The Topfield TRF-2100, new to the company’s set top box range, is a personal video recorder with twin digital TV tuners and an internal 320GB hard drive. It’s small and discreet, quiet and quick to operate, but misses out on some features that we would have liked to see.
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User Rating
Pros
- Simple operation and interface
- Fast, trouble-free navigation
Cons
- Comparatively small hard drive
- Inferior fast forward/rewind speed
- No Internet capability
Bottom Line
The Topfield TRF-2100 is a basic set top box, with dual TV tuners that let you record one program while you're watching another. It's simple, easy to operate and quick to respond to commands. We wish it had more hard drive capacity though, and the lack of Internet features (included on a cheaper model) is disappointing.
Topfield TRF-2100: Design and setup
The TRF-2100 is much smaller than its companion TRF-2470, measuring only 260 x 195 x 50mm. It’s able to be hidden out of the way behind any reasonably-sized TV stand, and will fit in discreetly with any other devices in your home entertainment setup.
The three-digit, single-line liquid crystal display on the front of the TRF-2100 is extremely basic, only showing up the channel number of whatever you’re currently watching. Apart from that, the front of the set top box is almost blank — you’ll find a central power button and channel buttons near the screen, but that’s it.
Around the back, the TRF-2100 has connectors for antenna input and output, component video and composite A/V, optical digital audio output, HDMI output, a USB input, and 12V DC power input. We would have liked to see the USB port on the front of the box, but otherwise we’re happy with the TRF-2100’s range and variety of inputs and outputs.
The remote control bundled with the Topfield TRF-2100 is as simple as the set top box itself. A central five-way navigational pad also handles volume and channel changing, there’s a number pad up top and play/stop/pause/rewind/fast forward buttons down the bottom. The labelling is OK, not great; we would have liked to see better descriptions on some of the buttons to save reading the manual for information.
Topfield TRF-2100: Performance and features
The menu system of the Topfield TRF-2100 is the same as the more expensive TRF-2470 — it’s simple, relies largely on text rather than graphics, and is thankfully quick to respond to commands. It’s also logically laid out, and easy to navigate to both common and less common functions.
The twin digital TV tuners of the TRF-2100 mean that you can record one program while still watching another live TV channel, or record two programs while watching something you’ve previously taped.
What you’ll be using most is the Recording menu and its EPG, which makes adding reminders and scheduling recordings a relatively easy process. The TRF-2100’s 320GB internal hard drive can store around about 80 hours of high definition digital TV recordings, and about double that if you’re only recording in standard definition (or if you’re just recording a standard definition channel). This is a fair amount of hard drive space, but it pales in comparison to competing brands’ 500GB models which only cost slightly more.
In terms of its feature-set, the TRF-2100 lags behind the TRF-2470 it was announced alongside, but also behind the cheaper non-recording TBF-7300. Both of these models include access to YouTube and the ABC iView catch-up TV service, but the TRF-2100 isn’t able to connect to the Internet. You can still use the rear USB port to play back compressed audio and picture files (JPEG picture, MP3 audio), but video isn’t supported.
Similarly, the TRF-2100 isn’t able to deliver the same 128x fast forward/rewind speeds that the TRF-2470 can. The cheaper set top box is limited to only 64x — while this might still seem like a lot, if you’re watching a longer video and want to skip ahead, the extra speed is useful.
Topfield TRF-2100: Conclusion
The Topfield TRF-2100 is a very simple personal video recorder, and while its simplicity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you can find more fully-featured competitors for similar price tags. We do wonder why the TRF-2100 is lacking the Internet capability and iView access of the cheaper TBF-7300, though.
If you’re just looking for a reasonably cheap PVR that’s easy to understand and easy to operate, the Topfield TRF-2100 ticks all your boxes.
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marian dubrowski
1
how do I delete programs that I'vr recorded?
Terry
2
Download the complete User manual from Topfield. I am sure it is covered in there.
jane
3
How do I change the time from 2003 to 2013? Instructions say AUTO/change TIME OFFSET but my date is still dec 2003. any help? ta
Marian Haynes
4
have set two programmes to record cannot get them to play back
what am i doing wrong
marian
5
I too would like to know which button to press to delete ptogrammes that I have recorded
as this is not shown in the manual guide.
Tez
6
I'm trying to download the full guide through the topfield site http://www.topfield.com.au and just takes me to unable to connect, diagnose problems....anyone got a site I can go to for this. My user manual isnt enough info for me to install
rick
7
how to delete recorded programs on trf-2100,unable to get manual-Topfield not answering
Lynne
8
I am unable to access Topfield web site - cannot download manual- also don't know how to delete programs recorded. The user manual provided with machine is extremely limited and the diagrams are too dark to be read. This is not good.
Barb
9
To delete recordings:
If you go to Menu then Recording, there is a menu at the bottom of the screen. Select the program and press the blue button (I think - I'm at work at the moment!) to Delete.