Tivo returns to the UK!

[AntonyF]

Many of you may not know it was here in the first place. Launched back in 2001, dead by 2003, they still service existing subscribers.

I gave up my Tivo, finally, in March this year. I miss it.

But obviously it took the loss of my subscription to tip the balance! Virgin Media is partnering with Tivo, so its cable boxes will be Tivo boxes (at least on the software side).

So Tivo is returning to the UK!

I am so, so happy. Tivo is great, and the EPG on my box from 2001 still beats the pants off of Sky+ EPGs eight years later.

Virgin will have my subscription... as soon as I've moved to a cabled place.

http://tivo.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=419

 

[23skidoo]

Good news for people using the service, but I thought Tivo was generally considered dead all over with the rise of DVR?

Alex

 

[ITL]

Virgin/Tivo will be going for the HD cable market - and as cable is minimal over here compared to satellite and Freeview services, they could be onto a good thing by dominating that niche market.

I could be wrong, but I think that non-disc digital recording is more widespread over here than disc recording anyway.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I had a Tivo from about 2002 till last year, I loved my Tivo, I really did, but the guide data problems theyu were having and the amount of times I missed programmes because there was shows on at the same time, or missed the end of a show because it needed to switch over just got to be too annoying. So I built myself a media centre with a dual tuner, and while I still miss a few features of the Tivo, the media centre has been a good replacement.
This would certainly tempt me to become a Virgin Media subscriber though, if they actually had a service in this area...

I think the difficulty with the UK market was that Sky dominates, so when they pulled their support it was the beginning of the end, despite the fact Tivo was a hell of a lot better.
Then Freeview PVRs came along which weren't anywhere near as good, but were subscription free, so it was hard to sell their service as well.

My sister still has my Tivo, but no longer uses it since she has a rubbish Freeview signal... I may ask for it back and use it in the bedroom, but I already have far too much to watch without adding even more shows to the list with another tuner.

 

[Captain Shaw]

With the channels now having there I players hooked up to virgin i don't really recored anything these days.

 

[TheInsideMan]

2010 should be a great year for Virgin TV.

Analogue services should be completely switched off by Spring freeing up loads of bandwidth for more HD channels. The move to a IPTV network should reduce more bandwidth and result in faster roll-out of new channels. Meanwhile, they are finally expanding the cable network, I think only 12 million people live within the network at present.

The Tivo announcement is the icing on the cake. The software on cable boxes has always been clunky to use and lacks features like search etc. Tivo should change that.