March 04, 2011

Extensive review of TiVo on Pocket Lint

Long review and some great pictures of the TiVo over on PocketLint. Here's their summary:

So there you have it the Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo box – not just an upgrade for the company, but perhaps television per se. At £199, the “activation fee” may seem steep to some, especially when combined with the £40 installation cost and £3 per month extra on the bill, but not only is it cheaper than Sky’s initial HD device was when it was launched, it’s also a small price to pay for a remarkably powerful slice of technology.
It does suffer from the occasional gltch, after all these are early days and teething troubles are to be expected, but it is undoubtedly the future of TV. And it’s here. Now.
Once you’ve spent some time navigating around the gloriously designed menu structure and search functionality, you may never want to rely on plain old linear TV again. It’s all well and good having a billion HD channels, but if you can’t choose what to watch when you want to watch it, and in such style to boot, then what’s the point. There’s never anything good on.
There is on Virgin Media’s TiVo box.


Read more: Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo review - Pocket-lint

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Quote: "That said, it does utilise the aforementioned three tuners. And not only can the box record two channels while you watch another...".

I was under the impression that the Virgin-supplied TiVo is only able to record one channel whilst watching another - is that incorrect?

Viola said...

Probably reviewing a Triallist STB. Three tuners have been live on those boxes for some time and are very likely to be active for non-triallists in the next month.

Square eyes said...

Do people not read what others post

The 3rd tuner is going to activated shortly, and not even us triallist have had the 3rd tuner.

The box will actually record 2 channels whilst watching a 3rd and you can even record the 3rd channel if you wish, however you will not be able to change channel.

streaky_7 said...

Hi Square Eyes,

Not that it will come up often but will it automatically channel change if you set 3 to record but are on a forth channel? Example,

I am going out for the day. Whilst I am out, all starting at 8pm, I want to record BBC1, BBC2 and ITV1. But when I leave the house I leave the channel on Sky Sports 1.

Will the channel automatically change to one of the set recorded programmes? Or will it just not record one of the programmes?

Or am I not even able to set the 3rd channel to record in advance and can only record the 3rd as I am actually watching the programme?

Sorry for the long winded post, I hope I have explained what I am trying to ask??!!

matthew said...

another question(sorry) maybe for square eyes? Does the internal modem need any other connections for it or does it just connect via the 'main' cable in?? If you know what i mean.
thanks in advance

Square eyes said...

@Streaky

simple answer no - you cannot programme to record a 3rd channel, you can only press the record button on the channel you are watching.

@Matthew

The box has it's own dedicated 10mb broadband which has nothing what so ever to do with your normal broadbend connection

hope tis helps guys

Viola said...

@Square Eyes

You're clearly not in the right trial group. There's plenty of test / triallist boxes with 3 tuners working very well on the live network. That's all 3 tuners recording at the same time and allowing you to also watch one of them, view something previously recorded or BBC iPlayer (normal VOD requires a tuner).

It does look likely that the code for this will reach a wider audience this week too.

@streaky_7
The box will retune if there's no more tuners left, so you will come back to something other than Sky Sports 1.

Square eyes said...

@viola

the 3rd tuner has only just been activated in a small group of trialist, this was done about 10days ago. Not everyone has had this done.

I have not said you cannot watch the channel when recording, I said you cannot change the channels to another,

Oh one more thing I was not on the trial, I work for VM and got the box that way.

Square eyes said...

@viola

forgot to ask have you got a tivo box?