# First (and ongoing impressions)



## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Hi

As I stated in my other thread I was an orginal Thomson Tivo uk owner......but have today had installed the Virgin Media Tivo - 500gb.

Installer turned up at 9.30am and was left by 10am - but I had already placed the hdmi lead into the amp and had an rf cable lead already for him to plug into.

A few button presses and it loaded all the set up stuff and began to load the guide data etc - this took approx 2 hours and we were off.

It only asked for pin no on channel changes whilst it was dloading guide data - not asked for it since.

It is uncanilly very similar to series 1 Tivo but with fancier graphics and obviously digital tuners (3 of them!) etc....

Wishlist and season passes are still present.

My only complaint so far - it lags - quite a bit on menus - any menus - you have to wait 4 or 5 seconds before pressing a button again to see if its caught up - bit of a pain - hope this is because its a new install.

Oh there is a another kind of complaint - there's no Tivo Man on the remote - hes been replaced with a home button - in fact there is no tivo branding on the box whatsoever - its only the thumbs up on the remote that gives the game away.

Same with onscreen menus - no Tivo - just Virgin Media - its almost like they don't want you to know its powered by Tivo - I did spot a small tivo man at the top of the tv guide ut only just!

The HD picture doesn't look brilliant at the moment so I will play with display settings over next few days - I also have a Humax HDR T2 Freeview HD recorder so a direct comparison shows the Humax with a much improved HD picture (at the moment) .

We have plumped for the XL package so theres quite a few HD channels to look at later on to get the settings correct.

Overall I am pleased to have a TIVO back in the family - have set up a few series links etc so will see how these go in next few days.

Dave


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

You'll find it slow for at least 24 hours due to the TiVo indexing and "sorting itself out". There are other times it's slow (location dependent) based on the network load - Saturday nights are my crunch-point. I can only assume they'll traffic-manage that.

It's worth noting that this is a VM offering "powered by TiVo" - the phrasing is important here. VM provide the main part: content.

As for picture quality - dive into the settings. I believe the default is 576 rather than 1080. In my experience, if you have an HDMI and SCART connected, the TiVo may become confused to begin with and give really crappy HD pictures. Rebooting the box and adjusting video settings with just HDMI connected sorted that out for me, but I don't know if that will solve it for anyone else.


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Hi

Does it take approx 5 seconds between channel changes for everyone?

ie going from 101 to 102 using channel up I get a black screen for approx 5 seconds before a picture appears.

Is this normal?

Dave


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

It can't change channels instantly as it has to wipe and re-start the buffer but I don't think the screen should go black for 5 seconds.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

I do not see any noticeable delay in changing channels. Except when the cat is in the way.


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

well it does seem might slow in changing channels.............

as an aside - got the first bill today - its a tenner a month more than we were quoted on the telephone - arrrgh !!

A 25 minute call to retentions has (hopefully) corrected this - NOTE TO EVERYBODY - GET THE PERSONS NAME YOU SPEAK TO ON THE TELEPHONE - it makes life so much easier trying to prove you were actually promised a price and are not just trying it on.

Using the TIVO itself - I love it - gfriend hates it and wants to go back to freeview hd pvr.............her view is it takes too long to get to recordings - on demand stuff etc - and I have to agree with her - why not have one big lot of on demand / catch up tv shows all in one place - some are on IPLAYER some are buried deep in menus etc..............to get to Jake and Neverland Pirates for my son it takes 6 menus - nightmare - she thinks the guide is slow and useless and the box generally does appear slooooww.....not too sure how to resolve this - I only have 5 percent of disk space used.

Will plod on with it because I know what its capable of if you learn to use it properly - but for the casual user it can be daunting.

Dave


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## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

ColinYounger said:


> I do not see any noticeable delay in changing channels. Except when the cat is in the way.


We have a dog who keeps the cat out the way. Not worked out how to keep the dog out the way though.


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## BrianHughes (Jan 21, 2001)

OzSat said:


> We have a dog who keeps the cat out the way. Not worked out how to keep the dog out the way though.


Ah yes, you need a horse. And to keep the horse out of the way... Your living room is going to get quite full.


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## poldoc (Jun 9, 2011)

Just swapped my V+HD box for a TiVo 1TB, I am finding that the quality of the HD picture is not as good as the V+ box, the picture is softer and there are subtle jagged lines round borders.The V+ picture was razor sharp on my D8000 Samsung 55". I found the direct line number to TiVo at virgin and within a half hour the chief engineer was at my doorstep. He agreed with me that the HD picture was not as well defined as it should be and he is happy to try installing a new TiVo box tomorrow morning........we shall see, has any one else noticed the reduction of picture quality/


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## sjp (Oct 22, 2001)

i'd pop over to http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/TiVo/bd-p/Tivo where you'll find many more V+ box users.


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Quick update........

I was in the middle of watching a recording of LUTHER last night from BBCHD when at approx 10.30pm I lost everything...........

By this I mean I had a message on screen saying that the TIVO could not display the current channel (it was a recording) and to ring 150 if it continued to happen - but EVERY channel was off - no my recorded programmes or anything.

So I went for a reboot - took about 30 mins and just had a red ring spinning in middle of screen........it said network features not available but that I could still watch live tv etc.............but I couldn't - it took approx 1 hour to come back on.

Very disappointing.

Dave


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Not defending the TiVo itself too much, but I had similar issues about a month back for a little while.

It was a local outage and took out my broadband at the same time so wasn't directly related to TiVo.


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## JayAy (Jan 31, 2011)

I've had a couple of automagic reboots from my TiVo over the last week or two that have happened whilst recordings are taking place - very annoying to miss 5 minutes or so in the middle of a programme, or worse find that the whole first part of the recording is empty of content as happened with the first episode of Case Histories.


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Can somebody pls explain how I order next weeks boxing?

I cannot seem to find a link to order box office events anywhere.


Dave


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

There's currently no support for live ppv events. I believe they're adding it later in the year.

There was some talk in the VM forum about some work around they were looking at just for the boxing but I don't think anything has materialised yet.

Doesn't bother me personally but VM really should have made this clear to people before ordering.


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Are you being serious?

Or is this just a rumour?

I dropped sky jusy for TIVO.

Please tell me we can watch the boxing - we were promised - ALL THE TV PLUS MORE.

Dave


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Not a rumour, sorry:
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/TiVo/No-Sky-Box-Office-On-Tivo/m-p/498007#M3990

http://help.virginmedia.com/system/...YPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTY=us&VM_CUSTOMER_TYPE=


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Can't you call them and get it activated that way? (Genuine question. Never used PPV.)


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I suspect they were working on something along those lines as a work around for this fight. Dunno though, nothing has been said about it in the VM forum yet.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Wasn't it always possible to do that? Seems odd not to. I mean, yes, DIY is easier but it's not available for whatever reason there should be a backup option.


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Yes there should be a 'backup' as you put it, no it is not currently possible on TiVo. Yes, it's a huge ****-up by virgin.


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Hmm, the censoring is a bit overly yankee.

You can usually say the equivalent of 'rooster'-up without it being considered rude


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

I honestly can't believe this................but its true - just got off the telephone with them.

Dave


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I suspect if you complained enough, you could get them to come and swap your TiVo for a V+ box or something and watch the fight.

Not really the point though, is it...


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

I don't think 'red button' services exist in the US so this stuff is having to be added to the UK Tivo. Yes, I do think they maybe should have got it sorted before launch but maybe it turned-out that it was going to take longer than expected so they thought it best to "get it out there" and just keep working on it.

Just a thought.


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I'm not going to argue with what you've said their Carl but there's one important addition I'd make.

Virgin should have made it crystal clear to people signing up that these features (that are present on all of their other platforms and Sky etc) were missing.

There's no excuse for that.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Absolutely.


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Dave, good news:

http://shop.virginmedia.com/existing-customers/tivo-pay-per-view.html?buspart=TiVo_Live_Events


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

This is brilliant news - but somebody should inform staff on the helpline as they are saying there is no way to watch on Tivo.

Dave


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it.

I believe this was just 'announced' (where announced = found on the site by someone) today.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Have sent the VM Tweam a link to the latter part of this thread.


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

I see the link above has gone. Significant?


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Just spotted this page...............

http://help.virginmedia.com/system/...YPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTY=us&VM_CUSTOMER_TYPE=

whats going on?

Dave


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## whiteswan (Oct 8, 2002)

Ok so looks like boxings all sorted.............thankyou VM.

Had a lockup twice this week whilst the RED DOUGHNUT OF DEATH spun happilly in the middle of the screen - both times i was in MY SHOWS section of the menu.

Only way to get out of it was a reboot.

But other than that all working well.......

I have just had a directv setup installed to allow access to USA channels and their pvr is a hybrid of tivo and sky.

I have to say their menu system is a lot neater and easier to navigate.

I use the pvr side of it a lot as their top shows are broadcast 5 hours behind us so am in bed whilst they are on.

Its not missed a show yet - all in lovely HD (Over 100 channels) - very impressed - BUT TOO MANY ADVERTS UNCLE SAM !!

Dave


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

whiteswan said:


> I have just had a directv setup installed to allow access to USA channels ...


Huh? Sounds interesting? How? (PM or thread in General Chat if you like so this doesn't got OT!)


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## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I'm also intrigued.....


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## Zaichik (Mar 21, 2002)

Me too.


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## kmusgrave (Oct 13, 2000)

I presume they are using a Slingbox or something


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Yes, that's right as it turns-out. I assumed there was more to it than that; but no.


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