Pressing it four or five times skips entire ad breaks. If you are watching a previously recorded show, you can hit the yellow button on the remote control to skip 30 seconds forward. When browsing channels, the unit automatically starts buffering the on-screen channel, which allows you to rewind back up to an hour or pause the station you are viewing to resume playback later. Like Foxtel iQ, time shifting features such as pausing live TV and skipping ads from recordings are possible with the TF5000PVRt. Pressing the OK button twice on the remote sets the recording timer, and if a clash exists (more than two shows set to record at the same time), the Topfield pops-up a question asking if you'd like to overwrite one of the timers. From here you can see at a glance what's on, the rating, and extended program information. The service populates the Topfield with a seven-day ahead television guide that you can browse through in two formats: single station, or multi-view. This is where the ICEguide comes into play. Even finding out what is currently showing would take a while with the extra channels digital television provides. With all this recording capability and capacity, it would be a daunting task to sit on the couch punching in dates, times and channels to schedule recordings. Pressing stop when two programs are recording brings up a menu asking which program to stop recording. To ease the confusion of all this, pressing Info on the remote control brings up a visual guide in the top right corner of the screen as to what is recording on which tuner (signified in red with numbers 1 and 2) and what is being played (in green with the playback symbol). With its 120GB hard disk, which can store up to 60 hours of digital television, the PVR can even playback a previously recorded show while recording two stations at the same time. Having dual tuners allows the Topfield PVR to record two digital channels simultaneously or record one channel while still being able to surf through all of the others. The TF5000PVRt's two tuners support standard definition (SD) widescreen output resolution of 720x576. The benefits of digital television include DVD-equivalent picture quality and crystal clear sound (including Dolby Digital, when broadcast). The Topfield TF5000PVRt uses the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial) standard, which can be received through a standard rooftop aerial - generally no additional installation is required. It is a simple process that is assisted with diagrams in the 61-page user manual. Our set up involved connecting an aerial cable to the Antenna 1 jack at the rear of the TF5000PVRt, hooking up a very short RF cable from the RF Loop Out 1 jack back into the Antenna 2 jack and then connecting the unit to a television with composite video and stereo audio cables. MP3s can also be copied to the Topfield and played back via an on-screen file menu. It is through this port that the TF5000PVRt is able to download EPG information. An inclusion that sets the Topfield unit apart from others is a USB 2.0 port at the rear for speedy PC transfers. There are two SCART connectors but these are included mainly for European markets, where the standard is more popular. On the rear panel of the TF5000PVRt are four RF connections (two antenna inputs and two loop outputs) that pass the signal through to both built-in digital tuners then out to a TV, VCR or another set top box.Ī notable omission is a component video output however there are composite AV, S-Video and S/PDIF connections. While the assortment of buttons on the 46-key remote control seems overwhelming initially, Topfield helps by colour coding some functions and making the frequently used controls for volume and channels much larger. In fact, we didn't once use the buttons on the unit during this review as all functions are duplicated on the remote control. The 4.2-kilogram unit is predominantly silver with a green front panel display and a minimal number of controls to become familiar with. Measuring 340 x 60 x 265mm, the TF5000PVRt's is about the size of a DVD recorder.
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