Thomson Top Up TV Plus - 160GB Freeview Digital TV Recorder - With Free Top Up TV Trial

November 7, 2007 | By Doug In Freeview TV |

Thomson Top Up TV Plus - 160GB Freeview Digital TV Recorder - With Free Top Up TV Trial
THOMSON DTI6300 TOPUPTV ANYTIME PVR The Top Up TV+ box is one of the best Freeview* Digital TV Recorders (DTRs) available. In addition to the Freeview* channels, its simple to use with features that will change the way you watch TV. With the 14 day TV guide you can see whats on at the touch of a button, recording programmes couldnt be easier without tapes or disks and you can even pause live TV. Top Up TV+ offers a new way of watching TV. Not only can you can watch, pause, rewind and record all the standard Freeview* channels like BBC ONE and Film4, Top Up TV+ gives you access to more TV choice with Top Up TV Anytime. In addition to Freeview*, Top Up TV Anytime brings you over 600 programmes a month from Pay-TV channels to watch when you want to. Programmes appear automatically on your box every day to start and stop at your say-so. *Freeview is a separate free digital TV service which does not require a monthly subscription. Freeview is not operated by Top Up TV Europe Limited.

Customer Review: Thomson DT16300-16 DTR
We got one yesterday, from another source, and have it set up and are familiar with its functions already, but don’t need Top-Up-TV so have disabled it to give more space, and it works very nicely

The Thomson has now got to the stage of being well sorted out, and has some nice features

The handset has the facility to work most TVs as well; it is comfortable and the buttons are well placed

It has an RF modulator for TVs without SCART sockets, which can be de-activated and has chase-play and allows recording of two programs and watching another at the same time, and a 14 day programme guide and ‘favourites’ from which to set a recording. Recordings are labelled with title and synopses and are listed and there is a ’series link’ feature to set subsequent recordings automatically

Recording time is up to 70 hours and it all represents excellent value

Customer Review: Pound for pound the best recorder I’ve used
At ?94.99 - I found it difficult to go wrong with this recorder. Previously I had used a Sagem freeview recorder and before that I had a Astratec.

Where this one wins hands down for me, is the ease of use and the way that the programmes and channels are set out on the programme guide. For the first time someone has developed a programme guide that’s easy to use - the ‘”green” ‘go to day’ option taking a lot of the legwork out of going to future days to find the programmes that I wanted to record. It’s really easy to set a recording and setting a series recording is just as easy.

I haven’t subscribed to the Top Up TV Anytime service yet, but they did include a voucher offering me a months free trial with no strings attached in with the recorder so I will probably take that option up once I’ve got used to it.

I’ve read some of the other reviews and I just simply haven’t had the problems that others have had - particularly the ffwd or lost recording problem.

Granted the disk drive makes a just audible noise when I sit in my living room in complete silence but not to the point that it is intrusive.

At ?94.99 I don’t think you can go wrong and becuase it can get Setanta Sports as well it seems a bargain.

Toshiba 23W330DB - 23″ Widescreen HD Ready LCD TV With HDMI & Freeview
23W330D8Screen Size: 23 Screen format: 16:9 Panel resolution: 1366 x 768 Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 800:1 Brightness (cd/m2): 450 Tuning: Analogue Tuner Scart:2 Warranty: TBC
Amazon Price: ?359.99
Customer Review: TV great apart from no on/off button
This TV is excellent apart for the on/off button. It remains on standby constantly and as we are told to be “environmentally friendly” and not leave TVs on standby this creates a problem if your plug socket is behind a cabinet. Picture is of good quality and sound also.

TerraTec Cinergy T USB XE - DVB-T receiver - Hi-Speed USB
The Cinergy T USB XS receives digital TV signals, yet is no larger than a USB memory stick! Just connect the ultra-compact TV tuner to a notebook or PC via a USB 2.0 port and in a flash you’re able to view the digital programs transmitted via DTT (Freeview). Regardless of where you are, your TV card is there with you. At a stationary PC at home you can receive programs using your standard roof aerial, and away from home you simply connect the handy tuner to your notebook and use the included DTT compact aerial.
Customer Review: Big Problems
I bought this product because it says it is Windows Vista Certified. I don’t know how it got this certification because it has some serious problems running. Firstly , you can’t use it with the built in Vista Media Centre in the Home Premium or Ultimate Vista editions. Secondly, the software supplied with it (which I think is the only TV software that will work with it) is awful. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it will find 133 channels and work for an hour, sometimes it will find none and will not do anything until you reboot. Terratec told me that vista media centre will never be supported. Thirdly, teletex doesn’t work with this card Fourth and final point - despite what the packaging implies, this is a USB 1.0 product, not USB 2.0, this means that you will not get HD OTA from it in future, unlike almost every other USB DVB-T card. It also means that if you live in London, you should be able to get HD now but won’t be able to with this cheap rubbish TV stick.