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TiVo Coming Back To UK!!

15K views 98 replies 42 participants last post by  pgogborn 
#1 ·
Received a comment today from a TiVo video on youtubeTivo is coming back!

"TiVo boss Tom Rogers said this afternoon that he was "hopeful" that TiVo would be launched in the UK "soon"!

So will TiVo produce a FreeView or Freesat based box? We can't see them getting into bed with Sky again after the last time. The Sky+ experience is shockingly bad, how is it in 2008 our Sky+ system isn't even CLOSE to the TiVo box we bought eight years previously?"
any1 know any more?
 
#52 ·
So near but yet so far :(

Theoretically I live in a cabled area yet I cant get cable. My house is in a small square behind a main road. The four roads that surround us ARE cabled. The cable is within 30 metres of my house yet they didnt come down my road so therefore I am unable to get it.
It's even worse than that for me. I have a VM point directly outside my building, but as I live in a small block of flats Virgin wont install into the block. On their web site the houses to both the left and right of the block are listed, but the block itself simply doesn't exist :rolleyes:

Mark.
 
#53 ·
It's even worse than that for me. I have a VM point directly outside my building, but as I live in a small block of flats Virgin wont install into the block. On their web site the houses to both the left and right of the block are listed, but the block itself simply doesn't exist :rolleyes:

Mark.
Optic fibre is about £50 a metre to install so you could connect it up yourself if your neighbour doesn't mind :)
 
#54 ·
This is really great news.

And with a whole wodge of new users, surely using the same guide data that we get now, it'll mean errors are spotted, report and corrected sooner and more often than now, so we'll gain indirectly too.

I'm off to try and catch up with a few years' worth of old posts now :)
 
#55 ·
My parents are in a simiar position to a couple of posters in that they cannot currently get VM services, but they are available a short way away. However, I have managed to talk VM into routing services to their home.

I didn't use this exact route, but it might help some of you.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1152653
 
#58 ·
I could move to Virgin media!...i dont live in a Virgin Cable area...Is there anyway to find out where the closest virgin media area is...
I, too, would welcome a map, or preferably, a searchable (by postcode) database of areas served by Virgin Media's digital cable service.

[Edit] Carl, for some reason, I believe that the old Telewest Cable network was 'better' than the old NTL Cable network.

Am I right to think that, and do you, or anyone else know if this is still the case?
 
#61 ·
Optic fibre is about £50 a metre to install so you could connect it up yourself if your neighbour doesn't mind :)
Aren't Virgin FTC (Fibre to Cabinet) rather than FTH (Fibre to Home) still? The final leg from the cabinet is still coax isn't it - and your neighbour would have coax? However I'm not sure how granular the connections are these days in terms of back channel and data connectivity. (You can obviously share the TV and VOD stuff on a single drop across multiple receivers - but I'm not sure how many broadband connections are supported by a single drop)
 
#62 ·
Aren't Virgin FTC (Fibre to Cabinet) rather than FTH (Fibre to Home) still? The final leg from the cabinet is still coax isn't it - and your neighbour would have coax? However I'm not sure how granular the connections are these days in terms of back channel and data connectivity. (You can obviously share the TV and VOD stuff on a single drop across multiple receivers - but I'm not sure how many broadband connections are supported by a single drop)
As far as I'm aware (it was definitely the case around 6/7 years ago and they have made no major investments in their network since then), VM are FTTK (Fibre to the Kerb) and definitely not FTTH (Fibre to the Home). I used to be a VM customer, when they were NTL, and we bought a home on a new estate. We were the first people to move in and at first we had blistering internet speeds (2MB in 2001) for those days. After about a year when the development was finished and all sold, the extra numbers dragged the speed down so much that it was almost pointless surfing in the early evening. I become a daytime and midnight surfer. At that time it was 1 fibre to the streetside, of which their was one per street. You just got lucky as to how many people signed up. The more affluent the area the slower your speed

Martin
 
#63 ·
It is not even fibre to the cabinet, it is fibre to the local neighbourhood node that can service several hundred homes. And yes it does depend on where you live, but also what the original franchise area was like. It is not as simple as ex Telewest or ex NTL as these were franchises bought from other cable companies.

Where I live we had digital cable from about 2001 but only got broadband a few years latter and interactive and VOD only after the Virgin rebrand. I only moved to their BB last year and it is always blistering fast. I do know that they to update UBR when areas have constant high utilisation but it is a long process.

With the move to IPTV which will help to solve the bandwidth issues, the switch off of the analogue network in April and the migration of the 20MB customers to DOCIS3 should make more bandwidth available for broadband.

The cable companies have been run into the ground into the this country and it didn't help with having so many different franchises, in the short time since the Telewest/ntl merger and Virgin rebranding cable has improved dramatically. They are in the process of harmonising channels and services, bringing all the areas they can up to scratch.

There are good times ahead for cable and maybe the new IPTV delivery along with what I hope is a major improvement with the GUI with Tivo cable may finally be able to start increasing their subscriber numbers so that money can be invested back into the network and help to start paying back the huge debt that they still have form when all the cable was originally laid.
 
#69 ·
No implications that I'm aware of for those Series1 boxes. The data is actually served from TiVo, not from Sky.
Bob,

Its certainly good to have that official confirmation on on the matter from Tivo HQ and so far as I can see the new developments with Virgin simply provide far more reasons than existed before for Tivo to continue to provide service to the earlier Series 1 units since the UK data contract with Tribune becomes potentially cheaper per unit in terms of the Series 1 machines. Of course its not yet clear where any EPG data will come from for the Virgin service but assuming one of the key aspects of it is better metadata and up to three weeks of upcoming programs in the EPG then the involvement of Tribune would still seem likely.

The only possible likely change I could see is that in due course the UK telephone support desk run by Sky for the S1 UK Tivo units might be relocated over to personnel at Virgin, as when and Virgin's team and helpdesk for the new Virgin Tivo machines is open for business. One of the main reasons for changing the helpdesk location would surely be that there is a great opportunity for selling any of these S1 Tivo owners who live in a Virgin cable area a new Virgin Tivo PVR.:up:

Of couse may be one day the new Virgin Tivo will be available throughout the UK if Virgin also manage to figure out a way to ever provide their television service nationwide in all those areas without Virgin Cable access over the main BT Wholesale owned ADSL2+ broadband network. However as I understand it quite a lot more upgrading of the backbone of that network is needed before it can properly cope with widespread live streaming of HD television programs..........
 
#71 ·
Of couse may be one day the new Virgin Tivo will be available throughout the UK if Virgin also manage to figure out a way to ever provide their television service nationwide in all those areas without Virgin Cable access over the main BT Wholesale owned ADSL2+ broadband network. However as I understand it quite a lot more upgrading of the backbone of that network is needed before it can properly cope with widespread live streaming of HD television programs..........
Is ADSL2+ really feasible for broadcast HD distribution? BBC HD has recently dropped from 16Mbs to 9.7Mbs (with new cutting-edge H264 encoders - though there have been complaints about a drop in picture quality)

That could be feasibly distributed via some ADSL2+ connections - but if you offer multiroom via a single connection - won't you choke if you try and stream 2 or 3 10Mbs HD streams simultaneously over ADSL2+? Doesn't it still max out at around 24Mbs - and that is best-case, with many getting a lot less than that if they are further from the exchange?

You would also presumably lose your nice fast internet connection if you were watching HD as well?!
 
#72 ·
Here in Sweden SD can be delivered over ADSL2+, but not HD.

If you sign up for TV over ADSL, you pay for a 24Mbps connection, but only ever get 8-12 Mbps, as the rest is reserved for TV... Even when you aren't watching it.
 
#75 ·
BBC HD has recently dropped from 16Mbs to 9.7Mbs (with new cutting-edge H264 encoders - though there have been complaints about a drop in picture quality)
So the next new encoder standard will no doubt drop the required connection speed to 5.5Mbps and then Bob's Your Uncle............

Also as has been highlighted BT is working on Fibre To the Cabinet which may well provide the required levels of broadband speed to the 90% of UK homes alluded to by the gentleman from Virgin who posted earlier in this thread.

I must say that his timescale of Virgin getting to 90% of UK homes by the end of next year does seem more than a touch optimistic though, even allowing for all of the above.
 
#76 ·
<snip> only after the Virgin rebrand. I only moved to their BB last year and it is always blistering fast. I do know that they to update UBR when areas have constant high utilisation but it is a long process.

<snip>.
While technically Virgin may have improved the service; have they upped the previously (NTL) dire levels of customer service? I vowed never, ever to touch cable again after I ditched NTL's phone service. I may be persuaded to change my mind.
 
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