HD Receiver Topfield TF7700HSCI

[rover]

I have just spotted this HD receiver on the Satellite Superstore site. It appears to have been available in the rest of Europe for a few months. A review can be found at www.tele-satellite.com

Does anyone have any experience of this receiver?

[Nas]

I'm looking for a receiver that can handle both Sky SD & HD, ie. upscale SD for the foreseeable future and then handle HD when Sky drop their prices. Could this be it?

Also interested in hearing people's experiences...

[bob1]

Originally Posted by Nas

I'm looking for a receiver that can handle both Sky SD & HD, ie. upscale SD for the foreseeable future and then handle HD when Sky drop their prices. Could this be it?

Also interested in hearing people's experiences...

If you want sky this isn't the box for you, you will need to get a sky hd box,you can allways join up later if the price comes down.

I bought a Topfield TF7700HSCI and I am still unable to receive any of the HD Euro 1080 scrambled channels. The HD Euro 1080 FTA ones are excellent as is BBC HD but it does not like the Irdeto CAM and Euro 1080 card combo at all. I am already on my second Ideto CAM and my second Euro 1080 registered card.
Topfield just don't want to know about it, so it will probably go back for a Humax or Pace.
The Sat's and TP's are wildly out of date even after the latest (Feb 07) firmware update.
It cannot handle 36v so I am still using my excellent Plaza ST500 to steer my dish until my V-box arrives.
The box comes in a choice of ugly '80's retro black or nothing so I have had to hide mine well out of view.
All in all, very disappointing and I think needs to be withdrawn before it ruins Topfields excellent reputation.

I hope this helps.

[stainway]

Originally Posted by Rogerp01

I bought a Topfield TF7700HSCI and I am still unable to receive any of the HD Euro 1080 scrambled channels. The HD Euro 1080 FTA ones are excellent as is BBC HD but it does not like the Irdeto CAM and Euro 1080 card combo at all. I am already on my second Ideto CAM and my second Euro 1080 registered card.
Topfield just don't want to know about it, so it will probably go back for a Humax or Pace.

Your problem is with the Irdeto CAM and not with Topfield.
Euro 1080 switched to MPEG4 and this cause problems with descrambling using the Euro Irdeto CI CAM from SCM.
You need either old Euro Irdeto module with software 1.06 or new one from SMiT:

http://www.hisat.com/proddetail.php?prod=CAMIRD2

I had Humax HDCI 2000 and Homecast HSCI 5101 and for me the Topfield is so far the best performer-it does auto switch 576i and 1080i over HDMI and component and even the SD channels looks fantastic when you compare to Humax which upscale everything.

Stainway

You are correct,

I knew that the transmissions were changed to MPEG4 this year, I had informed my supplier about it but he insisted that the CAM he sent would work. Of course when he 'eventually' tried it himself it wouldn't so sent me a replacement (three weeks later).

I have another observation with the TF7700HSCI and that is with front-end sensitivity (or lack of).
What gave me concern in the first place was that I lost all my ART sport channels when we had bad weather recently, which is fair enough. However, when I reconnected my Plaza ST500, I had a cracking signal strength and quality. I then changed back to the TF7700 (without moving the dish of course) and did a factory-reset and a new search and could not find any ART channels at all. It was two days later before the signal was strong enough for the TF7700 to resolve it. I cannot find any technical data anywhere to compare the two so I am not sure whether they are all as bad or that mine is faulty.

Roger

[stainway]

Originally Posted by Rogerp01

Stainway

You are correct,

I knew that the transmissions were changed to MPEG4 this year, I had informed my supplier about it but he insisted that the CAM he sent would work. Of course when he 'eventually' tried it himself it wouldn't so sent me a replacement (three weeks later).

I have another observation with the TF7700HSCI and that is with front-end sensitivity (or lack of).
What gave me concern in the first place was that I lost all my ART sport channels when we had bad weather recently, which is fair enough. However, when I reconnected my Plaza ST500, I had a cracking signal strength and quality. I then changed back to the TF7700 (without moving the dish of course) and did a factory-reset and a new search and could not find any ART channels at all. It was two days later before the signal was strong enough for the TF7700 to resolve it. I cannot find any technical data anywhere to compare the two so I am not sure whether they are all as bad or that mine is faulty.

Roger

Roger,
I know what you mean. Last week I was trying to get some new FTA HD Channel on Hispa and I was surprised that I don't get any channel there. With my previous receiver I had signal etc..
What I did was:
Try using DiseqC 1.2 in place of USUALS-it gives better adjustment.
I also had to adjust my motorized Dish (which is already 5 years old).I had to change the elevation by 1 cm. Now I am getting 99% quality signal on most sat positions.
I use Smart Titanium LNB.
Hope this helps.

P.S.The old Irdeto CAM ver.1.06 works,but you need to restart the receiver sometimes.
The one from SMiT works always.