Is The Thomson TOPUPTV box really that bad.

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 56
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From what I can gather the Thomson topuptv box appears to be a waste of money. However is it really so bad that it isn't worth buying one to upgrade from the old itv digital Nokia box.

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  • PaulS67PaulS67 Posts: 12,357
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    It has a few minor problems on it

    To put it one way, I have had it since about a month after it came out and it has never crashed on me

    epg can be problamatic and text is not as fast as some boxes, but for watching tv on its fine
  • sony ps2sony ps2 Posts: 191
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    buy the fusion frt101t top up tv box i have never had any problems with this box it has an 8 day epg and is very stable. :)
  • Daveoc64Daveoc64 Posts: 15,374
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    It isn't as bad as most people would make you think, it does seem to have a problem where the encrypted channels will freeze for a few seconds (not related to reception issues) and the interactive is slow at times. It is quite good in comparison with other boxes and Thomson is good with updates (going by their other boxes and the DTI-2300).
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 12
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    I just decided to upgrade from freeview to include TUTV and bought the Thomson 2305 for £71 which included 1 month of topup Tv and registration, and have been running it for the past 4 days and have had no lockups or problems.One nice feature is the RF out includes the freeview/tutv signal which i feed through to my second set in the kitchen. Prior to that I had the echostar 105 for just a couple of days and suffered so many lockups I got a refund. For freeview I have been using the older Thomson 1000 for about a year and have been very pleased.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 90
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    No real problems with it. Interactive is painfully slow at times but seems to be stable. Can't seem to adjust the picture format to suit my 4:3 screen like I could with other boxes. No crashes in over a month of use. Hopefully a OTA update will sort the little niggles out.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1
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    No real problems with the Thomson box. Can suffer a little with electrical noise ie light switches. Very stable, ITV 3 can drop out at times suspect its them. I have a 19 element loft mounted antenna due to circumstances and local enviroment here in Pocklington North Yorks. Previous box was the Ferguison 500 this does not have any problems at all with interferance or signal. Sticking with the Thomson at this time but keeping the Ferguison just in case.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 466
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    The DTI2300 is not the greatest set top box at the moment but if you take a peak under the lid you might get a surprise it has a 81Mhz cpu
    and 128Mb of memory so when the software chaps put more effort into this box I think we will all be pleased .
    As it stands its rock solid , after the new update the sound and picture are excellent but it needs new software for the EPG to fuction better.
  • BoinngBoinng Posts: 5,752
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    icutedave wrote:
    The DTI2300 is not the greatest set top box at the moment but if you take a peak under the lid you might get a surprise it has a 81Mhz cpu
    and 128Mb of memory

    81mhz isn't anything to shout about - my Philips (now 18 months old and obsolete, and never very fast) has a 166mhz cpu, and I'm sure there are other boxes using the same chip.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 11,237
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    The Fusion FRT101T (Access Devices Design, along with Daewoo Freeway) features an IBM PowerPC Processor, hence, it's very fast, and very stable, with a fantastic EPG.

    Dan
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 209
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    Boinng wrote:
    81mhz isn't anything to shout about - my Philips (now 18 months old and obsolete, and never very fast) has a 166mhz cpu, and I'm sure there are other boxes using the same chip.

    you'd be surprised what you can do with 81Mhz if you try..
    Some of the issues with speed requirements are more to do with poorly written and inefficient firmware that requires stupid amounts of processing power. Decoding an MPEG-2 video stream reliably doesn't need that much processing power and 81Mhz chips were probably a good, cheap solution when they were designing the box - why pay a lot extra for a faster processor when you can buy a lot of 81Mhz CPUs for less that will still do the job.
    I've yet to see the DTI2300 have a problem decoding the stream properly. Try saying the same thing about watching a DVD on a Pentium 133Mhz.

    Besides, a lot of the time the speed of the processor is not the issue.. Look at the difference between a processor that has pipelining, and one that doesn't - pipelining allows a processor to execute two (or more, depending on the number of pipelines) instructions per clock cycle. The ARM chips have used this to great effect ever since the early 90s, as have a number of other difference processors.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1
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    I have recently bought an FRT101T not to be confused with the 101 which is supposed to have a 30sec. memory buffer.

    Does anyone know what the latest firmware version is for the 101T ? - no RS232 port so I'm assuming I would need to wait for a transmitted update ?
  • BoinngBoinng Posts: 5,752
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    boromir wrote:
    you'd be surprised what you can do with 81Mhz if you try..

    I'm sure you're right. However the previous poster seemed to think 81mhz was exceptional - I was simply pointing out that it was not.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 466
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    Boinng wrote:
    I'm sure you're right. However the previous poster seemed to think 81mhz was exceptional - I was simply pointing out that it was not.

    I certainly don't remember writting that word could you please show me in the text were it is ,what it states is that it has more than enough hardware inside to be able to work well for a set top box and the software has not been updated to solve
    the EPG problem , if you had an appreciation of electronics you
    might understand this
    Try answering the question that was posted as I have which might help the person who posted it .
  • BoinngBoinng Posts: 5,752
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    True, you didn't use the word "exceptional". You did on the other hand say:
    icutedave wrote:
    but if you take a peak under the lid you might get a surprise it has a 81Mhz cpu

    You don't need a degree in microelectronics to know that an 81Mhz processor is not very surprising for a box of it's type, and is actually pretty mediocre in compared to other models.

    As for "anwering the question", it seems to me that all you did was give the OP the false impression that this box was some kind of "surprisingly" advanced piece of hardware, which it isn't. In fact the correct answer to the question, by most accounts, is "yes".
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 466
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    Boinng wrote:
    True, you didn't use the word "exceptional". You did on the other hand say:



    You don't need a degree in microelectronics to know that an 81Mhz processor is not very surprising for a box of it's type, and is actually pretty mediocre in compared to other models.

    As for "anwering the question", it seems to me that all you did was give the OP the false impression that this box was some kind of "surprisingly" advanced piece of hardware, which it isn't. In fact the correct answer to the question, by most accounts, is "yes".


    OMEGA sti5518 81Mhz used in dtt and satellite boxes by lots of manufacturer's

    http://us.st.com/stonline/products/promlit/pdf/flsti5518-1101.pdf
  • Daveoc64Daveoc64 Posts: 15,374
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    Isn't the processor power irrelevant. You could run Windows 1.0 on a top of the range PC, it would still suck.
  • BoinngBoinng Posts: 5,752
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    icutedave wrote:
    OMEGA sti5518 81Mhz used in dtt and satellite boxes by lots of manufacturer's

    http://us.st.com/stonline/products/promlit/pdf/flsti5518-1101.pdf

    isn't that my point?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 53
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    I was very impressed with the picture quality of the Thomson box when I first bought but the EPG and Now/Next info hardly work at all and it refuses to sort channels. I might try some of the reset options l've seen here but otherwise it's going back.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,725
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    Yes that's the big problem with it... the EPG not working is common as the 7 day EPG is new, but now/next not working is unforgivable.
  • BoinngBoinng Posts: 5,752
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    Tony Hoyle wrote:
    Yes that's the big problem with it... the EPG not working is common as the 7 day EPG is new, but now/next not working is unforgivable.

    To be fair though, this box was released after the 7 day epg data became operational, and should really have worked out of the box. It's not like some of the older models which have had to be adapted retrospectivly with firmware updates.
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