# A new UK TiVo from Virgin?



## sgostelow (Feb 28, 2005)

If you'd like to see see a brand new TiVo model n the UK, sign this petition to get Virgin to consider a UK TiVo:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/tivo4vplus/


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## Andy Leitch (Apr 30, 2005)

Waste of time tbh


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Gee thanks  However, just over 700 signatures now. 100 in the last two months!


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## Phil B (Sep 9, 2001)

I have NTL/VM broadband but never bothered with TV, as Freeview + TiVo does most that I want.

However, TiVo on V+ (assuming HDTV properly catered for) would almost certainly persuade me to subscribe to VM TV.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

cwaring said:


> Gee thanks  However, just over 700 signatures now. 100 in the last two months!


Great - but have you done anything with it?


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## wonderboy (May 27, 2003)

This will do a lot of the country no good, we can't get cable north of Dundee.

The only thing worse than not having a new UK tivo, would be having one and not being able to use it!  

Freeview & Sky support is an absolute minimum!!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

blindlemon said:


> Great - but have you done anything with it?


Not at the moment. I will do, now that I can say that it's getting 50 signatures a month (last two months, anyway )

I believe it's all change at the VM Media Office at the moment, so I'll leave it a little while I think.


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

From Click today it would seem cable tv expansion in UK is a dead duck due to cost and of course millions have Sky TV already.

I did not realise also Virgin TV cable is the only vendor left in the UK.

No cable in my area since the 1970's 

Automan.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Automan said:


> I did not realise also Virgin TV cable is the only vendor left in the UK.


On mainland UK, yes. For those that still don't know, here's my own 'bried history of cable.

It started many years ago with different companies servicing (ie laying their own cables in) different areas; Yorkshire Cable in, well, Yorkshire, for example.

Sometime in the late 90s, some were taken over and re-branded Telewest, while others were re-branded NTL.

Last year, NTL bought virgn.net then, in February this year, NTL merged with Telewest and also bought Virgin Mobile. The whole lot was then branded Virgin Media.

There's Wight Cable  for the Isle of.....

Of course, there's also Kingston Communications in the Hull area still. I assume they're ADSL though and not 'cable'; ie Fibre Optic.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Someone also re-posted a link to the Petition on the DS Forums, which has added 40+ sigs in a week


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## algordon (Apr 1, 2004)

I think what you're doing's great but still... what about all us poor sods who can't get cable, and probably never will be able to, from what Automan says.

Doesn't seem as tho cable is the way to go to get Tivo to the masses.

What do you think?


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## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

A DTT/TiVo allowing connection to Sky/VM is the way to go - even if marketing by VM.

NTL marketed TiVo for a couple of months (mid-2002) - step back in time

I must say that Freeview and/or Sky built-in would do much better then one with a VM tuner.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

ozsat said:


> A DTT/TiVo allowing connection to Sky/VM is the way to go - even if marketing by VM.


Not sure you could do a hybrid, could you? There's certainly no Sky CAM available 



> I must say that Freeview and/or Sky built-in would do much better then one with a VM tuner.


Except for us on VM of course


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## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

But not a big market on VM - and they now have there own effort.


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## JonMace (Mar 2, 2002)

It will never happen, Nagra 1 (the inscription for VM) is very hackable, especially on a Linux box, which is what Tivo is, so VM would be made to produce a box that people could down load a flash which would give them all the channels for free plus the advantage of Tivo.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Firstly of course, you meant 'encryption' didn't you? 

Secondly, hacked boxes won't have the return-path enabled so VM will always know about them. (As far as I know!)


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## JonMace (Mar 2, 2002)

cwaring said:


> Firstly of course, you meant 'encryption' didn't you?
> 
> Secondly, hacked boxes won't have the return-path enabled so VM will always know about them. (As far as I know!)


First your right

Second you are wrong, the fact that they have no return path or talk back means that VM can't see them - if they did then VM would see the box on the network and see that there was no sub on it.

The feed into the home is just like a normal TV feed but encrypted your STB acts just like a freeview box changing the frequencies for the channels, but in addition decodes - what this means is that if you can decode the signal you can watch any channel that is not VOD as that requires a return path.

Basically VM could produce a Tivo based STB but it would not be the Linux base that everyone loves to hack, as if it was, no one would pay VM any subs

We all know that Tivo can be hacked to obtain free data, but for £200 you got a life time sub, so you just paid it, on the other hand XL package on VM costs £30-50 depending on who you speak to on retentions, with no life time sub - that makes it worth hacking.

Jon


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## cyril (Sep 5, 2001)

If TiVo can release a Comcast cable unit, then they should be able to sort out strong enough encryption for V+.


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## JonMace (Mar 2, 2002)

cyril said:


> If TiVo can release a Comcast cable unit, then they should be able to sort out strong enough encryption for V+.


Your totally correct, and this is the attitude that VM needs to take, but would require a system wide change and I don't think that they have the money / inclination to do so.

What I see happening is VM going to Nagra 2 at some point, but that has all ready been hacked in Europe so would be a bit pointless.

And as much as we all love the Tivo GUI, and benefits, VM are not going to pay Tivo for the software when they have their own (admittedly inferior) priority software especially when there are only a couple of thousand customers at the most asking for it - making roughly a 0.0004% of customers.

An official CAM for a DVB-C card seems more likely, but even that I find doubtful, due to the support needed.


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