Moving to England

[spyhunter]

Hello, I am moving to England soon, and was wondering if there are any providers for CableCard and if so, would a Series 3 TiVo from the US work there?

SH

[Pete77]

Hello, I am moving to England soon, and was wondering if there are any providers for CableCard and if so, would a Series 3 TiVo from the US work there?

SH

In a word the answer is No sadly.

The only Tivo's that will work here in the UK are the SD Thomson Tivo PVR10UK Series 1 that can be very readily purchased on www.ebay.co.uk

You are best trying to buy a unit that has a Lifetime Sub, a Cachecard with 512Mb of RAM and an upgraded hard drive of 250Gb or more. If you get such a machine with TivoWeb and all the many hacks then that will most closely resemble a Tivo S3 but will not have dual tuner support and will not support HD.

Your only options for HD in the UK are www.skyhd.com and www.telewest.co.uk both of which have their own HD PVRs but most people here think the user interfaces and ability to record programs reliably compared to Tivo are very poor indeed.

These sites give an idea of all the modules that can be added to a Tivo S1 + TivoWeb and Web access to the Tivo so long as you get one that has a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM.

http://tivo.lightn.org/

www.ljay.org.uk/tivoweb/

www.beaconhill.plus.com/TiVo/tivohacks.htm

http://www.arielbusiness.pwp.blueyo.../TiVo/HowTo.htm

http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TiVoWeb%20Modules

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/tivowebplus

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0

www.tivohackman.com

www.weethet.nl/english/tivo_extract_videos.php

[blindlemon]

would a Series 3 TiVo from the US work there?Are you trolling, or is this a real question? :p:D

Unfortunately, as pete77 has pointed out, we don't even have Series 2 TiVos here in the UK, let alone Series 3 :mad:

This is a very sore point with many users on this forum, so questions about Series 3 etc., tend to go down like a wet fart in church :down::down::down::(

Sorry :o

[Pete77]

Are you trolling, or is this a real question? :p:D

All spyhunter's previous 28 posts have been in the US Tivo forums so I think we can be confident his question is for real. And its not his fault that Tivo Inc won't let us in the UK have a Tivo S3 model.

There is a rather unfavourable review of Cablecard (effectively a cable CAM for HDTVs) here but it is two years old.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-8900_7-5581176-1.html

Spyhunter only 25% or so of uk addreses have access to cable but 95% or so either have a digital satellite point that can now support Sky HD or have the potential to have a digital satellite dish installed by Sky for free (as long as you can subscribe to them for at least one year). Another 5-10% of UK addresses are apartments that don't have a digital satellite point and where you can't just get your own dish put in due to the apartment or house concerned having planning (zoning) rules that forbid the erection of individual satellite dishes. Only a communal dish is possible and those can take years to get agreement on being installed.

So make sure your acommodation is somewhere that either has cable or has no restrictions in installation of digital satellite. Another point is that many old communal digital satellite dish instals for apartments won't support the dual tuner feature of Sky's HD service due to not having double cabling from the satellite dish. You can still get HD but can't record one program while watching another or record two clashing programs that are on at the same time.

If television is important to you then you need to check out all these issues before deciding where to get your acommodation.

[thechachman]

There would likely be a few of us willing to swap a UK Series 1 for your US Series 3 though ...

Allow me to put myself first in the queue lol ... :cool:

[Pete77]

There would likely be a few of us willing to swap a UK Series 1 for your US Series 3 though ...

Allow me to put myself first in the queue lol ... :cool:

What use would it be to you other than as a doorstop unless you moved to Hawaii or somewhere else in the USA though? :confused:

[thechachman]

Intellectual curiousity and hope that sufficient hacks would become discovered ...

[Pete77]

Intellectual curiousity and hope that sufficient hacks would become discovered ...

But you would also have to hack receiving Tivo service too (or rather "borrow" the data from a subscribed UK Tivo) to be able to use it here. ;) :eek:

And a current Tivo S3 is likely to be pretty expensive as a toy given how much they cost to buy in the US of A.

[thechachman]

You're approaching the edge of permissible discussion but really just manual recording was what I was considering.

I didn't say I expected him to take me up on the offer, just that I wanted to be first to suggest it :p

[Pete77]

You're approaching the edge of permissible discussion but really just manual recording was what I was considering.

If you just want an HD manual recordings PVR that can occasionally do slightly more than that if you are very lucky then why not get Sky HD. ;)

Of course just one year of Sky HD subs and box acquisition cost will be considerably more epensive than even a Tivo S3 unless you were already a hocked up to the eyeballs as an existing Sky+ subscriber.

[Raisltin Majere]

Can somebody explain to me why a S3 tivo wouldn't work?

Leaving aside the guide data issue, my understanding of the problems with non-HD tivos are:

NTSC/PAL - wouldn't this problem cease to exist under HD, but be replaced with a resolution (or whatever you call these 1080 things) problem? And aren't HD TVs able to scale different resolutions to their own? So is it a non-problem?

Power supply - wrong voltage or something, easily fixed AIUI

Is that it?

If the only real problem is guide data and no changes are needed to be made by TiVo other then to allow more modern units to access UK guide data that's got to be virtually zero cost to them, hasn't it?

But they make whatever they make on sales of units and new subs.

I've gotta be missing something...

[Nebulous]

I've gotta be missing something...
No... I think it's tivo who are missing something. :mad:

[Raisltin Majere]

Yeah, and we would benefit from the exchange rate. half price HD tivo :) oh :mad:

[Pete77]

I've gotta be missing something...

Selling new units in small volumes without a serious marketing effort behind it would perpetuate Tivo's long term commitment to retaining provision of UK Tivo service indefinitely rather than perhaps say until 2012 (10 years after the last units were sold from retailers) or whatever they plan.

And the annual data contract with Tribune has a fixed minimum cost in provision that must have very little to do with the number of customers using the service, except of course the monthly subscribers rather than the lifetimers who provide extra income to pay for the continuation of the service.

Also the annual contract with Sky has a fixed minimum cost as well as a per call cost no doubt and selling new boxes means in PR terms going on supporting the S1s with still many thousands of 0800 calls a day for how long...................

Basically it isn't worth Tivo continuing their commitment to remain in the UK forever unless they plan to sell enough boxes per annum and generate enough new income to make it commercially viable. Hard economics I'm afraid. A few thousand subscribers in one country aren't cost effective to maintain indefinitely. A couple of hundred thousand or half a million might be and might make a reasonable profit.

[Raisltin Majere]

That may be so, but it has to be more cost effective to get new subscribers than not.

AIUI they no longer do lifetime subs in the states, so they wouldn't have to them here. Sell the box to UK customers with 1, 2 or 3 years subs. So they get more money than they do now for 1, 2 or 3 years. If the Tribune contract has no relation to customer base, there's no extra cost there.

Ditch sky for customer service, all they seem to do is say "go to www.tivocommunity.com".

And surely a new product would eliminate the need to offer support for older boxes, wouldn't it?

[Pete77]

Ditch sky for customer service, all they seem to do is say "go to www.tivocommunity.com"

I found a use for the Sky people CS people the other day. They still stock the IR leads and will send them out for free, although perhaps not forever if everyone on this site asks for a set. My original still works but the plug that goes into the back of unit is very bent and nearly split off after an accident when the Tivo was at a relative's house a couple of xmases ago. And as the third party substitutes on Ebay only have one IR eye I thought I would get one now before it is too late (I run a Sky and Freeview box dual arrangement).

I also called them at about 10pm on Saturday evening and got straight through and using www.18185.co.uk its only 1p per minute plus 4p connection on Saturday evening to call 0870.

But I agree Tivo would be better off cutting the Sky contract and doing all the support from their CS unit in the USA. If they were only open 9am to 5pm US West Coast time which is 5pm to 1am here that would be fine with most UK Tivo customers. And I would much rather deal with an American any day than (a) Sky's customer service people and (b) Any Indian call centre worker.

I appreciate your sentiments on every new customer is good but realistically if they take on new customers in small numbers like 10,000 or so that's at least a 5 if not 10 year commitment and isn't cost effective unless a certain critical number of customers is achieved. Of course if they only sold the S3 boxes online from the USA and delivered them by mail order and ran customer services for the UK in the USA then the only unique UK cost would be the Tribune EPG. May be then letting us have S3 units would be viable. Also of course S3 units would only be supported by broadband data retrieval if they have any sense although I think they would have to let lifetime subs be transferred for a one off payment unless possibly the new sub was much lower e.g only 5 pounds a month. So no one would mind paying it.

[Raisltin Majere]

Of course if they only sold the S3 boxes online from the USA and delivered them by mail order and ran customer services for the UK in the USA then the only unique UK cost would be the Tribune EPG. May be then letting us have S3 units would be viable.

Sorry, I probably didn't make myself clear, that's precisely what I meant. Let us buy the unit online, from the states and make use of the data Tribune already provide.

Also of course S3 units would only be supported by broadband data retrieval if they have any sense although I think they would have to let lifetime subs be transferred for a one off payment unless possibly the new sub was much lower e.g only 5 pounds a month. So no one would mind paying it.

Don't agree. Why exclude non-broadband subscribing potential customers? Maybe knock off 5% for broadband folk?

I don't have a lifetime sub, but I wonder how many that do would be put off a S3 because they couldn't transfer?

[Pete77]

Sorry, I probably didn't make myself clear, that's precisely what I meant. Let us buy the unit online, from the states and make use of the data Tribune already provide.

Just thought of a snag though because of all those different Scart sockets etc compared to the American terminals even if the HD television outputs are now the same. I suppose they could just provide an elaborate set of converter leads of some kind.

But what about Sky and NTL/Telewest? Will they let the HDTV output be recorded by a Tivo? Isn't there digital rights management and so on? Obviously no issue with a Freeview which isn't in HD for the foreseeable future.

Don't agree. Why exclude non-broadband subscribing potential customers? Maybe knock off 5% for broadband folk?

I don't have a lifetime sub, but I wonder how many that do would be put off a S3 because they couldn't transfer?

I think a lot would be put off by not being able to transfer the sub unless the sub was cheap enough that it doesn't hurt. That's why I suggest no Lifetime Sub on the S3 but only £5 per month. I don't think its necessary to subsidise the box itself to the former Tivo S1 customer base. They will happily pay £299 for a new one.

Mind you everything is changing. BT has just launched their new BT Vision thing with access to the last 7 days Freeview on tap (well that's not there yet but will be withing 6 months) and on demand movies etc and no monthly sub commitment and a free box. OK they are charging £60 now for an engineer "Install" and £30 connection but they are talking Self-Install next year some time. I could be very interested in one of those as there are always programs you forget to record and realise you want a day or so later. Of course much depends on whether they try to lock you to BT Broadband and how much they want for that broadband package.

Like it or not Video on Demand broadband is coming in a big way, although could also allow the companies to only let you see things like films for 7 days rather than whenever you want which my 500Gb allows. Eventually our poor Tivo S1 is going to feel like the dinosaur when HD is the norm for most programs on satellite but I think we have 5 years or so till things really feel that way.

[aerialplug]

NTSC/PAL - wouldn't this problem cease to exist under HD, but be replaced with a resolution (or whatever you call these 1080 things) problem? And aren't HD TVs able to scale different resolutions to their own? So is it a non-problem?

Power supply - wrong voltage or something, easily fixed AIUI

Is that it?

If the only real problem is guide data and no changes are needed to be made by TiVo other then to allow more modern units to access UK guide data that's got to be virtually zero cost to them, hasn't it?

But they make whatever they make on sales of units and new subs.

I've gotta be missing something...


NTSC/PAL is relatively straight forward to fix as the MPEG chipset can copy with both. Even a series 1 TiVo can be quickly modified to an alternative standard.

HD is still an issue as well, as 1080 is sent out at 50 fields per second here no 60 as it is in the States - and I think 720 is 25 frames as oposed to 30 in the States (though I'm not 100% sure about this as there's also a 24 frames per second mode to support films - I don't know if this has been implimented here or in the States).

As to power supply, certainly with series 1 TiVos, the PSU auto switches to the appropriate voltage so a converter is not required.

Guide data is slightly different for the UK - I gather the genres are slightly different. I don't know what else is different, but a TiVo running US software is incapable of making sense of the UK data even if you got round the serial number problem.

The real problem, as has been mentioned elsewhere, is that the UK market don't see the value of the TiVo service, especially now that most Freeview PVRs utilise the off air 7 day EPG data, and Sky+ functionality is also free now if you subscribe to 2 upper tier packages (e.g. the 2 film packages). It takes a few days of using a TiVo to realise that there's a lot more to TiVo than the guide data.