Tivo and Virgin V+ Box - Channel Changing

[timreed]

Hi - Just been upgraded by Virgin to V+ box. Is there anyway to get my Tivo to control it to change channels - yes I know I have 3 inputs with the new box and dual recording facility, but I love my Tivo and its superior GUI and TV guide. Can the V+ box be controlled with the old wands or a diect cable like SKy in order to change channels? Maybe there will never be 3 things on simultaneously to record , so just call me greedy!
Many thanks

[cwaring]

As far as I know, yes it can. Can't remember the code to use though. Either try a search or wait for someone else who has one to tell you :)

[RichardJH]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=340362
Plenty of info in this thread

[timreed]

Many thanks guys - have got V+ box to work with good old Tivo wands and a slow send of channel changing. Much appreciated all round - long live Tivo.

[peterseventy]

Hi - Just been upgraded by Virgin to V+ box. Is there anyway to get my Tivo to control it to change channels - yes I know I have 3 inputs with the new box and dual recording facility, but I love my Tivo and its superior GUI and TV guide. Can the V+ box be controlled with the old wands or a diect cable like SKy in order to change channels? Maybe there will never be 3 things on simultaneously to record , so just call me greedy!
Many thanks

We recently traded in our NTL analogue cable box for Virgin Media V+ and have had unexpected results when controlling V+ with a TiVo and sourcing the TiVo through the TiVo AUX input. For example, viewing a V+ recording superimposes what is being viewed onto whatever TiVo is recording at the time, rendering the recording useless. The same thing happens when looking at V+ menus – worst was returning from holiday to a find a large V+ menu screen saying ‘Your disc is full, do you want to delete some recordings, yes or no?’ which had been superimposed onto a week’s worth of otherwise perfectly good TiVo recordings! The good bit is Virgin’s Catch-up TV, which can be recorded manually on TiVo but is delivered without the advertisement breaks.
Interesting hint from RichardJH on 03-01-2007, 05:36 PM “It is possible to watch a V+ recording without affecting the Tivo if you use the copy to VCR/DVD option. I have the V+ VCR output routed via my DVD recorder.” In fact we decided to divorce V+ from TiVo, and feed the TiVo from a separate non-PVR V-box.

One of the setup quirks with Virgin digital cable after using TiVo on NTL/Virgin analogue cable is that Guided Setup does not at first appear to work. It is first necessary (as explained by TiVo help desk before sanity finally departed) to run Guided Setup for Aerial Only, and then run it again for Virgin Digital + Aerial – it works!

The IR code for our V+ box and non-PVR Vbox is Samsung 20045 Medium – TiVo help desk says the PACE code 20045 is also OK. There is another thing about the codes – you have to do Guided Setup for the Virgin boxes before the correct code options appear – it’s no use trying to set the IR code if TiVo is set up for a Thomson DTI 2300 Freeview!

[timreed]

Thanks Peterseventy and apologies for delay in responding. Have in fact - much like you - given up trying to marry Tivo and V+ box. Instead as Virgin allowed me to keep old analogue cable box have Tivo attached to that as before so with 2 channels on V+ box recording and another on Tivo, am building up a backlog of TV that will never get watched! V+ box is good, but Virgin Broadband is crap - wish I was still with Sky.....

[mikerr]

For example, viewing a V+ recording superimposes what is being viewed onto whatever TiVo is recording at the time, rendering the recording useless.

Same thing happens with sky+ - you just have to make sure the tivo's red light isn't on when you pickup the v+ / sky+ remote....

when looking at V+ menus – worst was returning from holiday to a find a large V+ menu screen saying ‘Your disc is full, do you want to delete some recordings, yes or no?’ which had been superimposed onto a week’s worth of otherwise perfectly good TiVo recordings!

There is a fix for that on the v+ itself now in the settings menu
(When full, stop rcording, delete oldest, or ask)

You can also set the channel changing on tivo to send "enter" after a channel change - the box sees this as "ok", so will cancel any on-screen message box.
That way you only ever lose a maximum of one recording.

(Using v+ with code SA 20009 SLOW, one wand, no mains cable IR box)

[RichardJH]

given up trying to marry Tivo

On other threads I had also came to that conclusion. Yes it does work but places too many limitations on good use of Tivo and V+ box.

Virgin Broadband is crap - wish I was still with Sky.....

Did you mean broadband or just directing your upset at Virgin in general.

I have Virgins V+ product with 20mb broadband and compared to friends broadband supplied over telephone line (ADSL) it is a far superior product, as for phone and TV services I am perfectly happy with the product albeit it is a personal choice with different channel line-ups between different subscribers.

It is a shame that using Tivo we cannot overcome the Sky movies PIN issue that allows us to use Tivo to record movies without the human intervention needed to input a PIN, however with V+ I use that to record any movies as a PIN is not required to be input until you actually watch the recording

[cwaring]

It is a shame that using Tivo we cannot overcome the Sky movies PIN issue that allows us to use Tivo to record movies without the human intervention needed to input a PIN...
Amen to that. I think I can feel another petition coming on ;)

[peterseventy]

There is a fix for that on the v+ itself now in the settings menu
(When full, stop rcording, delete oldest, or ask)

You can also set the channel changing on tivo to send "enter" after a channel change - the box sees this as "ok", so will cancel any on-screen message box.
That way you only ever lose a maximum of one recording.


Thanks for the fix. A couple of thoughts on V+ operation:
While installing a new TV we moved V+ temporarily to a location which had previously fed an NTL analogue cable box. A hum appeared on the whole system which we eventually traced to a ground-loop from the V+ box through the local TV, its Freeview receiver and aerial socket, the UHF aerial distribution amplifier, and from there to the new TV system through its UHF aerial cable. It then became apparent that Virgin's installer had put an isolator in the V+ box cable feed (a diecast box with a big nylon gasket at the cable feed end) which deals with the ground-loop problem. So beware of moving your V+ box without its isolator. An isolator is not needed for the Virgin non-PVR box.

The TV picture from the V+ box through HDMI cable on HD television is absolutely superb on ch108 (BBC HD), and on non-HD channels is visibly superior to pictures from the non-PVR V-box, the Sky box or the TV Freeview tuners.

However, one hour of HD recording appears to use about five hours of disc space ... There are sockets marked USB and SATA: Is there any means of adding storage capacity?