Virgin Media Cable & Freeview Hardisk Recorder

[LaserTam]

My daughter is thinking of buying a freeview hardisk recorder jobby, but there is a possibility that she may move to a cable feed from Virgin in due course when she has a bit more dosh, so will get basic package, broadband and phone.

Question - when/if she moves to Virgin, I am guessing the hardisk recorder will be redundant because the 'turner' is in the 'box' that Virgin will provide. Am I right?
TIA

[Sheets Tabuer]

For Virgins V+ service which includes a HDD recorder you have to pay £5 extra.

[page3]

Get a TiVo box.

Still the best PVR out there and will work with Terrestrial, Virgin, Sky, Freeview and FreeSat.

[LaserTam]

page3 said:

Get a TiVo box.

Still the best PVR out there and will work with Terrestrial, Virgin, Sky, Freeview and FreeSat.

Interesting. I will check it out. Thanks for replies.

Edited by LaserTam on Saturday 24th April 18:02

[FlossyThePig]

LaserTam said:

page3 said:

Get a TiVo box.

Still the best PVR out there and will work with Terrestrial, Virgin, Sky, Freeview and FreeSat.

Interesting. I will check it out. Thanks for replies.

Edited by LaserTam on Saturday 24th April 18:02

Wherw can you buy new TiVo boxes in the UK and how much do they cost?

Edited by FlossyThePig on Sunday 25th April 18:59

[LaserTam]

I did 10 mins googling earlier, found lots of sites on how to upgrade the hard drive of a TiVo but no where to buy one!

[bobthemonkey]

I don't think they have a UK distributor at the moment, especially as they have signed an exclusive deal with Virgin for the UK supply of their new Premiere hardware.

[pmanson]

I know there is at least one VM bod that frequents here... is there a way (or a planned) approach to increase the amount of storage in the existing V+ boxes

"80hrs" space is feck all when trying to record off any HD channels.

[aclivity]

the V+ box comes with a eSata port, but it isn't yet activated. The issue will be one of licensing ... the content owners do not want you to be able to watch a film, or TV program, in HD, then burn it to a blueray disc or share it with your pals via a USB drive or torrent.

Once the licensing model is sorted out I would expect the eSata port to be activated, but it will have some kind of copy protection and encryption on it so that you can only watch stuff you have recorded on the same box.

Another way to deal with the space is using a manual workaround. This is a bit technical so I will type it slowly:

WATCH. THE. PROGRAMS. YOU. HAVE. RECORDED. THEN. DELETE. THEM.

PVR's weren't meant to be long term video archives, they are for temporary time shifting. Or so I believe. You can also archive stuff off to video / DVD / hard disk recorders but in standard definition only, via the Video scart on the STB.

There is also several thousand hours of on-demand content available, much of it free (catch-up) or included in higher tiers subscription (TV Choice on Demand). More and more HD stuff is available for free, probably 100's of hours at any one time. Latest run movies, "adult" and live events are purchase items. The technology exists to give every subscriber (even on older boxes) a "network PVR" capability ... can you guess what's stopping it being rolled out? Yep, content provider licenses again. They see it as "re-broadcasting" the content.

ETA Smiley

Edited by aclivity on Tuesday 27th April 17:27