Welcome to Oztoppy Wiki

Important Notice

Topfield Australia went into liquidation in July 2016 gone into liquidation and its www site ceased. The Topfield Korea www site also seems to have ceased. Topfield Co Ltd still exists but no longer seems active in the PVR market.

The Topfield Australia Forum ceased operating in mid-2018, however an unaffiliated forum (oztoppy forum) was established in mid-2016 by a group of Toppy enthusiast led by IanL-S. The new forum is here.

Purpose

This Wiki is to document the features and bugs of the various models and firmware versions available for Topfield brand Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) sold in Australia.

The Wiki was originally created in response to a request by Dave on the Topfield Australia forums to document issues in different firmware of the older SD PVRs. Since then new HD models have been released and more of this wiki is now focussing on the HD Models.

It is hoped that this resource will be useful for users trying to decide which model to buy, trying to understand how to use their PVRs, and which version of the firmware they would prefer to have.

It is also hoped that other Australian Topfield users will contribute to the Wiki by adding information, reporting new bugs or filling in the "No Data" sections on various pages.

Contributions can be made by posting to the OzToppy Wiki Forum (no registration required) or by editing the pages (registration at wikidot required).

About Topfield brand Personal Video Recorders

Topfield Australia (Toppro Pty Ltd) marketed and sold PVRs in Australia from their Korean manufacturer Topfield Co Ltd. Topfield started selling the 5000 series SD PVR in 2003 and since then have added other SD PVRs and more recently HD PVRs. The SD PVRs are no longer sold*. During that time Topfield had several Australian distributors, the last of which was Toppro Pty Ltd (now in liquidation). There is no longer an Australian distributor.

HD PVRs

The tuners on early HD models supported MPEG2, whereas later models supported both MPEG2 and MPEG4.

MPEG 2 and MPEG 4

*TRF-2400
*TRF-5300-Series
*TRF-71601
*TRF-7260
*TRF-7170
*TRF-2200
*TF-T6211
*TRP-50002

The following models have been retired:
*TRF-21003
*TRF-24604
*TRF-24705
*TF-T60006
*TF7100HDPlus

MPEG 2 (all retired)

*TF7000HDPVRt
*TF7100HDPVRt (networked)

Evolution

The 7000 was released in 2007 and was the first Topfield product to support high definition (HD). This was superseded by the TF7100PVRt in 2008 which added networking capability and eventually became more reliable. These were the first PVRs from Topfield based on the Linux operating system. These models had MPEG2 tuners.

Subsequently, Topfield released several HD models with Freeview Phase 1 certification. These models are restricted in how data can be transferred off the PVR as well as having a limited FFWD/REW and no skip capability. These include the TF-7050, TF-7150.

Two further HD models were released in late 2009. The 7100+ and the 2400 used almost identical internal hardware and firmware, the 7100+ with similar external case to the 7100 and the 2400 in a narrower case with a cooling fan. The functional differences between the two models centred around analog input capacity on the 2400. These models have MPEG2/MPEG4 tuners.

In 2010 Topfield released a new model: the 2460 - a 2400 with a larger internal HDD and a wireless dongle, and a 7160 - a similar looking model with some reduced functionality.

In 20117 a new firmware for the 7160 saw the introduction of the Topfield "Intelligent Recording" (IR) system. This is a series-recording function based on the title of the EPG event. In later months all current PVRs would receive a firmware update which included IR. In those that supported IceTV, the user could select IceTV or IR as their series recording option.

In the same year, another firmware update would see the introduction of "Home Media" - the ability to share recordings to other devices on the same network via DLNA. Initially it was just the 2400/2460 that received the update.

In 2012, 2 additional HD Models were released, the 2470 and the 7170. These were similar in specs to the 2460 and the 7160 , and neither supports IceTV. Both had IR and the 2470 has iView and DLNA.

All the HD PVRs (except for the 7050) are true dual tuner meaning that you can record 2 channels simultaneously while playing back a pre-recorded show from the hard drive. The 7100+, 7160 and the 2400/2460 received a firmware upgrade in mid 2010 which allowed up to 4 simultaneous recordings as long as they were from only 2 networks.

In mid-2012 the TFR-2100 was released using a new hardware platform. It has no networking capability or TAP support. The TF-T5000, which has Ethernet support was released in Europe in the first half of 2013. While the firmware is apparently designed to work in Australia it has not yet been released here. The TF-T6000 which was released in mid-2013 also uses this hardware platform. The European TF-T5000 is basically a TRF-2100 with Ethernet. The features of the TF-T6000 are similar to those of the 2400/2460/2470 except there is no IceTV or iView, nor does it currently support TAPs. New features include support for USB keyboard and web browser.

In August 2013 the TRF-7260 was released. It replaced the TRF-7160. New features include support for wireless networking (USB dongle), iPhone/iPad RCU, and weather.

In September/October 2015 the TRF-5300 series started shipping via WWW shops. These are a derivative of the TRF-2400/2460.

The 7100+, 7160/7170/7260, 2400/2460/2470, and 5300/5310/5320 are TAP capable. All can receive reservations and EPG from ICE TV except the 7160, 7260, 7170 and 2470.

All PVRs have firmware that can be user-updated. This means that new features and bug fixes can be installed as they are released.

The forum for these products can be found at http://topfield.forumchitchat.com/.

SD PVRs

*Silver 5000 (retired)
*Black Panther (retired)
*MasterPiece Black (retired)
*Masterpiece (SILVER) (retired)
*6000 (networked) (retired)

The most popular models was the 5000 series which received and recorded standard definition digital free to air TV. These PVRs are true dual tuner PVRs meaning that you can record 2 channels simultaneously why playing back a pre-recoded show from the hard drive. These were released in 2003 and until the release of the HD 2400 were the only PVRs that supported user-written applications, or TAPs (Topfield application Programs). The SD PVRs are no longer on sale.

About the 5000 series Firmware

New Firmware is installed by connection the Topfield unit to PC and executing this application. The recomended upgrade proceedure is documented here by Andy Cullen.

All the firmware released to date for the 5000 series has contained bugs of various types. Topfield provides very little documentation about what bugs have been fixed in what version of the firmware. Newer firmware versions have sometimes fixed some bugs while introducing others. Thus, the choice of which firmware to run is not always a simple one. In order for users to make an educated decision on which firmware they would like to run they need to weigh up the pros and cons of each firmware. To do this they need to know what features and what bugs are in each of the firmwares. And this is where this Wiki comes in. This information can be gleaned from the bug and feature matrix page.

Links - 5000 series

bug list
bug and feature matrix
List of popular firmware versions
External Hard drive caddy

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