Another affordable option – though only if you live in an area that can receive the service – is the Virgin TV cable service. The V+ box that Virgin provides to its customers costs £150 and is capable of receiving both standard-definition and HD channels. However, when we rang them they offered to let us have it for £75 – obviously an attempt to lure us away from Sky and Freesat.
Virgin offers three packages of channels, called Small (free), Medium (£9 per month) and Large (£9.75), and for another £5 per month you can get the BBC HD channel added to the Small and Medium packages - there’s no additional cost for the Large package. Virgin also has an ‘on demand’ option that includes pay-per-view films, some of which are in HD. However, Virgin were a bit vague about the HD films that are currently available, so Freesat looks like a better deal if you’re looking for an affordable entry into the world of HD.
Hardly a glowing endorsement, but then what do Virgin expect? The HD movies are of course on VM courtesy of Filmflex (28 of them at last count). I got the distinct impression the guy had never seen Virgin as he makes no mention of the On Demand HD stuff (which gets picked up in the Comments attached to the piece.
3 comments:
hey Nialli
I dont know if you noticed but not only were the prices of the packages incorrect but also their names. The Register up to their usual Sky "fanboyism"?
What winds me up is that all of these "guides" to digital TV gloss over VM without even giving the service a proper look. When was the last time you saw anything in print that accurately reflected the VM on demand service? I've even seen reviews favouring Sky Anytime over the VM offering!
Sure, Virgin Media ain't perfect and the HD offering is seriously flawed, but to my mind even Tiscali and BT Vision get a fairer shout in the press than VM. That the likes of The Register, Digital Spy and even The Guardian Media so obviously favour Sky is probably down to reviewers' own personal preference. Forming an objective opinion or supplying accurate information seems to be somewhat beyond them.
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