NTL/Telewest/ITV now?!

[holy god of nil]

I've just read a story that Richard Branson wants to push NTL (now part of Virgin cable) into buying ITV. A few questions; how exactly does the telewest/ntl merger work? i keep seeing them referred to as separate entities but I thought they were one company now?
Secondly, Virgin+Telewest+NTL+ITV is going to equal some serious muscle surely? good thing, bad thing?

[Russ]

i have telewest tv, it is awful, slow menus, always crashes, only good thing is teleport (like sky+ but you cant choose what u record, and it only records bbc, living and bravo). i hate it, i'd change to sky tomorrow, but the internet is faultless so really, it cant be any worse

[Spud1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTL#NTL.2FTelewest_merger

I think it could be either a good or bad thing depending on how much influence Virgin have and how much money they are willing to put in.

The biggest problem with NTL/Telewest is their digibox software. It's nothing short of dire - very slow, crashes often, not very feature rich and not very easy to use. The boxes are fine as far as I can tell, but half of their features are disabled (maybe NTL didn't pay the licence fee for all the tech? who knows).

If you have ever used Sky and NTL/Telewest then you will know what I mean - the Sky boxes are just so much more responsive, the menu systems much more intuitive and, ignoring sky+ for the moment, the boxes tend to be more stable (and look better!).

So if they can fix the horrible digiboxes then maybe this is a good thing...and cable in the UK will be a viable option again

[trojan698]

The reason they're acting as seperate entities is largely down to the customer service standards of each company. As you may be aware, NTL have a bad reputation, Telewest have a good one and Virgin pride themselves on having excellent CS. One of the conditions of the merger with Virgin was that ntl:telewest brought their customer service level up to a certain standard before they adopted the Virgin brand - they will eventually be called Virgin cable once it's sorted.

[grizzla]

only good thing is teleport (like sky+ but you cant choose what u record, and it only records bbc, living and bravo). i hate it, i'd change to sky tomorrow, but the internet is faultless so really, it cant be any worse

TVdrive is the service telewest offers, similar to sky+, that allows u to record whatever channel you want. Teleport is simply an on demand service for viewers to catch up on certain channels. I agree i would get Sky because the quality is better, the only thing stopping me is being a student and that the internet service from telewest is excellent.

[SilentDeath]

i have telewest tv, it is awful, slow menus, always crashes, only good thing is teleport (like sky+ but you cant choose what u record, and it only records bbc, living and bravo). i hate it, i'd change to sky tomorrow, but the internet is faultless so really, it cant be any worse

If you can afford the £10 extra, Im resonably sure the HDTV telewest box would be decent. Ive been thinking about it but I dont watch that much tv...

So... dont blame telewest... blame pace.. who designed/made the telewest boxes as cheaply as possible..

[jamin]

they will eventually be called Virgin cable once it's sorted.

Sorry mate, they won't. The new name is Virgin Media.

[Spud1]

If you can afford the £10 extra, Im resonably sure the HDTV telewest box would be decent. Ive been thinking about it but I dont watch that much tv...

So... dont blame telewest... blame pace.. who designed/made the telewest boxes as cheaply as possible..

no, blame telewest/ntl...they are the ones being cheap - they have the choice of what hardware to use...and as i said above they dont use half the capabilities of the current boxes as it is.

Plus I would have serious doubts about the HDTV box being any better..but of course without using one to see I don't really know

[jamin]

The TVdrive box is a great piece of hardware, NTL are just limited by the amount of HD content they carry, SKY will not allow them to carry the HD sports or movies for competition reasons!

The old pace boxes are being phased out, the newer SA boxes are a lot more responsive.

[steve threlfall]

If you can afford the £10 extra, Im resonably sure the HDTV telewest box would be decent. Ive been thinking about it but I dont watch that much tv...

So... dont blame telewest... blame pace.. who designed/made the telewest boxes as cheaply as possible..

The tv drive is technically supeior to the sky hd box (apparently), i havnt used either myself.

Seeying as though telewest havnt got anywhere near as much HD content as sky, its a waste of time at the moment.

[BUFF]

The tv drive is technically supeior to the sky hd box (apparently), i havnt used either myself.

& supposedly the NTL 1 (yet to be rolled out) is better than the Telewest 1 despite actually coming from the same supplier (Scientific Atlanta) ...

[jamin]

& supposedly the NTL 1 (yet to be rolled out) is better than the Telewest 1 despite actually coming from the same supplier (Scientific Atlanta) ...

Er, no, they are the same box mate. And it has already been rolled out in certain NTL regions

[DragonStar]

well i dont know about the digiboxs, but telewest Internet is excellent, its the reason why we are still with them, my parents wanted to go to with talktalk because it was much cheaper... not on my watch sunshine!

[BUFF]

Er, no, they are the same box mate. And it has already been rolled out in certain NTL regions

they weren't originally meant to be
Anyway turns out that supposedly going live in Glasgow area for a small no. from the 14th (tomorrow) - 1 of the first areas.

[DragonStar]

lucky for some

[jamin]

Same company NTL:Telewest, same box, TW spent millions working with SA to develop the TVDrive box, why spend millions more to develop another one and then only use it in the legacy NTL areas. Makes no sense seeing as the companies have been trying to integrate for the last year. Believe me, I work there.