News - Tivo to develop next gen Virgin TV platform

[HEXUS]

Next year will see a new, improved set-top box from Virgin Media thanks to its new partnership.

Read more.

[Jay]

Oh how often I have been told "oh yes our current box isn't very good, but the next box will be fantasitc" guess what? It never is!

[bradyjames]

So they are going to force people to watch ads at the start and finish of recordings - I can't see that being very popular. One of the primary benefits of a PVR is avoiding the ads.

[digit]

What happened to Tivo when it launched in the UK originally? Oh yeah it failed .... Will the virgin media name slapped on the front really make much of a difference?

[mikerr]

Tivo failed in the UK beacuse it wasn't really advertised over here (see below),
and no-one really knew what a PVR was.
(This was in 1999/2000 before sky+ et al)

TiVo employed Sky to do the UK marketing, which they didn't, and came out with an inferior competitor some time later (sky+).

Even that old UK Tivo box from 2000 still surpasses new PVRs in features.

[Brewster0101]

I remember selling the Tivo at Dixons when it first came out. It was a brilliant piece of equipment for its time. But was over priced and had a monthly subscription tied to it. Who wanted to pay a monthly fee to record TV when a VCR did it for free I think this is why TIVO failed here. At the time VCR was still very popular and the quality benefits that TIVO offered weren't worth the premium in the publics eyes .... Plus there was bugger all marketing.

Its interesting to see Virgin moving forward with TV on demand services. Sky and BT don't seem to be that interested. BT is struggling with subsciption numbers and SKY is very happy with people paying at least £17 per month to watch lots of channels of rubbish, why offer a good on demand service.

[Mathonar]

Even that old UK Tivo box from 2000 still surpasses new PVRs in features.

Signed, my brother moved to Sky+ last year when he got a HD TV and he still misses his Tivo.
Same for my mate who had a V+ box.

Technologically the gen 1 Tivos may be behind the times but i still think the usability beats Sk+y & V+ hands down.

However reading the release not sure what Virgin are going to put out - a Virgin Cable capable Tivo HD, some other manufacturers system with the Tivo interface on top or something totally new written by Tivo. I think i'm hoping for the former.