What's happened to the Topfield Forum?

Started by mikeathome, May 06, 2009, 10:07:12 AM

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austini

Quote from: tonymy01 on May 11, 2009, 10:01:39 AM
Does the Beyonwiz DP-P1 have the features you need?  It is a more substantial number of features than the Toppy, but more reliable it seems, especially for its core function, as a PVR.

Thanks for your reply.

Trouble is the Beyonwiz is a bit pricey for us.

I will give the Toppy one more try and see what happens.

Cheers - Gordon

tonymy01

People are getting the P1 for less than $600 now quite often.
Regards
Tony

Beyonwiz DP-S1 & Topfield 5K (using PerlTGD to upload ICE EPG/timers for the 5K, normal ICE interactive for the Wiz).

JPP

#17
As the Toppy forum is still "down", I thought that I may as well just add my tid bit here re my TF7100 PVR purchase today. I was going to buy one way back, but the many issues with this PVR until the last FW made me hold off. Bought one for under $600 (and I don't mean $599) at the Good Guys here in Sydney. I don't want to start a best buy thread, so I'll just leave it at this.

One other reason for buying a non Freeview PVR is that IMO these beasts will run out in the not too distant future. Even if manufacturers don't have to drop their non freeview compliant models if they want to sell other FreeView compliant models, volume will dictate that it's just not worth their while to support multiple platforms. I just couldn't live without ad skipping and the inability to transfer recordings to PC. These restrictions are IMO what FreeView is really all about.

As to the future of ICETV, that's a whole different can of worms. Perhaps they will continue to provide this excellent service to all of us that have non FreeView PVRs and also use the ICETV Remote functions - something I certainly wouldn't like to be without.
Phil.
Beyonwiz T2, DVDO Duo Video Processor

Vortical

Quote from: JPP on May 12, 2009, 10:57:48 AM
As to the future of ICETV, that's a whole different can of worms.

Perhaps an IceTV PVR may be on the cards if the Non Freeview PVR's supply suddenly dries up?

JPP

Now that's a good bit of lateral thinking  :).
Phil.
Beyonwiz T2, DVDO Duo Video Processor

csutak40

Quote from: austini on May 11, 2009, 10:03:26 AM
Hi again,

I finally got through on the phone this morning.  Apparantly they were having problems with their phones.

Support assistance was great I must say.

So back out to Harvey normal to pick up a third unit and will keep my fingers crossed.

Gordon
I'm glad you got through, but as much as it pains me to say it (I own a 5000 Toppy and LOVE it) I think you should look at replacing it with a different brand.  I am yet to meat anyone that is happy with the newer Toppies.  Someone I know, had their unit sent to Sydney, got it back, they updated the firmware while they had it, but it died again in a week.  BTW, is it true that these units reformat the hard drive during a firmware update?  Another friend complained about that to me.  Sounds unbelievable to me!  ::) All my friends that I talked into buying a Toppy hate me now.  :'(
Cheers,
Judy
Last Update Dec 9 2020; Beyonwiz V2, T2,

JPP

I hope I will have better luck Judy. If the latest FW doesn't behave as flawlessly as my Wiz does atm, it'll go back like a flash.

Btw, it does seem that upgrading FW reformats your HDD. I hope that this will not continue to be the case with future FWs - I believe the disk format was changed a few FWs ago and anyone upgrading from an old (3 or more FWs ago), will loose their HDD data.
Phil.
Beyonwiz T2, DVDO Duo Video Processor

craig.baldie

Quote
I'm glad you got through, but as much as it pains me to say it (I own a 5000 Toppy and LOVE it) I think you should look at replacing it with a different brand.  I am yet to meat anyone that is happy with the newer Toppies.  Someone I know, had their unit sent to Sydney, got it back, they updated the firmware while they had it, but it died again in a week.  BTW, is it true that these units reformat the hard drive during a firmware update?  Another friend complained about that to me.  Sounds unbelievable to me!  ::) All my friends that I talked into buying a Toppy hate me now.  :'(
I have had a 7100 since about September last year and have been through a few firmware updates but i have never had any problems as big as I've read elsewhere (touch wood).
My IceTV has worked great apart from a few hiccups which i believe were on the IceTV end anyways.
Yes the latest firmware did require a format of the hard drive but it wasnt too hard to transfer the records to an external drive before applying the update and then back to the unit after updating. Maybe they forced the format with the update to try and eliminate problems that people seem to be having.
Overall I love my Topfield - best $700 i have ever spent!

Vortical

#23
Quote from: craig.baldie on May 12, 2009, 10:18:52 PM
updating. Maybe they forced the format with the update to try and eliminate problems that people seem to be having.
Your right on the money there, that is exactly why they forced the hdd format with the March firmware release (20090317.upd).
Firmware changelog item 4 states the following
4. Changed : Application data in flash memory is moved out for stability.
   - Warning : This feature requires user to format the HDD.


It came up in beta testing and we were advised it was needed to stabilise the machine.  And sure enough problems on the forums became few and far between since this firmware was released and implemented.

I beleive the only glitch is with IceTV losing the EPG after a while which is easily fixed after a restart and possibly just switching to and running the Air EPG for a short while before switching back.

Also anyone who complains they didn't understand the pvr was going to get formatted with this update would have to be blind and ignorant as both the Australian and Korean websites have the following pop-up before you can select OK to download the file which has been in place since the files were available to download.

WARNING

Updating to this firmware will cause the internal HDD (HardDisc Drive) to be automatically formatted.

Therefore please make sure you firstly  view or backup any programs to an external HDD before proceeding

with the firmware/software upgrade



prl

Quote from: Vortical on May 13, 2009, 01:07:22 AM
...
Firmware changelog item 4 states the following
4. Changed : Application data in flash memory is moved out for stability.
   - Warning : This feature requires user to format the HDD.

...
That sounds like a completely bizarre reason to format the HDD.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

Vortical

Quote from: prl on May 13, 2009, 11:16:28 AM
That sounds like a completely bizarre reason to format the HDD.

That may well be Peter but the fact is this firmware has dramatically reduced owners problems.

prl

Quote from: Vortical on May 13, 2009, 11:41:12 AM
Quote from: prl on May 13, 2009, 11:16:28 AM
That sounds like a completely bizarre reason to format the HDD.

That may well be Peter but the fact is this firmware has dramatically reduced owners problems.
Moving the "application data" (configuration data?) from flash to the HDD might possibly improve stability, but I can't see why that would necessitate a HDD reformat.

[speculation]
I did ponder whether the reason for the reformat was that the format of the internal HDD changed from ext2 to jfs. I was told in a recent post here that the HD Topfields use jfs for the internal HDD, not as I thought, ext2. Have they always used jfs for the internal HDD?

Certainly using jfs would improve the robustness of the filesystem after a crash, and the change from ext2 to jfs would require a reformat. Jfs (Journalling File System), as its name suggests, uses journalling to improve the ability of the file system to recover cleanly after a crash.
[/speculation]
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

Mac37

I remember reading back on the sadly missed iTopfield forum, from the gurus that are in the know, that, to accommodate the application and firmware update on the HDD, a new partition had to be created. That was the reason given for the necessity to reformat.

Mac
Mac
Beyonwiz T2 X 2
IceTV Interactive EPG - HDMI to   Linden TV 65

prl

Quote from: mac37 on May 13, 2009, 05:02:33 PM
I remember reading back on the sadly missed iTopfield forum, from the gurus that are in the know, that, to accommodate the application and firmware update on the HDD, a new partition had to be created. That was the reason given for the necessity to reformat.

Mac
That makes more sense. Thanks.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

csutak40

Quote from: mac37 on May 13, 2009, 05:02:33 PM
I remember reading back on the sadly missed iTopfield forum,
Not sure if you're all aware that there is another (the original) Topfield Forum, http://www.topfield-australia.com.au/phpbb2/ that does have a section for the 7000 machines as well
Cheers,
Judy
Last Update Dec 9 2020; Beyonwiz V2, T2,