Thomson Top Up TV – 160GB Freeview Digital TV Recorder – With Free Top Up TV Trial
Product Description
This product has been professionally repaired and repackaged but may have some minor scratches on the outer cabinet – Comes with 3 month warranty Top Up TV Freeview+ offers a new way of watching TV. Now you can access all Freeview channels, Pause Live TV, record 2 channels at the same time and more with a Top Up TV Freeview+ DTR. Its like Sky+ on Freeview. You can also top up your TV choice with programmes from great Pay-TV channels with Top Up TV Favourites, enjoy great sport, catch blockbuster movies on PictureBox and the great news is your first month of Top Up TV Favourites and PictureBox is now included in the price. No long term contracts No phone or broadband tie ins No dish or cable Gives you the flexibility to add on TV packages in the future It’s the best value 160GB DTR on the market.
(£20 connection fee and terms and conditions apply)
- HDD Capacity – 160GB
- Remote Control Included
- Colour – Silver/Black
- Recording Time – up to 120 Hours
- Warranty – 3 months
Thomson Top Up TV – 160GB Freeview Digital TV Recorder – With Free Top Up TV Trial
I had been thinking about buying one of these for a while. To be honest, I had read so many poor reviews of this item that I was slightly put off. But the area where I live does not have cable, and I didn’t want a satellite dish on my wall so Top-Up TV plus seemed the only choice.
The unit does make a noise. It reminds me of the noise that the old VHS video players used to make- except it’s there all the time of course. The noise is not as much as you’d get from a desktop PC, but it’s a similar type of noise. We got used to it- well, you have no choice really. My friend has an identical unit which he keeps in a glass fronted cabinet. The glass stops the noise completely.
As for the unit itself, it is very easy – “intuitive” to set up and it is remarkably easy to use. We do have had a couple of problems with “skipping” ( where the picture jumps) but nothing too serious. In the main things have been OK. Let’s face it- It was made by Thompson,, it only cost 79 quid so what do you expect? I’d say it is a very easy piece of equipment to get the hang of, and it does change the way you watch TV. It is delightful being able to “fast forward” through the adverts.
We have had to “re-boot” this recorder on occasion, because it freezes up. Strangely, I don’t get annoyed by this- I just think that the machine is “quirky”. It’s actually quite a fun item to own.
And now for our new friends, “Top up TV Plus”. The call centre is in Scotland and I phoned them a couple of times when I was setting up the account. They are very helpful indeed. As for their program content, well it is pretty poor but you can usually find SOMETHING you’d want to watch. There are no children in our house so we didn’t activate the childrens TV- thus reducing the program content by about 25% right away. Not having a mental age of 8 or nine puts you at a disadvantage too, as the comedy channel consists of old American re-runs which don’t seem particularly funny. I would say that Top-up TV plus’ programme content is of marginal value, and I have recently cancelled the subscription.
In particular, I’d say that the “picture box” channel- (which downloads 1 movie a day, for a price of 5 pounds per month) – just simply is NOT worth the money. All the movies are 10 or 15 years old. In fact they’re the type of movie you’d find in a cancer research charity shop for 50 pence each.
So what are you left with? – A slightly noisy 160 GB hard disc recorder which is very easy to set up. HOWEVER TODAY ( 17TH MARCH 2008)I NEED TO AMEND THIS REVIEW. THE MACHINE HAS FROZEN UP OVER 20 TIMES IN THE LAST 4 DAYS AND WE CAN NOT ACCESS ANY OF OUR PREVIOUSLY RECORDED PROGRAMS. I WILL BE RETURNING THIS AS “UNFIT FOR PURPOSE”. I CAN NO LONGER RECOMMEND THIS HEAP OF ATROCIOUS TATTY JUNK. SORRY BUT THERE YOU HAVE IT.
Rating: 3 / 5
I purchased one of these units as I thought it looked very stylish in the shop and seemed a good solid looking unit.
The first one I had started to ‘crash’ and I would have to pull the power lead out the back of it and then plug it back in to reset it. This happened on a few occasions. The other problem I noted was when you use the fast forward button on the remote control. The picture would fast forward on the screen and then it would freeze. Again, I would have to unplug it from the back of the unit and repeat the process.
I took it back to the shop and they replaced it with a brand new unit. Guess what? Within 24 hours of setting it all up, the same thing happened again. It freezes, the unit doesn’t seem to recognise the command from the remote control despite the small red LED flashing on the unit to acknowledge that it has picked up the signal.
So, it has gone back to the shop and I have changed it for a completeley different brand which now works perfectly.
Some people on here have purchased one and they seem very happy with their unit. So, it may just have been a very large faulty batch. But once you read all of the negative reviews, I think you will find that they far outweigh the positive ones. Make up your own mind!
Rating: 1 / 5
This has to be the biggest heap of junk I have ever had the misfortune to use! Firstly it will make your living room sound like there is a jumbo jet taking off in it! This I could just about deal with but the most annoying thing is it doesn’t record! Out of the 10 recorings I tried to make 9 of them became corrupted and were automatically deleted (which you only find out once you check your messages). Dont be fooled by all the fixes available, I spent a week trying to get the thing to work but gave up and got my money back. This is a cheap, tacky piece of junk and the only reason I gave it one star was because that was the lowest it could go!
Rating: 1 / 5
I purchased this to upgrade my older Thomson model DHD4000, this one had twice as much Hard Drive space so thought It was worth the upgrade.
I have since purchased a Sony RDR-HXD870 which is basically the same thing but also includes a built In DVD.
What the Sony has done is shown how poor the Thomson box is.
The Thomson box signal was always hit and miss with the picture breaking up, this is not the case with the Sony, I had always assumed I would need a new aerial, It was obviously the Thomson that had a poor tuner.
It was also slow in erasing the previous recording, and on one occasion it would not erase a previous recording its still on the hard drive.
The box is very plastic, the remote is good and looks a lot like the Sky remote.
I never had a problem with the older Thomson, my mother still has one, would I buy another one of these models, No I won’t, I’m happy with the Sony I have and have also reinstalled the older Thomson in another room, I have put this one in cupboard ready for the skip.
Rating: 2 / 5
I bought this machine because I wanted to record more than one freeview channel at once (I still have a Panasonic DMREX85 with which I am very pleased), and have the possibility of watching another channel at the same time. It came with a free one month subscription to TopTV, which was of no interest to me. I was disappointed to discover that my 160Gb HDD only provided me with 20Gb, as the TopTV had reserved the rest, however, by de-activating most of the channels I was able to reclaim most of the disc space for my own use.
The machine froze once following a software upgrade, but this was solved by a power cycle. This hasn’t happened since. Occasionally it misses recordings, which is a pain, and once it recorded what it claimed was the correct thing, but was in fact something else. The TopTV recording was a disaster, as every time it recorded something, it then decided that the recording was corrupted and deleted it. Had I bought the box for TopTV, it would have gone back at this point.
At some later stage the TopTV subscription expired. This was expected, but what I didn’t expect was that this would now disallow any recording and any access to previously recorded material. This is extremely frustrating, and a system design fault IMO. Fortunately, it is solved by taking the TopTV card out of the machine and throwing the card away.
I’ve also suffered from the ffwd jumping around unexpectedly, but this is a minor annoyance by comparison with some of the others.
My advice would be, if you want TopTV, this isn’t the box or you. If you don’t, the box isn’t bad, but don’t put the TopTV card in it ever. But I think there are probably better HDD twin tuner boxes around, although I haven’t tried any.
Rating: 2 / 5