v+ decision time again

[deshepherd]

Thinking seriously about switching to a V+ box again.

positives:

- virgin are adding more HD channels
- got an offer going this month that allows me to upgrade for £49 + if my reading of the offer is correct allows me to keep existing STB at no additional charge (can anyone clarify if this is true - i.e. no extra montly payment - or if the "no additional charge" means you don't pay for the VM engineer to pick up the STB, walk to another room and connect it up there!)
- V+ won't have the occasional channel change failures that TiVo does!
- allows existing STB (+ TiVo) to be moved to a different room to reduce arguments between children on what they want to watch!

negatives

- from what I see there's no ability to add a "keep at most" to a "seasons pass" ... also how does the series record work - I assume its per channel (i.e. if I record C4's "location^3" will it just record the C4 series or will it pick up more4 repeats ... also, can it cope with a channel showing a new series + repeats of previous series at same time?)
- no ability to add a "do not delete" to a recording (or recording request) ... is there any way to stop a program being automatically deleted as space fills up?
- disk space seems woefully inadequate as HD becomes more common (only 20 hours HD space vs 80 for SD)

unknowns

- anyone know what the interface useability is ... we occasionally use the STB menus to access "catch up TV" (mainly when TiVo missed a channel change or due to a clash) and on that its appalling - about 10 sec response to each button press - assuming the STB recognised that you'd pressed a button. I'm assuming on V+ must be able to move around menus etc at similar speed to using TiVo?
- seen mention when googling that there's a software upgrade coming - anyone seen any indications whether this will have any new functionality

Any opinions ... assuming the deal really does include keeping existing STB for free then we'll still have a TiVo attached to that which may be useful.

[mikerr]

- from what I see there's no ability to add a "keep at most" to a "seasons pass" ... also how does the series record work - I assume its per channel (i.e. if I record C4's "location^3" will it just record the C4 series or will it pick up more4 repeats ... also, can it cope with a channel showing a new series + repeats of previous series at same time?)

Series links are to the channel you initially set it on - no wishlists.

There's no "keep at most", so you'll quickly fill the hard drive up if you choose a programme like friends on E4

- no ability to add a "do not delete" to a recording (or recording request) ... is there any way to stop a program being automatically deleted as space fills up?

Nope - nearest you get is a global option:

When V+ is full:
a) stop recording anything else
b) delete oldest first.

Which is a slight improvement on original release, where it filled up and then all recordings failed without any error message!

- disk space seems woefully inadequate as HD becomes more common (only 20 hours HD space vs 80 for SD)

Actually easy enough to put your own hard drive in
-but VirginMedia's terms don't allow you to alter their equipment.

As for interface response speed - yes it it slow, and actually gets worse the number of days its left on (so I turn it off every day).

[deshepherd]

Originally Posted by mikerr

As for interface response speed - yes it it slow, and actually gets worse the number of days its left on (so I turn it off every day).

Thanks for the info ... confirms what I thought. However when you say the interface is slow can you quantify slow ... on our current STB it takes 5-10 secs to respond to every key press on the remote ... which makes scrolling around lists of programs a significant challenge (and makes us glad we rarely need to do so).

[cwaring]

Originally Posted by deshepherd

...on our current STB it takes 5-10 secs to respond to every key press on the remote ...

Then it's obviously faulty; or perhaps an older Pace model.

I do not intend to get rid of my Tivo until the day it dies; or the v2 V+ is significantly improved

[RWILTS]

Its slow.... To define - You think its slow every time you press a key

Had v+ for 2 years and use it on main room. No where near as good as Tivo but to be honest the pros do out way the cons.

3 tuners - HD , thats about it.

Since networking my tivo ( that resides in the kids room ) last month ,i have fallen in love with it again BUT still go with v+.

[OzSat]

Got both V+HD and SkyHD here.

Overall I think the V+HD box is better than the Sky system.

Sky really only wins based on the actual programme content available - if you are will to pay a lot extra for it.

I also think the HD picture quality is slightly better on Sky.

I don't have any slow response issues with V+.

Standard disc space is poor for both system is looking to record a lot of HD.

[deshepherd]

Originally Posted by RWILTS

Its slow.... To define - You think its slow every time you press a key

Had v+ for 2 years and use it on main room. No where near as good as Tivo but to be honest the pros do out way the cons.

Thanks ... that's about what I was thinking.

Still confused over the status of cost of keeping existing STB ... the offer as described on the VM website (which I've now found) does say that to get the offer from XL package you need to keep existing STB for £5/month ... however offer in the letter we received makes no mention of being required to do this but instead says you have the option to keep the existing STB for no extra charge.

[deshepherd]

In the end decided to give the offer a miss. Think there are still enough potential negatives (compared to TiVo that is!) with V+ to outweigh the positives.

Assuming VM roll out more HD channels (+ more "mainstream" broadcasting moves to HD) then suspect in 6-12 months time balance may have tipped the other way. However, I'm also convinced that by then they'll have increased the HDD from 160GB as 16-20 hours of HD doesn't seem a lot! (especially as with our TiVo usage we regularily have several hours worth of programs hanging around for us to have time to watch for weeks at a time!)