different chip had to be obtained - which forced the engineers back to the design board to check the timings of the new component etc.

Certainly a balls up in the management of the supply, but it does happen

VERY NICE!

It can even accept a RGB+sync from the toppy 5000 and despite being an American unit, it can also accept 576i & 576p inputs.....

Only down sides are the RS232 port for upgrades and the price US$1500!

Yeah, I have 3 devices that could benefit from it - my DVD, PVR & PS2 that are all on component (i dont care about my vcr it's rarely used) and Im trying to decide whether to buy the Scaler to improve all my gear or by a Denon 2910 DVD + the HD Toppy PVR when it comes out? One of the nice things with it is that when I mount my PJ to the ceiling, I could just run a single DVI-HDMI cable thru the wall/ceiling and it'll send all the signals to my PJ Digitally @ 720p(my pj's native res). ah descisions!

And has customisable aspect ratio conversion! I think ABC should look at getting one of these to upscale 576i to 576p rather than go right up to 1080i then back to 576p as they are doing now and trashing the signal completely....
(yeah yeah, not broadcast quality yada yada).

From the specs, it only has 2 component inputs
Do you have an alternative output from one of your devices?
It has a Dsub passthorugh or DVI if your devices support it........

As for the VCR, you can connect more than 3 devices so why not connect the VCR via composite / S-video?

One of the nicest features of this device is that it allows for one-time scaling, the source device outputs at whatever the source material is provided in and the scaler converts and outputs in the display device's native format. Still it looks like this beast could use at least a couple more inputs, say another DVI/HDMI and a third component.

Cheers,
Peter

What happens to the inbuilt scaler on my projector i.e. will the IScan+ improve the picture further?
Darryl

Yeah good point, I'd just throw the PS2 back onto svideo as to be honest the difference is barely noticable.

Considering how rapidly things are moving to DVI/HDMI it would almost be worth holding of on AMP/Scaler/STB/PVR purchases for another 12-18 months till everything is DVI/HDMI. eg. From what I've heard, the next generation of Denon Amps should have full HDMI Switching.



because the scaler is configured to output your PJ's native Res, the scaler in your PJ is bypassed giving you a much better PQ. unfortunatly the on-board scalers for mst PJ's are only designed to be "good enuf" rather than "excellent".

Will call them on Tuesday.

They're also the agents for Plinius and I bought my amp in Sydney with their help.

Darryl

Tell me your joking.... With the HUNDREDS of Millions of dollars television networks have invested in transmitters, towers, microwave links and infrastructure to broadcast their content your telling us, with a straight face, that it all will be obsolete in 3-5 years time and delivery of content will be via the crappy internet....not likely- even in 20 years time.

I said "in the current format".
Television station owners and executives are going to have to make some radical changes over the next few years in the way they go to market because the market is deserting them in droves.

What evidence do you rely on when you claim the 'market is deserting them in droves'?

Not that I disbelieve you - I personally find that now I have to download my favourite shows (The West Wing etc) from the net as our networks are so atrocious with their programming.

I regularly write letters in to complain about this, but I've found no evidence indicate the 'market is deserting them in droves'. Perhaps if there was such evidence, they'd change their methods.

There have been numerous stories recently about audience demographics. The 20 - 30 yo audience no longer rely on Television as the source for news which means they are not being lead into the lucrative (from the TV point of view) mid evening timeslot. Overall viewer numbers for TV news have dropped substantially. This is causing increasing disquiet amongst advertisers (what am I getting for the money I'm paying?). There is now worry that the current teenage market may abandon television almost entirely as they age (next 3 - 5 years).
Keep an eye out for these type of stories. They are usually fairly well hidden for some strange reason.

Not bad points, Im only just 30 and I rarely watch ad's as I almost never watch live tv. most of my fav Sci-Fi shows are dl'd direct from the USA and the rest are captured by my PVR.

The networks show scant regard for their "customers" so it's little wonder that this sort of behaviour is becoming the norm!