http://www.castel.com.au/toshiba/ProductDe...uctCode=HDD-J35

Currently looking into HD set top boxes.... is this the first one {Toshiba HDD-J35 HD SET-TOP BOX with HDMI RRP: $1,699.00} (what others are out there???) with the ability to store HD signals ?

Quote " 1st in the market with HDMI, Toshiba HDD-J35 with built-in 160GB Hard Disc Drive brings you the perfect digital solution for high and standard definition recording and playback. Such a large-capacity HDD provides great convenience of capturing many hours of high definition as well as standard definition broadcasting content with brilliant picture quality. "

would be good to hook up to the Toshiba LCD 37WL58 (HD) - HDMI RRP: $4,999.00 With HDMI x 2

http://www.castel.com.au/toshiba/ProductDe...ductCode=37WL58

Beware of the flawed J35. Magnificent when working. Bloody painful when playing up. Others are (supposed to be) coming soon.

Consider yourself warned!

Regards,

Mal.

As mal says, this units been around a while now (6 months+?). No one else has a HD PVR on the market in Oz. You can get better functionality from a SD PVR (the Topfield 5000 / MP) for around $750 and the pictures pretty damn good. But it is SD. Plenty of threads on the Toshi so do some searching and see what you think. As Mal says, other HD units are 'on the horizon' but they've been a long time coming. HD prices will all be $1500 odd and its a lot to pay for a slightly better picture. Be aware of two things with Oz TV:

1) Most HD TV broadcast is just SD TV that has been 'upscaled'. This is a slightly better picture than SD, but not enourmous. This will also change in time but we're talking several years.

2) HD broadcasts take up a lot of disk space. You can store twice as much SD on a drive than HD.

But if money is no object then the Toshi's not a bad buy.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

the toshi when it works is great.... if you don't mind fiddling with boxes, firmaware upgrades would be worth giving it a try ....

other SD recorders like the topfield and Humax work every time ... I have a toppy and its extremely reliable.

Hopefully the Toshi will become extremely reliable over time also - but its not yet.

There is a very recent firmware update on the J35 which Castel feels fixes the problems. I have ordered one, so here's hoping.

Keep hoping because no firmware in the world is going to make the J35 disk drive run cooler. In my expereince with this box, it runs far too hot and cooks it's own components. I've had several box replacements and main PC board replacements. My current box (the 3rd) is functioning fine right now and I have to say the picture quality and capabilities of this box are good. Even if I had a very beefed up Windows media centre I would be struggling to record up to two HD programs at once while watching a 3rd recorded one. Maybe that's why mine runs so hot!

DRizt, my advice is check other threads on this site about this box. If you're a touchy feely person you could be disappointed with the GUI and remote lay-out which are pretty shocking on the J35.

I'd agree with that, those few minutes a day are fantastic

Hi Peter,

Actually I believe the LG has been released, as someone said they purchased in VIC (sorry could not find the post). Also Teac are meant to have one coming out soon also.

JSmith :ph34r:

Hmm, rather quiet launch then . The LG webite still lists them as coming soon, so I gave LG a quick call.
Unfortunately they confirmed the units are still unavailable but will be released in mid February. I suspect the VIC 'purchaser' was confused?

BTW, Being a HDef afficionado, do anticipate getting one of these, or do you already have a HTPC or Toshi?

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[quote][quote][quote name='mattfitz' date='Jan 11 2006, 12:58 PM' post='326614']
Keep hoping because no firmware in the world is going to make the J35 disk drive run cooler. In my expereince with this box, it runs far too hot and cooks it's own components. [/quote][/quote]

I have installed a hard drive fan on top of the J35. Now it runs cold to warm depending on ambient temperature. Your right; the temperatures that the J35 normally runs at would cook its components - and would cause many of the problems that consumers have experienced. Mine now (for a couple of months) has not had problems - even the sound dropouts have reduced to maybe once a fortnight.

Nice work around, but for me the appliance should just work without home made add-ons. Other work arounds posted in the DBA forum are:
- Never place J35 into standby to avoid time sync and other problems.
- Resolder internal points in the J35 to avoid reboots
- Build a line isolator to improve resilience to outside factors
- Upgrade hard drive for quiter and cooler operation.

If I wanted a lab project I'd have built a Windows media centre on a PC or similar open source based equivalent. Then I would have a wealth of other benefits and flexibility which comes with internet connectivity and available PC components. But I bought an appliance and I expect it should just work as reliably as any STB in my home. I am now begining to think I may well have gone down the experimental media center track.

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I don't get you guys. Typical forums.

I have a J35 and a Toppy 5000 masterpiece. Both run hot. I don't sit there with a thermostat and check which one is hotter, but that is the case in most PVR's.

My Foxtel box runs hot.

I have the Toppy for my bedroom and have the J35 for the home theatre room. I had the Toppy first and enjoyed using it, but when it comes to watching HD, you can't state that SD is just as good.

I am running a Sim 2 Domino 30 and you cannot compare the picture of HD to SD. Your mad if you think there is not much diff.

I had a issue with the J35, but i have been patient and understand that anything that is brand new can have teething problems. I had spoken to a guy by the name of Jonathon on the Castel hotline and he had explained that the Toshiba was the first in the world to release a product like this. Even the yankees don't have this product available. He mentioned that America usually have the products and then it is seen in Australia within 3 to 6 months from release into USA. In the case of the J35, the teething prodlems are addressed here in Australia where other times, it is released in USA and they address these minor issues.

I kept hearing that Topfield is coming out with a 7000. It's now 12 months and this has not happened. I also noticed in a brochure that LG is releasing their one, that was back in October. Nothing yet.

As a antenna installer by trade, HD is a touchy issue. We must consider that the bit rate is correct and also the signial to noise ratio is spot on accoring to the standards of the DBA.

How many people by a product and don't even consider that their 20 or 30 year old antenna with crap cable may not handle these type of products.

When our mobile phone drops out, we blame the service provider and not the brand of phone. When we cannot log into our internet, we blame the service provider and not the modem. Why blame only Toshiba and not the service provider?

At least Toshiba is working on it all the time and the guy i spoken to in Castel was really helpful. They did not give me the flick. Instead they organised a replacement as soon as the latest V73 was available. Aparently it is now on their website too. Give people a chance that continue to try and address things and not ignore them.



That's my dummy spit.

You're doing better than me. My emails to Jonathan were ignored! and detailed faxes so ignored.

Yes this is new "bleeding" edge technology, but Castel have in my opinion being less than honest in dealing with this.

If you want to use the public as beta testers fine, but be honest and compensate accordingly.

If I got it for $1000 with Castel explaining that this was new and I might get a few problems, then OK.

Castel have ignored me, not the other way.

By the way I just love having to send it interstate for upgrades. Why no local support in Sydney?

Regards,

Mal.

I agree with Mal. After reading how Jonathan was the man to speak to etc I called and asked to speak to him a couple of days after getting it and finding it didn't work (my first box barely worked at all and had zero sound). Not only was he totally unhelpful (IIRC his advice was try another antenna and return it to the retailer) but he came across as totally disinterested and borderline rude. Perhaps I just caught him on a bad day. The only person I've spoken to at Castel (and I've spoken to several) that was somewhat helpful was Vin (I think that was his name).

I'd also debate the cutting edfge technology thing. Yes there aren't many PVRs around but broken down there's nothing new about them, only the application. I think I've mentioned it before but I used to work for a consumer electronics manufacturer (not mentioning names). I saw my first STB (wasn't called that back then) about 8 years ago. Admitedly it was a protoype but it worked (mostly). Hard disks and computers have been around even longer. So why is it such a big deal for a multi million dollar international company to combine the two?

It's been more than 6 months since I bought mine. Yes there's been some imporvement in that time but for the most part my problems have been ignored and to make matters worse it's still not at a point that if I were responsilbe for it would want it released to market.

It's my own fault for not researching the product as i usually would but as it was the only one on the market I didn't see the point. Stupid I now realise. Thankfully I found out just how far Toshiba had fallen before I laid out $10k on displays. That was going to be Toshiba stuff no questions asked but after my experience with the J35 that money went to Panasonic instead.

FWIW I have on other STB and a HTPC with digital tuner card and neither of these (both running off the same antenna) have any issues what so ever so don't tell me it's not the box at fault. Further my retailer tells me that virtually every J35 they've sold has come back at least once.

On top of that they've had more than 6 months to fix it but little progress has been made. There's been a rumour that they'll be releasing another model and you can bet that if that happens what little interest they have in supporting the J35 will disappear.

I still intend to return mine when I get a chance. I'm very busy with several projects and travelling a lot so I don't know exactly when that'll be (I'll be back in Melb in a few weeks, I'd love to take it down with me and throw it through their front window) but for now I contend myself with posting my experiences with the J35 on various forums. I'm in a position where I spend a lot of time online waiting for things in the real world. As such I'm very active on numerous forums and every time the subject of "What STB should I buy?" I've been there with my experiences with the J35. Hopefully it'll save a few people from making the same mistake and buying Toshiba products. If Castel lift their game, start paying attention, responding and actually get it fixed then I'll be happy to post those experiences as well but I believe fluro green pigs will fly before that happens.

I have been dealing with Jonathan Peart at Castel for a couple of weeks now as I have bought a demo 57VW9UA tv from them, plus a J35, all due to arrive tomorrow. I have to say he couldn't have been more helpful throughout the process.

I hope I'll be able to report positively on the J35 but admit that I'm nervous after reading this forum.

Umm, as far as signal to noise goes, there is no difference between HD and SD. In fact, they are muxed together, you get errors on one and it will likely also affect the other. So you can't say that "HD is a touchy issue" which kind of implies it is more touchy than SD. This is wrong. Now if you had of said "DVB-T is a touchy issue", or "digital TV reception is a touchy issue" then I would agree.
Regards

Since there seems to be only 1 HD PVR on the market, could one assume that it's a very difficult technology to get right? I'm looking forward to reading reviews of the LGs when they arrive.

Does anybody know: can you just connect just 1 tuner on the J35 if there are problems trying to use 2? My plan is: if I do have problems with it, the 1st thing I'll do is get my signal checked out. The manual is very specific about the actual strengths for the J35 to work properly.

In your opinion, is there any need for the antenna to have an earth connection? I had a digital antenna specislist install a new "digital" antenna to try to improve my J35 problems. The only testing I saw him do was hook up another SD STB which demonstrated to me that I could receive digital transmittion. From what you have said it seems that a more scientific approach would be better which includes a singal to noise and signal strength test. I don't know if new coax was installed or what type of cable should be used.

If I'm unsure about my antenna installation, do you know of anyone in the antenna industry who offers an assesment service which looks at cabling, bit rate, signal to noise ratio etc. Ideally a written report would be provided which I can use when communicating to Castel to elimitate reception issues out of the equation once and for all. I live in the Melbourne metro area.

Reasonable conclusion, but lots of people have a couple of HD tuners in their PC recording everything quite happily. Why the multinational's research departments can't wrap it up in a single dedicated plastic box is any ones guess.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

Trying to get the heat out without making noise is the tricky part I think. I spent fairly big bucks on the best and quietest HTPC I could get, but it still makes noise. I'm thinking about taking the top cover off to see if that helps......

I got my J35 yesterday and so far it is doing as it says. Getting 98-99% signal strength on all channels.

Early days, I realise.

any unknown releases yet on a PVR that records HD television?

Must be made to break those toshi's had a 23a that cooked itself. $350 odd to replace the mainboard

I'm not sure about "unknown" as such, but TEAC, LG, and Topfield are all due to release HD PVR's this year.

JSmith :ph34r:

Last we heard the Topfield HD PVR has been down-spec'd to a HD STB, so you can cross them off the list for 2006 I reckon.

How many timer recordings can be scheduled?

I assume weekly etc recordings can be set up?

Don't know if there is a limit to the number you can have scheduled. I must have had nearly twenty in ratings time last year.

Can record - once only, weekly and daily, but not Mon-Fri

Not being able to record Mon-Fri on the J35 is a real pity as I would have thought it was a logical thing to have. Hopefully they will fix this in the next firmware update.

They have bigger fish to fry in the next firmware upgrade.

HELP

I have lost sound on my HDD J35 for SBS and ABC. Is anyone else experiencing this at the moment?? It started last night and continues tonight. I have V71.

Cheers

Kyriacos,
I have had similar trouble with V71.
I find I loose sound every now and then on SD (MPEG) broadcasts but am ok with digital. I find that pulling the power plug out (at the back of the unit) and plugging back in fixes the problem. See how you go.

I found out about this set-top box that is a high definition PVR. It is the Motorola DCT 6412 HDTV Dual Tuner PVR Comcast DCT6412. Is it available in Australia? Anyone know about it? And will it work in Australia?

From what I understand Australia's Digital TV standards differ to those of the US so I would say this unit won't work here, but open to anyone to dispute this.

Nope, not for Oz this one.

Its actually a lot like the Foxtel IQ. It will only work with cable connections to a PAYTV company - the PAYTV company actually enables the PVR capabilities of the box (like Foxtel don't let you record certain movies). Glancing through the forum it would seem to be even less reliable than the Toshiba J35 we do have here. No idea of the OS cost but it does look pretty swish.

Also its a good indicator of why I don't think HD PVRs are going to be popular for a while. The 120G drive will only hold about 15 hours of HD recordings. In that case most users will probably end up recording 90% of there stuf in SD anyway.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

In that case Toshiba should be informing customers that the box is still in its beta testing phase.

Most Joe Average customers would expect to go into Hardly Normal and buy a finished product. Not a work in progress!