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April 02, 2005
TV ... the missing link
One of the things we like about the Home Media Centre is its electronic program guide which allows you to view everything that's on offer on TV - including Foxtel shows - and schedule them for recording with just one click (or maybe two or three if you want to record them nightly or weekly).
A few months ago, we wrote about Peter Vogel's ICEguide EPG, which would provide the same, highly-desirable features to the Topfield TF5000PVRt, for $3 a week. It took a little longer than Peter thought, but it's finally available. They've got a special offer: $1099 for the unit, and a 12-month ICE TV subscription.
We haven't yet tried it out, but we've heard some good reports, and we'll be looking at it soon.
Posted by cw at April 2, 2005 09:22 AM
Comments
It's a shame the Topfield TF5000PVRt needs a PC to plug into via USB. It would be much more appealing if it had a ethernet port to plug straight into my router. Sorta defeats the purpose of having a standalone recorder.
Posted by: Alister at April 2, 2005 03:20 PM
We just rented a Foxtel recorder thingy and boy, is it easy. Now we can give up the 2 VCRs and cumbersome tape swapping and waiting. Quite a bit cheaper than the Topfield and Home Media Centre too - over 4 years that is, by which time we'd be replacing it anyway. Now if only it had an ethernet port...
cheers, Paul
Posted by: Paul at April 4, 2005 10:46 AM
We're happy for you Paul, but the Foxtel box doesn't sound like a good deal to us.
It costs $395, plus $100 installation fee, and unless you're on the Platinum plan, you also pay an extra $5.95 a month. That's $780 over four years, but you don't actually own it. You can't automatically record Channels 7 and 10 via the EPG, and if you decide to ditch Foxtel, you can't even record free to air channels.
The series link doesn't work on free to air channels.
It doesn't have a Skip Ad button.
With the Home Media Centre, for instance, you can edit the recordings, trim out pre and post recording and commercials, and save the edits - to conserve hard disk space. You can't do that with the Foxtel box. And of course on the HMC you can transfer those FTA files over the network and burn them to DVD. Not with the iQ, however.
Even if we could put up with all those commercials on a network that you're paying to view, we wouldn't have signed up for the iQ.
Posted by: cw at April 4, 2005 11:57 AM