# My V+ box has arrived



## Podgy Dad (Aug 18, 2002)

On the whole I think its very good, not as good as Tivo in terms of UI and usability, but not a bad effort. Of course it has some serious plus points such as HD and 3 tuners. With a few more software updates it could become as good, if not better than Tivo.

Very pleased so far.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Podgy Dad said:


> With a few more software updates it could become as good, if not better than Tivo.


 You can't go around saying things like that on here!


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Podgy Dad said:


> With a few more software updates it could become as good, if not better than Tivo.


The software update you mean is the one Virgin Media need to be pestered about - *the TiVo update*:up:


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Yep. That would do it


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## Craig B (Aug 11, 2001)

What are the bad points about the V+? I am considering getting one in September once my BT broadband contract runs out.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

1. It's not a Tivo

That's about it 

Seriously, I think there are still some 'issues' with the product, but certainly from my experience with what was the "TV Drive" it is pretty damned good, though it does take more looking after than my Tivo.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

As someone who had the TVDrive on the pre-release trial, I still am amazed that they *took features out* when the service went live.

The big one was "rewind to start of programme, when recording" 
-worked fine in trial, removed on release ?!

There were a few others too.

It deperately needs a keyword search ability IMO


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

I subscribed to VIP package. Now have I Tivo on standard cable box 1 Tivo on freeview and the V+ box standalone. Never get any programme clashes now.

Because of the Sky Movies PIN issue I use the V+ to record any movies. I don't miss Sky One as anything good is available by torrent sometimes even before it is aired on Sky.


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## davisa (Feb 19, 2002)

...and however difficult it is going to be to download with Virgin's new 'limited' unlimited broadband.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/


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## Podgy Dad (Aug 18, 2002)

mikerr said:


> As someone who had the TVDrive on the pre-release trial, I still am amazed that they *took features out* when the service went live.
> 
> The big one was "rewind to start of programme, when recording"
> -worked fine in trial, removed on release ?!
> ...


Can you jump forward in blocks of 15 minutes like you can with Tivo? Fast forwarding at 32x can be a bit of a pain.


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## Podgy Dad (Aug 18, 2002)

My girlfriend is dumping Sky and getting a regular VM box. What do I need to do/get prior to install on Saturday to make sure it all works nicely with Tivo?


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## davisa (Feb 19, 2002)

The Wife gave V+ a big thumbs down on both usability and features so we'll be a TiVo house-hold for the foreseeable future...or will be once my new HDD arrives 

Personally, I think she just likes the TiVo 'wiggling antennas' - says it shows they have a sense of humour!


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

> ..and however difficult it is going to be to download with Virgin's new 'limited' unlimited broadband. ORIGINAL POST BY davisa
> 
> http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/


Not sure what your point is but I have no problems up to now with my 10MB connection


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html is the proper URL

They are now throttling / cutting your connection down to half or less if you do a single 20 minute download.

Paying for 20Mb ? Download at that speed for 20 minutes and they'll cut your speed to 5Mb for the rest of the evening.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

However, the service is _still_ unlimited in the usual sense of the word; in that you can still download as much as you want even though it might take you a little longer. The service remains un-capped.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

limit. cap, throttle etc are all words for the same thing - VM have introduced a "temporary cap" that is reset daily.

If you have to wait due to throttling, there's no reason to pay for anything other than the minimum speed: 2Mb


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## davisa (Feb 19, 2002)

What they said 

Imagine (if you must) taking a morning shower, and getting your water supply cut off part way through because you've used your peak hours allocation for the day.

Anyway, I'm off-topic again. I seem to be becoming a master at that...


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

Well I've learnt something. Albeit most of my larger downloads I leave to the PC whilst I am in bed asleep. Come down in the morning and there it is "all downloads completed"


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

mikerr said:


> limit. cap, throttle etc are all words for the same thing - VM have introduced a "temporary cap" that is reset daily.


Sorry, but you're simply wrong.

A 'cap' is an absolute limit that, when you reach it, you cannot download any more until that cap is reset; usually at the start of the next month.

In this case, you're download speed is reduced to 25% (or whatever) of it's potential full speed, but you can _still_ download as much as you want.

There is NO CAP on VM's cable broadband.


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## davisa (Feb 19, 2002)

cwaring said:


> There is NO CAP on VM's cable broadband.


...but there is 'shaping' or 'management' or whatever - which is actually worse in some circumstances.

If Virgin cannot provide the service as advertised they shouldn't be 'upgrading' their speeds, but fixing what they have so they can actually provide what they say they can. Of course, that benefits the customer and this isn't about them.

BTW, I don't blame Virgin - they are a business and will do what they can to maximise profits. Unfortunately the word 'unlimited' has been allowed to be badly abused by others so now Virgin want a piece of the pie. Others have done the same with the introduction of 'fair use policies' which are usually anything but 'fair'.


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## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

At least Virgin are honest about their intentions unlike most Broadband suppliers who supply via BT line who never are able to get anywhere near the quoted speeds


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

cwaring said:


> A 'cap' is an absolute limit that, when you reach it, you cannot download any more until that cap is reset;


VM's 'cap' is an absolute limit [25mins], that when you reach it, you cannot download [at full speed] any more until that cap is reset 

Cap vs throttling has been doen to death on usenet etc, though.
They are all limits applied to a previously unlimited service.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

mikerr said:


> VM's 'cap' is an absolute limit [25mins], that when you reach it, you cannot download [at full speed] any more until that cap is reset


Yes, but at least you can still download; unlike and _actual_ cap 



> Cap vs throttling has been doen to death on usenet etc, though.


Indeed. Nowhere moreso than the internal VM groups 



> They are all limits applied to a previously unlimited service.


Pedantically true, but using the standard know meaning of "unlimited" as far as broadband connections are concerned, VMs packages are still just that


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## mini__me (Jun 11, 2002)

So you can ONLY download 3GB in 25 minutes then your stuck on 4 hours for the next 7.2GB then you can pull another 3GB in 25 minutes.....and that's at peak times...wow what a tough life   

And outside those hours it's unmanaged....damn it I wish I could get cable where I am!!!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Indeed. However, you should see the fuss that some people are making about it. I'm sure some may have the odd valid point but most of their arguments and reasoning are simply complete rubbish 

Someone mentioned that they were "seriously tempted to see if Zen offer any services which aren't traffic managed - or better still to reduce the 10mb we upgraded to months ago, down to 4meg. But even then we will be traffic managed!"

So someone posted this:

http://www.zen.co.uk/Broadband/ML_Business.aspx?page=527

However....

The small print mentions "Traffic Prioritisation". Is that another name for 'shaping' maybe? (Serioulsy, I don't know for sure!)

Also in the small print:

_* Actual download speeds will be no higher than 7150Kb_

So no-one will get the full 8mb then.

_* BT Wholesale estimates that 78% of customers will achieve download speeds of 4Mb and above._

So only about 80% of users will get anything above 50% of what they're paying for.

This is the best one though...

_* It is likely that speeds no greater than 2Mb will be achieved at peak usage times._

So _all_ their customers will only get 25% of the speed they're paying nearly £80 a month for during peak times.

VM not looking so bad now huh?


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## manolan (Feb 13, 2001)

cwaring said:


> ... snip ...
> The small print mentions "Traffic Prioritisation". Is that another name for 'shaping' maybe? (Serioulsy, I don't know for sure!)
> 
> ... snip ...


In fact, in this case, traffic prioritisation works for you on the Office products. ADSL used to be discussed in terms of the contention ratio and Zen's home products had 40-1 whereas the office products had 20-1. I suspect contention ratio doesn't really make sense in ADSL Max, so they now talk about traffic prioritisation. Amounts to the same thing.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of pipes around the place that could act as bottlenecks and affect your speed and you're always going to be sharing some of them with other users. That's why virtually every (perhaps every) DSL & Cable vendor has some sort of acceptable use policy, cap or traffic management.

In my view, Virgin and Zen are both pretty up-front about what these mean.

I'd like truly unlimited gigabit broadband at a price I can afford. But until that becomes a reality, I think some sort of AUP or cap is inevitable - whether explicitly mentioned, or not. The best you can do is look for one that is fully spelled out and meets your needs.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

manolan said:


> In fact, in this case, traffic prioritisation works for you on the Office products.


What have Office products (I assume you mean MS Office and/or other vendor's similar products) got to do it?


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## verses (Nov 6, 2002)

cwaring said:


> What have Office products (I assume you mean MS Office and/or other vendor's similar products) got to do it?


I think he means Office related Broadband products. When is was first released, BT Wholesale Broadband was categorised into Home and Office products, the Office products had a lower contention ratio to the home ones (20:1 vs 50:1 iirc).

Cheers,

Ian


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Can I just say "D'oh!". Thank-you  In my defence it wasn't that clear


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## paulpod (Oct 27, 2002)

Having just switched from years of TiVo joy (with both cable and freeview) to a V+ box, I'd like to say I'm pretty happy with it. The user experience isn't as polished and lovely as TiVo for sure (no nice noises, for one) but it's about 80% there and that's good enough. Plus there is the 3 tuners, plus HD (for v. little content just yet) plus decent VOD. Quite ugly box and remote tho.

Downsides: no hackery fun. needs a search UI of some sort pretty soon, for VOD too.

Would a UK Series 3 TiVo tempt me back? Probably very quickly. Is that likely to happen? nah.

Colour me quite impressed, bidding a very fond farewell to TiVo world...


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

paulpod said:


> ...(no nice noises, for one)...


That's debatable. My parent's hate them and have them switched off 

I certainly wouldn't have a V+ over a Tivo as there's very rarely a clash that cannot be resolved. It's nice to know that there's something I can use though, if my Tivo ever gets beyond repair. No way could I go back to watching TV live!


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## paulpod (Oct 27, 2002)

Must add, I did a couple of weeks watching TV 'old skool' before this ... frankly, intolerable!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Not sure I'd've lasted so long, Paul


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## Podgy Dad (Aug 18, 2002)

paulpod said:


> Having just switched from years of TiVo joy (with both cable and freeview) to a V+ box, I'd like to say I'm pretty happy with it. The user experience isn't as polished and lovely as TiVo for sure (no nice noises, for one) but it's about 80% there and that's good enough. Plus there is the 3 tuners, plus HD (for v. little content just yet) plus decent VOD. Quite ugly box and remote tho.
> 
> Downsides: no hackery fun. needs a search UI of some sort pretty soon, for VOD too.
> 
> ...


I have to say that I haven't used my Tivo since the new V+ arrived. However, can't bring myself to waive goodbye to it just yet, its like part of the family and will probably be moved to the bedroom.


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## deshepherd (Nov 30, 2000)

V+ suddenly looking more attractive as didn't record last weeks Apprentice on main showing due to clash with Grand Designs then just discovered it record 55mins of channel 100 on the repeat tonihgt due to STB/dongle conspiring to fail to change channels properly. Never mind, I thought, I'll watch it online like I did for most of last years series .. but BBC in its wisdom only stream a 3 min "highlights" now. Second brihgt idea .. lets try the "watch again" service on VM ... but STB says thats "not available" at the moment. Argh!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

LOL! Sorry, but perhaps someone's trying to tell you something


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I'm sure the world of BitTorrent would turn you up a copy somewhere, albeit that it might take 6 hours to download or whatever.


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## deshepherd (Nov 30, 2000)

Apprentive crisis again tonight ... 7 yr old son decided that "Scooby Doo" was vital watching so pressed the "continue watching and don't change channels to record requested program" button so TiVo missed the repeat of last weeks Apprentice (failed to record first time round I suspect due to erroneous guide data as claimed program was already available!). Anyway went to Virginmedia "catch up TV" which now seems to be working and watched from there. So perhaps can survive without V+ for a bit longer


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

deshepherd said:


> Apprentive crisis again tonight ... 7 yr old son decided that "Scooby Doo" was vital watching so pressed the "continue watching and don't change channels to record requested program" button so TiVo missed the repeat of last weeks Apprentice (failed to record first time round I suspect due to erroneous guide data as claimed program was already available!). Anyway went to Virginmedia "catch up TV" which now seems to be working and watched from there. So perhaps can survive without V+ for a bit longer


Put Tivo in a locked room your son can't access and buy him a £20 Freeview box and his own tv.

Problem solved.


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