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Thomson DTI 6300-16 - Top Up TV Anytime Review
| Author | Jonathan Bray |
| Published | 21st May 2007 |
| Manufacturer | Top Up TV |
| Price | £139.99 plus £9.99 per month |
| Latest Price | Click here |
| Features |  |
| Performance | |
| Value | |
| Overall | |
8 comments
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TrustedReviews NewslettersIt's certainly a good idea, and it works well enough – if what you want to watch is lots of lifestyle TV, cartoons, documentaries and comedy repeats that is – but it's not perfect. The main issue is with the division of hard disk space, which is heavily weighted towards Anytime content. Select every single channel available, which you'll need to do if you want a decent selection of content to watch, and the box divides things up on a ratio of roughly 6:1 Anytime to personal storage space, which means you only get around 18 hours of recording space for normal TV to play with. The only way you can change this is to reduce the number of Anytime channels you have set to 'active' and, thus, potentially miss out on content that would otherwise have been recorded.
The box itself is bit on the noisy side too, and even in standby the fans make an audible whooshing noise. It's not something you'd want to have sitting in your bedroom, put it that way.
Verdict
I think that Top Up TV is going to have its work cut out convincing the TV-watching public to take a serious look at its new product. The main issue isn't one of impracticality, or any particular hardware failing (though the hard disk issue and noise problems don't help), but simply that the selection of channels can't match Sky's for sheer quantity, range and flexibility. Only those who regularly watch channels like Discovery Lifestyle, Living TV, Hallmark and MTV may be swayed.
Fortunately, the Top Up TV package does have some advantages. At £139.99 for the package it undercuts the price of a Sky+ setup (from scratch) by £20 and has more hard disk capacity for recording. Even if you're only in the market for a Freeview PVR, a 160GB box like this for £139.99 is pretty reasonable anyway.
At £9.99, the monthly subscription is also cheaper than Sky's lowest priced package by £5. Next season you'll be able to watch Premiership football too for a reasonable £10.99 a month and for another fiver you can add a movie channel – PictureBox – into the mix as well.
For these reasons, Top Up TV anytime may be worth a look. It's well-priced and the hardware is capable – but only if you're interested in the channel mix.
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John Curran said on 4th May 2009
Serena Douce said on 9th May 2009
I have had this system since August 08, have had nothing but problems with it, pictures freezing, no downloads coming though have tried to return the box several times and have bee... more
John Smith said on 25th July 2009
Another one for the list. Continuous problems with this piece of hardware when used as part of the topuptv service. Frequent failures to record caused by corrupted software downl... more
Greg Denwood said on 17th August 2009
I bought two of these boxes in July of this year in preparation for digital switchover in Cumbria. I have experienced problems with both, freezing, dropping channels and programme ... more
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I have three of thes recorders 2 at my caravan and 1 at home and I am now on my sixth replacement from Argos as the keep stopping and won`t switch on last night I went to bed to wa... more