TEST REPORT HDTV Satellite Receiver

Topfield TF7700HSCI
Elegant HDTV PVR Receiver
with Extras
In the last several issues of TELE-satellite we had already Topfield heard all of these receiver. The rear panel comes
introduced HD compatible receivers from the high-end manufac- wishes and developed their with a USB host connector to
turer Topfield, in particular the top model TF7700HDPVR with twin new model TF7700HSCI: a be used with an external hard
tuners, PVR function and integrated hard drive (issue 03/2008). single-tuner HDTV DVB-S2 drive or USB memory stick.

0.48
Otherwise the TF7700HSCI is
a CI receiver that can handle
DVB-S, DVB-S2-QPSK and
DVB-S2-8PSK.

The TF7700HSCI is a visu-

ally appealing receiver. It
comes delivered in a flat and
black-colored 43cm wide chas-
The manufacturer quickly sis that fits perfectly in almost
recognized that there are every TV rack. An extremely
many consumers who are not easy-to-read VFD display sits
TV coach potatoes and don’t prominently in the center of
necessarily need to have two the front panel that shows the
tuners. That number could go current channel number and,
even higher if the recorded while in standby mode, dis-
programs with the aid of an plays the current time.
external hard drive could be
played back in different loca- Five buttons let you oper-
tions such as a second receiver ate the receiver without the
in the bedroom, in the week- remote control and two CI
end cabin, on vacation, while slots hidden behind a flap are
camping, etc. You could even Record you compatible with every pos-
use more than one external favorites sible module (Irdeto, Seca,
hard drive in order to build television Conax, Viaccess, Cryptoworks,
up a small video archive or programmes into Nagravision, etc.).
put some organization in your an external hard
existing video archive. disk drive via the Even looking at the rear
USB port panel will put a smile on your

28 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-11/2008 — www.TELE-satellite.com

face: in addition to the HDMI lites. The manufacturer finally as match it to the TV they are
connection that you would listened to the endless criti- using. The wide variety of set-
expect to find on an HDTV cism they received for the old tings possibilities starts with
receiver, there are also two satellite and transponder list the automatic update of the
Scart jacks as well as six RCA and performed an overhaul clock and, contrary to receiv-
jacks for stereo audio, video such that now nearly every ers from many other manu-
and YUV outputs, an optical HD channel can be found on facturers, daylight savings
digital audio output, an RS- all of the known satellite posi- time and standard time can be
232 interface, a USB 2.0 host tions. Let’s not forget that new turned on or off with the push
connection and, of course, an HD channels appear at differ- of a button.
IF input with looped-through ent positions every week that
output. understandably have not yet Communicating with the
been programmed into the receiver can be done in
Topfield also included a small receiver. We can’t really blame German, English, French, Ital-
switch on the rear panel that the manufacturer for that. ian, Spanish, Arabic, Greek,
lets you select if the output of Turkish, Swedish, Danish, Nor-
the video signal is sent to the Fortunately, it is actually wegian, Dutch, Russian, Polish,

10-11/2008
TOPFIELD TF7700HSCI
A solidly built SDTV and HDTV receiver
that includes a variety of very
practical features.

HDMI, YUV or Scart connectors quite easy to add new satel- Persian, Finnish, Czech, Thai,
and thus matches the settings lite and transponder data; it Hungarian, Bulgarian and Slo-
in the main menu. is also just as simple to edit vakian.
the existing data. As with all
The included remote con- the other Topfield receivers, Additional settings include a
trol sits nicely in your hand the TF7700HSCI supports minutes was needed to scan variety of OSD settings options
and is clearly labeled. Our test the DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and and load all the channels on a as well as options for the A/V
receiver also came with a very 1.3 (USALS) protocols and 110 transponder satellite. output signal.
detailed user manual written in can therefore be used as well
English; naturally, for each of with the simplest multifeed Of course, in addition to If the DIP switches on the
the different country versions, combination, a DiSEqC motor- the automatic channel scan, rear panel set the video output
a translation is provided. ized system or up to a 16 LNB there’s also a manual scan as to HDMI and/or YUV, the Scart
WaveFrontier antenna. well as the ability to manually output will only have S-Video or

Everyday Use A wide assortment of local

enter PIDs for those more sea-
soned users.
CVBS. If these switches are set
to Scart, then RGB will also be
When turning on the receiver oscillator frequencies (LOFs) available at the Scart output.
for the first time, the main for the C-band and Ku-band If desired, a network scan
menu is displayed that cannot are already preprogrammed can also be activated; in this Even though more and more
be closed until all of the basic into the receiver. If you intend way you can be sure that the programming providers are
settings have been taken care to use an S-band antenna with receiver will find every possible making their content available
of and a channel scan has been the TF7700HSCI, it would be channel even if the program- in 16:9 format, there are still
completed. A preprogrammed no problem thanks to manual ming providers had decided to plenty of broadcasters that
channel list that would have LOF entry. alter the arrangement of chan- still use the older 4:3 format.
somewhat simplified the initial nels on the various transpon- The TF7700HSCI lets the user
installation was not available. Once the receiver has been ders. choose whether to view these
matched to your specific channels in zoomed mode to
The included satellite list antenna, the next step is a In the System Settings, the fill the entire TV screen or with
encompasses 143 European, channel scan. In typical Top- user can adapt the receiver black bands to the left and
Asian and American satel- field fashion, just about four to their requirements as well right of the video image.

www.TELE-satellite.com — 10-11/2008 — TELE-satellite & Broadband 29

 Update the firmware delete, move or rename chan- As we have come to expect
from a USB memory nels or lock them out with a from Topfield, a very informa-
stick PIN code. Channels that are tive Info bar appears that pro-
watched more often can be vides EPG information on the
quickly moved into one of the current program, the time,
freely selectable Favorites lists information on the channel
In case the TV Despite the fact that the and can then be accessed with (teletext, encryption, subtitles,
does not support 16:9 manual selection between the the push of a single button. The multifeed, etc.) as well as tran-
signals, the receiver can PAL and NTSC color standards is System Restore function is an sponder data. A second push
deliver the output signal in no longer possible, the receiver extremely practical feature. of the Info button provides
Letterbox format or simply cen- can display both of these sig- The user can take a complete more detailed information on
tered on the screen.
But it should be fairly safe to
assume that no user will use
this receiver on a standard 4:3
TV.

In the Video Format menu,

the user can select the resolu-
tion of the HDMI output signal
(1080i, 720p, 576i or 576p) or
the choice can be left up to the
receiver itself based on the
incoming signal by choosing
Auto for this menu selection.
This function is actually quite
practical since a standard SD
signal, that would otherwise
be given an improved 1080i
resolution through the use of a
scaler, would appear foggy and
washed out and thus choosing
576i or 576p would be the right
choice.
Main Menu
The automatic signal switch-
ing performed exactly as it nals without any problems. For snapshot of all the settings, the current program assum-
should during our tests; the DXer’s this is great news: they the Channel and Favorites lists, ing of course that this data is
receiver immediately rec- won’t have any trouble receiv- satellite data, etc. and save made available by the provider.
ognized the high-quality HD ing feeds from the US. this information as often as Information on upcoming pro-
signal from ORF1 HD and the needed. Should there ever be gramming is delivered by the
correct resolution of 720p was As with most of the other Top- a problem or if something went Guide button.
selected. When the receiver field receivers, the TF7700HSCI wrong with a setting, the origi-
was switched to an SD channel, can also store only 5000 TV nal configuration can quickly The TF7700HSCI quickly
the TF7700HSCI instantly acti- and radio channels; for a CI be restored. The receiver builds a complete overview
vated 576p. receiver with DiSEqC 1.3, this would then be back to its origi- of all the programming and
is clearly not enough. nal state with all of the correct by pressing the OK button
Even the 1080i resolution on settings in place. timer settings can be handled
the HD channels of a German Because of the limited chan- directly from the EPG while the
PayTV provider were effortlessly nel memory capacity, effi- Once all of the initial settings current program is visible in
recognized and matched by the ciently editing the channel have been taken care of, the a small window (even with HD
receiver. The video format can list is even more critical. It Exit button will take you out of channels).
conveniently by changed by would seem that Topfield put the Main Menu and the receiver
pushing a single button on the a lot of work into editing the will then switch to the first A push of the OK button dis-
remote control. channel list – users can easily channel in the list. plays the channel list that with

30 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-11/2008 — www.TELE-satellite.com

 TELE-satellite World www.TELE-satellite.com/...
Download this report in other languages from the Internet:
Arabic ‫ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ‬ www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ara/topfield.pdf
Indonesian Indonesia www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/bid/topfield.pdf
Bulgarian Български www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/bul/topfield.pdf
Czech Česky www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ces/topfield.pdf
German Deutsch www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/deu/topfield.pdf
the help of the colored function Up to this point, the English English www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/eng/topfield.pdf
Spanish Español www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/esp/topfield.pdf
buttons on the remote can be TF7700HSCI was similar in Farsi ‫ﻓﺎﺭﺳﻲ‬ www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/far/topfield.pdf
sorted or limited to specific sat- function to other HD receivers, French Français www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/fra/topfield.pdf
Greek Ελληνικά www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/hel/topfield.pdf
ellites. but this is where the similarities Croatian Hrvatski www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/hrv/topfield.pdf
come to an end: the integrated Italian Italiano www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ita/topfield.pdf
Hungarian Magyar www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/mag/topfield.pdf
The time to switch between USB 2.0 host connection. Mandarin 中文 www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/man/topfield.pdf
two HD channels is just under Dutch Nederlands www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/ned/topfield.pdf
Polish Polski www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/pol/topfield.pdf
two seconds; the channel For our tests we connected Portuguese Português www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/por/topfield.pdf
switching time is faster between a Seagate FreeAgent Pro hard Romanian Românesc www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/rom/topfield.pdf
Russian Русский www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/rus/topfield.pdf
SD channels. drive and a 4GB USB memory Swedish Svenska www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/sve/topfield.pdf
Turkish Türkçe www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0811/tur/topfield.pdf
stick. As soon as each device
Because of the automatic was connected, and this can Available online starting from 26 September 2008
adjustment of the picture even be done while the receiver
resolution, the time to switch is operating, the TF7700HSCI put on the receiver, we could stick can also be played back
between HDTV and SDTV chan- immediately recognized the not detect any interference or on a PC without any problems
nels can be as high as three new storage medium and, just other hiccups during recording or with the proper tools can
or four seconds depending on like that, multiple PVR func- and playback. be burned to a DVD. Even HD
the TV. If this is too long for tions such as Record and Play recorded programs did not
you, simply turn off the auto- instantly became available. In general, we could not give our computer any difficul-
matic resolution function and detect any difference in per- ties.
change the resolution manu- While one channel is being formance compared to receiv-
ally as needed with the remote recorded (even an HD channel), ers with built-in hard drives; Topfield is constantly at
control. all the other channels on the this lets the user take full work improving their products.
same transponder (again, even advantage of an external stor- New software updates can
The Topfield manufactured HD channels) are available to age device and gives them be uploaded into the receiver
tuner left us with a very good be viewed live. It is also pos- the flexibility to swap external either via satellite, through the
impression; it can easily handle sible to record one channel and devices or bring them with you USB stick or through the serial
weaker signals such as can be watch a previously recorded to another location. interface. This makes it very
found on BADR 26° east, NILE- channel at the same time. easy for the user to keep the
SAT 7° west or ASTRA 2D 28.2° The recorded programs on software in the receiver up to
east. Despite the extreme load we the external hard drive or USB date.

Unfortunately, we could not

find any technical data on the
tuner in the user manual so we
had to conduct our SCPC test
without any range data from
the manufacturer to compare
to. Our tests revealed that
reception is possible only with
symbolrates starting at roughly
2.0 Ms/sec.

We were especially pleased

with the HDTV reception test;
it performed perfectly and
without any erratic video or
crashes. We looked at various
HDTV channels at different sat-
ellite positions and, regardless
if it was FTA or encrypted, the
TF7700HSCI did not have any
problems with any of the chan-
nels.
Channel Scan Menu

www.TELE-satellite.com — 10-11/2008 — TELE-satellite & Broadband 31

 Expert Opinion
+
The TF7700HSCI is a solidly built SDTV and
HDTV receiver that includes a variety of very prac-
tical features. Add to that the logically laid out and
easy to understand OSD and you have a perfect
everyday satellite receiver for the entire family.
Thomas Haring
The HDTV reception in DVB-S2 mode based TELE-satellite
Test Center
on the H.264 standard functioned properly and Austria
Info Bar
thanks to the HDMI output, these super-clear sig-
nals can easily be connected to a plasma or LCD TV. With the
help of the USB 2.0 interface and an external hard drive or USB
memory stick, the TF7700HSCI becomes a full-powered PVR
machine whose recordings can easily be taken anywhere and just
as easily be played back directly on a PC.

-
The channel memory only has room for 5000 channels and
a main power switch on the rear panel would also be practi-
cal.

TECHNIC
DATA
Manufacturer Topfield, Seongnam/Korea
Expanded EPG
Fax +82-31-7082607
E-Mail inquiry@topfield.co.kr
Model TF7700HSCI
Function Digital Satellite Receiver for SDTV/HDTV in
DVBS and DVBS2 (QPSK/8PSK) MPEG2 and MPEG4
Channel Memory 5000
Symbolrate 2-45 Ms/sec.
SCPC Compatible yes
DiSEqC 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3
USALS yes
HDMI Connection yes
Scart Connectors 2
Audio/Video Output 3 x RCA
Component Output 3x RCA
S-Video Output no Channel List with Options Menu
UHF Modulator no
Programmable 0/12 Volt no
Digital Audio Output yes
EPG yes
C/Ku-Band Compatible yes
PVR Function yes (via external USB 2.0 storage medium)
Power Supply 90-250 VAC, 50/60 Hz
Dimensions 43/26.5/6cm
Weight 2.9kg

ENERGY
DIAGRAM

Mode Apparent Active Factor

StandBy 22 W 7W 0.31 Recording of HD Programs
Reception 39 W 19 W 0.48
Apparent Power

Active Power

First 15 Minutes: Active Operation with Channel Switching, Recording, Play-

back, etc. Second 15 Minutes: Standby Overview of Previously Recorded Programs

32 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-11/2008 — www.TELE-satellite.com