AlexMJ, if not too late, big_marcelo has a Toppy for sale.
http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=53360
sorry about the link posting.

My Local Tandy has 1 left (display model), at the $199 price.
Is there anyway of checking wether they have the WD or Seagate drives other then hooking them up then going through the menu?
Presuming connecting it up is the only way, which I hope they'd let me do -- being a display model, where exactly do I have to go in the menu to retrieve HDD information?

Peekay,

I bought one yesterday (22/8) from Tandy Tuggerah $199 + $32 for additional 2 year warranty. They wouldn't do any deals. If you look at the top of the unit you can see the Seagate Logo on the hard drive through the grille.

Not set up yet. Will report back.

Thanks to all at this forum, I've been a long time lurker, very rare poster, and always enjoy reading the feedback and advice given.

Hi,
I just ordered one of these from the tandy website, $199 was just too good to pass up.
Hopefully mine will have the seagate drive:) but if not then a suitable drive could be this
Seagate drive at scorptec if you want the specialise drive.

I will let everyone know how it goes after i get it anyway.

So the drives in these units are pata drives not sata? Sorry for the noob question!!!!

I don't know if there are any PVRs with SATA drives, as far as I have seen previously they have all been PATA

Hello all!

I recently purchased one of these, couldn't say no at this price!

The major downside for me is no component output I can live with that, although I'm basically restricted to composite connections in order to keep video quality on my other components in my home theatre (no S-Video on HD TV)

However, I've found through a link on this site these: CYPRUS RGB TO Component Converter, available for $125 delivered.

http://www.australiandigitaltv.com/accessories/rgbcomp.htm

Has anyone bought/used one of these?

Do you think it would be worth buying? (Seeing as the DSE was $100 off the a couple of days after I started looking at cheap PVRs I figured it might be a goer!)

It still works out to about $150 cheaper than the cheapest Toppy, which only has an 80Gb HDD.

Well, just got back from Tandy with my own unit

Interesting bit of info ... apparently Topfield look after the warranty on these.

Just to let you know.. that HDD is designed for Security systems.. not PVRS.. it was the one i was going to get..

It just different as it has been tested for 24/7/365 operation..

The PVR drive from seagate is the DB35 series drives.. but i cant find them in australia

It gets 100 days off each year, must have been designed by a government department

ahh buggar it... you know what i meant

but yes government employees are bums

Yep




Can't argue that

What sort of USB transfer speeds are people getting with the german xdrive version of the of the download software?

1-2 Mb/s sort of sucks. USB 2.0 should be capable of 400 Mb/s.

Think you are mixing your bits and your bytes... USB2 should give 480Mbits/s, which is something like 40Megabytes/s with real world limits. Everything on the USB bus shares that, even a standard mouse uses about 1Mbit/s. Extreme cable length (5m) coupled with extreme poor quality (no logo certification) will degrade this more.

I'd still expect something in the 10's of Mbytes/s, although many other (pricier) units dont seem to use the USB2 full spec while others do (not naming any names ) Now not actually having used one of these, i'd be interested to know what it really is. At $200-odd it's a very tempting 2nd/'for the parents' unit (even if it only works "265" days a year )

I was under the impression that these came out of a toppy factory from an earlier post some months ago on this forum but not sure which thread. cheers alan

The warranty leaflet with my unit (purchased 22/8) states Digital Products Group Help Line Ph.1300366193 web (nothing on this site, still under construction).

Set it up last night, works well. SBS doesn't lose signal in the evening as much as my KAON does. Usually have to revert to analogue TV in the evenings for SBS.

I tried to set up the DSE unit to watch analogue TV (pressing TV/STB button) but this unit does not have a "Loop Through" and I didn't want to split my signal to the PVR and TV.

Has anyone done this?

I set up RF Out on the DSE unit which I get on the TV but it is the digital picture.

Has anyone uploaded firmware allowing mp3 playback? I understand the default firmware doesn't support this?

Regards,

Mobilenet

I get between 1.9Mb/s and 2Mb/s with a 2m cable, using the Xdrive (German) version of the software. Slow, but at least it's reliable, which wasn't the case with the original HC_USB version.

Personally, I think this PVR is the current bargain grab. The only significant problems are: 1. Short playback freezing (approx 20 secs) if it has the WD brand drive. 2. No weekday timer option. 3. No analog signal loopthrough (if that matters to you).


Pretty sure it's manufactured by Homecast. Their website has a STB that looks identical, but apparently, you can install a hard disk in it.
Topfield indeed handle the warranty work, but don't expect any result if you complain about the freezing issues....

Does anyone know if this box supports closed captions (subtitles)? If so, do they also work on recorded programs?

Lolz I just ordered one online and now I found out that it does not have a component output What Im gonna do now hehe live with composite ?? Any idea guys?

Svideo ?

These look like the bargain buy of the year. Anybody know of Melbourne shops with stock?

Tandy Westfield have one left. But I think it has a WD drive. Ask for Joe.

Sorry for my noobie question but if I go for SVIDEO then what I am going to do with the sound? Can I output it to the tv as well?

I called tandy camberwell (sold last one today), chaddie, cheltenham all out of stock. Online store is the only option and since it is only $15 delivered to your doors not much to complain. I am gambling since not sure it is a WD or Seagate HDD. If I run into the freezing problem then would probably send it back and claim a refund.

There is a separate S-video output as well as and right/left audio RCAs, so you send both s-video and the audio to your TV. There is an s-video, composite, and scart cable in the box. (I just bought one today, peaked through the grill and saw the magic word "Seagate".) Hard to believe that my very first STB (NOT PVR) cost over $500...

Thanks venus, just wondering which store you bought it from mate?

There is an adapter available, http://www.australiandigitaltv.com/accessories/rgbcomp.htm

I haven't got one, but there's pretty positive feedback on them.

I do want one

Indooroopilly in Brisbane. And if you check my gender (in my profile, I mean...), you'll see I'm not actually a "mate"

I am also in Brisbane and put one on layby - it was a Seagate drive model (I made sure before they put it away)!! Got mine from Tandy at Brookside Shopping Centre at Mitchelton and they still had more left as of Thursday (yesterday). The staff member reckons they were making a loss on each one?

omg i feel so stoopid lolz. at least sud think twice consider your nickname.

btw $119 for a converter is a bit grr.. too much for a $199 pv dont u think?

This is just such good value ($199) that I just had to buy one even though I don't watch a lot of TV and just need it to record from ABC2. I haven't opened it yet so crossing fingers HDD is a seagate. The one on display had a WD drive which is not too inspiring. What is the problem that I'm looking for? Stutters in playback from recorded material or what?

Just to let you know, I've worked for many years as a computer tech and have personally owned over 20 hard drives in various PCs and laptops. So far, EVERY SINGLE SEAGATES DRIVE I'VE OWNED HAS FAILED WITHIN 2 YEARS! Four 3.5" HDs (a 250MB, 1.2GB, and two 100GBs) and one 40GB 2.5" HD (from my laptop).

Every other brand I've owned has (so far!) worked perfectly and continues to do so. These include: Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital, Fujitsu, Samsung and Conner. (Or is it Connor? I can't remeber and I can't be bothered fishing it out of my box of old computer gear just to get the spelling right!)

So beware - don't automatically blame the Western Digital HD. I'd rate them as 1,000% better than ANY Seagate drive!

- Mav

I thought it is the CE that counts ? BTW if anyone looking for cheap HDD may consider www.msy.com.au. I picked up some real bargains from there. Sadly they dont do delivery

/sarcasm on
Just so everyone else knows I've worked in IT for 15yrs and presently own 15 hard drives (lost count of how many I've owned over the years).
/sarcasm off

And the only drives which have failed on me are crap IBM/Hitachi DeathStars (have IBM settled that Class Action Suit). I have two Seagate 40gigs from 2002 which are still going strong.

In fact, just looking around, I have a equal number of WD vs Seagate drives but I'd rate the Seagates higher.

Also maxtors can be crap. At work we have Acer desktops, and all those desktops got there maxtor drives changed out due to very high failure rates. We're talking around 1000 desktops.


Back on topic, thanks to this thread I'm now a happy owner of a Seagate driven DSE PVR (picked it this arvo). Great unit, so easy to learn and use. shame about the lack of quality outputs, but surprisingly S-Video doesn't look so bad on the HD plasma.

Just depends on your own experience. We have dozens of PCs in the office (software developers) and every Western Digital and Maxtor hard drive we ever had has failed and no others.

Agreed, I've used a few hundred Seagate drives and have had minimal failures, any brand can have failures regardless

Yep I have never had a Seagate fail on me either. I have had Ibm, Hitachi, W. Digital and Maxtor all fail though. Never had a Samsung so cant comment on them. Currently have all seagate drives in my 4 pcs at home (10 hard drives in total) and generally from my experiences recommend Seagate to firends when I build their pc's for them. Of course I know people who have had Seagate drives fail though. It is just one of those things where peoples experiences and skill/luck in using them can vary a lot. All brands CAN fail of course but I would recommend Seagate.
BTW has anyone pulled one of the drives (to read the serial number) and then gone to the Seagate web site to check what warranty you get with this drive (to see whether you could get the 5 year warranty normally offered by Seagate) if it were to fail?

Maybe the problem with the WD drives is the acoustic management feature. Many WD drives support this. There is a utility on the WD website somewhere that allows you to trade speed for noise level. Maybe the drive needs to be sped up a notch. I found this sometime ago with a WD drive I retrofitted to a Topfield. It involves hooking up the drive to a PC to do this. Might be worth a shot for anyone with WD drive problems. A bit of a long shot but it maybe worth a try.

Connor, haven’t seen one of those since pre 1GB days – used to be the best RLL and MFM drives however they lost it with IDE and never built a workable ATA drive then were gobbled up by seagate

For anyone who is interested, I talked to Tom at the Box Hill DSE store today and he said DSE would price match Tandy as long as they continued to have stock at $199.

A quick comment about my last post, then I'll get back on topic...

Having read the responses to my previous post, it seems to have sent this thread into a argument over which HD brand is best. I'll admit that I got a little bit hot under the collar, but I felt that a previous post unfairly attacked the WD HDs just because they were made by WD. I'll admit that there quite possibly is a problem with the WD HD in this DSE PVR, but I think it is because the manufacturers used an unsuitable TYPE of HD, NOT an unsuitable brand. I reckon these PVRs would absolutely scream if you whacked a 10,000 RPM WD Raptor drive in them, but you'd only get a couple of hours recording time due to the small size of these drives (although it seems WD now has a 150GB Raptor available). I also get the feeling that if you put ANY BRAND non-consumer electronics (CE) drive in the DSE PVR, you'd probably get the same problems people are attributing to the WD.

I used to swear by Seagate, and regularly recommended them to customers when they wanted to upgrade their drives. Each time I upgraded my personal drives, I’d buy a Seagate and install the smaller drive I was replacing in a family member’s PC. But then three of these Seagates (in three different PCs) failed in quick succession, and none of them were particularly old (all <3 years old). My newest Seagate failed a little over 1 year after purchase. I replaced that with two SATA drives (a WD2000JB 200GB drive and a WD3200KS 320GB drive) that have both been working perfectly for a couple of years so far. Then last month my laptop HD (another Seagate) failed. It was replaced under extended warranty with a Fujitsu, which is SOOO much quicker and quieter than the Seagate it replaced. I used to swear by Seagate, now I swear AT them. This is just my PERSONAL opinion, and I readily admit that ALL brands will have their share of faulty drives, INCLUDING WD.

And now, back on topic...

I bought one of these PVRs today for $199. I DID try to find one with a Seagate HD (yes, I know that sounds contradictory after what I've said above, but I was trying to go for one with a CE drive, even if it was a Seagate). Unfortunately, the only models in the three Tandy/Dick Smith stores that had the Seagate drives in them were the display models. Knowing what sometimes happens to display models, and that I had 14 days to try the WD-equipped model, I thought I’d buy a WD model anyway.

The PVR installed without any problems, but I did lose sound when Timeshifting using the Pause button. Using FWD/RWD via the < and > buttons got the sound back. I reformatted the HD (which only took a couple of seconds, so it was obviously only a quick format), then spent the rest of the day recording on both tuners while watching one of the programs I was recording from the start. So far, I’ve had the machine-gun type stutter on two occasions earlier in the day, but I’ve since watched about 5 hours of recorded programs and haven’t had any further problems. I haven’t tried Timeshifting via Pause since reformatting the HD. I should give it another go! I’ll post any further problems or fixes that work as they arise.

Overall, I’ve been very impressed with it so far. If the problems people have been talking about can’t be fixed easily, I may consider taking it back, but at $199, I may just learn to live with them!

- Mav

Even 5400pm drives are more than capable, the data capture is only around 3gb per hour of recording

Im waiting for my unit to be delivered. Praying that it would be the seagate model.

Just wondering, spoke to a friend today while browsing the stock at DSE carnegie. He said that this DSE unit can record analog signal as well. This seems to be in contrast with what I learnt from this forum. Can ne1 confirm please?

He is either confused or talking about some other product, they capture the data stream only, they cannot encode video which is what would be required

I purchased one of these units today and so far am very happy with it !

I went to Tandy at Chatswood Westfield who had only the display unit left but they advised me the Dick Smith in the same Westfield had 3 in stock. After showing the Dick Smith staff the print out of the item from the Tandy website they matched the price (an instant mark down of $299 to $199!). On asking the Tandy staff if they could do any better on the price they stated it was not possible as they were already selling the unit under their cost price of $350. Also took out the 2 year warranty extension for $34.95. Dick Smith also have a 14 day no questions return policy which is a nice touch.

May I ask if it is the WD or Seagate HDD model?

And thanks for clearing the issue about capturing analog signal

Yes it has a Seagate HDD. From what I can see through the top cover I think its one of the models described here:
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support.../100390003b.pdf

Really? The pdf you've linked describe SATA drives, with model numbers ending in SCE, mine ends with ACE, and is PATA.

Would be interesting to see if infact yours is an ST3160212SCE

Hi the code I can see is ST3160212ACE

No they are PATA try this link. Note the 160gig, the one used by this and quality PVRs like Toppy 5000s, is the largest with 2 Mbits cache. Large cache memory, fast spindle speed = greater resources and more heat generated etc. A PC drive like the WD raptor is coded to error correct until corrected, or the allocated time has expired, where as these drives drop errors sooner. PVRs dropping a few frames may not be even detectable by the viewer. In any case with a <300mpis software needs to be tightly coded and developed in harmony with the HW especially harddrives. Variations in HW can be problematic if not fully accounted for. Unlike the general PC industry these devices are not open architecture and not designed with a worse worse philosophy.

I bought 2 of 5 units left at Tandy, Macquarie Centre in Sydney on Thursday.

They have the WD drive and I have had the 15-20 second freeze on playback when recording 2 other programs at the same time. I haven't yet noticed the problem when playing back material if I'm not simultaneously recording or if I'm recording only 1 program. I have the thing sitting in front of my tv and it chatters like a madman when dual recording. But the second one I bought for my sister is much quieter.

I'm going to experiment with some 80GB HDDs I have laying around and I'll most likely end up getting the 250GB Samsung drive which MotoMan is using. It can be had for $70 here

http://www.itestate.com.au/products_detail...code=PD00004067

I'd be interested to hear from Motoman as to whether there have been any compatibility issues.