TiVo launch now April 11th - £149 plus £40 activation plus £3 a month for existing customers

Just received this from Virgin Media. It's addressed "Dear Dean" but I think it was for me...

Now here’s something you don’t see everyday. You’ve got the chance to be one of the first to order our amazing 1TB TiVo® box before everyone else because you’re a Virgin Media customer and you pre-registered your interest in our TiVo service.

During the week beginning 11th April, we’ll be opening an exclusive pre-sale event just for you, so you can order Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo. We’ll email you the details on the day and you can be one of the first to get your hands on our latest kit before it goes on general sale.
Here’s the deal:
1TB TiVo box £149.95 one-off activation fee exclusively for existing customers (everyone else pays £199.95) £3 additional monthly fee with TV XL
Our exclusive pre-sale event for the 1TB box is only available to you. Think of it as a little ‘thank you’ from us for being a Virgin Media customer and for being one of the very first to register your interest in our TiVo service.
We’ll email you again during the week of 11th April to tell you more. If you’d like to take another look at what our TiVo service can do, head over to our Discover TiVo site for all the details.

We’ll email you again during the week of 11th April to tell you more. If you’d like to take another look at what our TiVo service can do, head over to our Discover TiVo site for all the details.
Keep your eyes peeled on your inbox

The Virgin Media team

General: £40 installation fee applies. TiVo box remains property of Virgin Media. New 12-month minimum term contract applies. 1TB TiVo box: you must take, or upgrade to, TV XL to be eligible. If you cease to be an XL TV customer, we reserve the right to charge you the then applicable monthly TiVo charge (currently £8 for TV L or M+). TiVo is not available on TV M. Information about your TiVo use: By having the TiVo service and/or by using it you are providing your consent for us to use your viewing information to personalise your experience of the TiVo service (in addition to the other purposes set out in our privacy policy). We may share with third parties information about your use of the TiVo service in an aggregated form which will not personally identify you. This aggregated data may be used by those third parties for their marketing purposes (e.g. to improve their targeting of advertising based on user preferences).

Remote recording on the TiVo

Want to set a recording but away from home? Sky customers have had the capability for years and now Virgin's TiVo customers will enjoy a similar service.
Go to www.virginmedia.com/tvguide, log in to your account and you'll see an on-screen version of the EPG. Find the programme you want, click on it and then select 'record this episode' or 'record the whole series'. You get a confirmation back that the recording has been sent. Can't test it myself as still no TiVo, but not long now (hopefully)

TiVo launch to customers: Monday April 4th

Still to be confirmed, but looks like next Monday. Thanks to Mr S. Eyes for the info.

Rubicon arrives on BBC 4

When the BBC lost Mad Men to the mighty cheque book of Sky Atlantic, we were promised another AMC quality product, Rubicon, as a replacement on BBC4. We then learned just a few weeks later that the series was cancelled after a single 13 episode season which meant that it was to be something of a brief encounter than a prolonged engagement.
Well the good news is that it is finally with us, starting on Thursday April 7th on BBC4. And the bad news is that it's not showing on BBC HD. The schedulers instead have two repeats of That Mitchell & Webb Look at 11pm that night in HD, but haven't the wit or the where with all to show Rubicon in high def. Crazy crazy crazy.

TechRadar TiVo review

Full review here.
Summary:

For

• Incredibly powerful
• Huge range of functionality
• Highlights the benefits of a cable connection
• Makes finding content easy
• TiVo recommendations are fabulous

Against

• Occasionally overcomplicates things
• Lacks polish in several places
• Could do with a QWERTY remote control

Sky Atlantic HD speculation

Spotted by Gunslinger on Cable Forum: Sky are no longer promoting Sky Atlantic HD as "free and exclusive to Sky customers" on sky.com. One hesitates to draw hasty conclusions from such things, but could it be 'coming soon' after all?

F1 in HD

I'm not a fan so I didn't bother to tune in for the Australian Grand Prix but how did it look?

TiVo iPlayer app adds BBC HD programmes?

I saw this posted by DevilIncarnate over on a post on Cable Forum - it looks like the BBC iPlayer app on the TiVo box has now added BBC HD content, too. Can anyone with a TiVo please confirm?

Sky1 HD's Fringe renewed

It was back on our screens this week, looking glorious in HD, and will be back for a fourth season too: Fringe has been renewed by US network Fox despite pretty poor ratings in the US. Let's hope Sky airs it closer to the US broadcasts next season: the second half of the current (third) season took an age to reach these shores.
(Full story: Entertainment Weekly)

TiVo user guides

For those who weren't aware, two Virgin Media TiVo guides are available online:
TiVo Complete Guide
TiVo Quick Guide