"Rob" wrote in message
...
Keith G wrote:
"Rob" wrote


More or less ditto with the Humax 9200T.


Woah! You got a Hummy then? :-)


Oh yes :-)

Actually, forgot to mention, one of the main reasons for getting it was
the USB file trnasfer facility. Just plug in into the PC and drag the
files over. Nonsense - it takes an age (knocking on 24 hrs for 160GB), and
the files are very buggy. I've sort of got the hang of it now, and despite
the fact at my rate of recording I only need to do it every 6 months it's
still a PITA.



We've pulled a couple of movies from the Toppy onto the PC network and I've
converted them to Mpegs and then to DVD Videos for projecting - excellent
*keepable* sound/image quality and (knock on wood) absolutely no sign of
siplynch so far! (Best since the heady days of RAM disk recordings on
Panasonic gear!!) I think a 'normal' movie takes about 20-30 mins to get
onto the PC - no biggie, as I have said before, you don't have to crank a
handle!!


Other gadgets tried recently:

http://shop.cd-writer.com/acatalog/A...YER_3_650.html
http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/h765.htm

Neither quite what they should be - interesting little distraction for a
couple of evenings though ;-)

I don't know if anyone can explain this: Humster files played back through
the Pinnacle/component/wireless PC are markedly less pixelated than the
original. The Pinnacle thing is good, but video playback is jerky - I
haven't taken a close look yet, so jury's out.


If you find against it, that Pinnacle thingy could form the basis of a
swap - I looked at them a while back. Atm I've got a Digital WinTV card in
this machine and I'm not doing anything with it since I swapped machines. Do
you know of a decent freebie EPG programme? The software bundles with the
card is none too special - I was using ShowShifter but they appear to have
gone tits up....!!



I looked into all this before I bought the Humble. Although it's dead
simple to use and cheaper and astoundingly reliable (I don't even think
about it now) I think on reflection the Topster would have been a tiddly
bit better for me. The Thomsons you've got look good VFM - but I'd want a
bigger HD and file transfer.


Yes, I would agree that the Tommies are excellent for 'watch and blow' -
probably better than the Toppies, from what we've seen so far, in terms of
'handling'.

The HDD is small at only 40 Gb but should assist with not building up the
usual, silly 'never gonna get watched' backlog of recordings, but it is
easily upgradeable to (I think) 128 GB, which means a 160 disk - one which
doesn't run too noisy (or too hot) which is more likely to be a problem with
the bigger disks I gather...??


One nice little feature I've already spotted is that the Tommy does
'radio and plasma' blanking (you set/can change the interval) to prevent
screen burning with radio splash screens and static menus....!! :-)

Ah - the killer app!


:-)

(Difficult to live without, once you've had it, I should think!! :-)