Originally Posted by pauldavies83 (Post 35132916)

The £200 upfront charge is buying the equipment in for Virgin for them to then rent to you, plain and simple. When you rent a TV, or lease a car, your not paying the company up front for it for them to buy it and then paying the rental on it as well. They buy their asset, and then you pay the rental to them.

Originally Posted by WooLLsterQ (Post 35132240)

Called Staff packs today and was informed the next roll out after the "Tivo 500" we be a second batch of 500 units only again to staff and it will be early to mid January!!

Originally Posted by pauldavies83 (Post 35132916)

I really don't agree with this "free service engineers" line - lets face it, you should be getting free service engineers regardless. We shouldn't be slapping Virgin on the back and saying "well done" for this.

The customer is paying a subscription to watch a TV service - if the equipment Virgin insist you use to receive this subscription doesn't work, I'd expect it was repaired without charge! Otherwise you would be paying for something you couldn't access.

The £200 upfront charge is buying the equipment in for Virgin for them to then rent to you, plain and simple. When you rent a TV, or lease a car, your not paying the company up front for it for them to buy it and then paying the rental on it as well. They buy their asset, and then you pay the rental to them.

So Virgin seem to want it both ways. Good luck to them - best of both worlds for them and their business model :)

PS we all know Sky try to con you out of ~£60 to send a service engineer out - doesn't mean people pay it. I know people who have had multiple service visits free of charge.

Originally Posted by Stuart (Post 35132982)

Tell me. With Sky, are you free to use your own equipment (AFAIK you are)? Also, whether you use Sky branded or your own equipment, can you get it repaired for free when it's out of warranty?

Legitimatly. IE without having to threaten to leave.

Originally Posted by Andy C (Post 35132936)

To buy the box in a high street store, if you could, would probably cost around £500+. Virgin don't just need to recoup the box manufacturing costs but also the cost of the TiVo license and development. Virgin wont be makng any money for a long time.

Originally Posted by Andy C (Post 35132936)

A car rental company just buys in a fleet of cars and rents them, they haven't had the car custom built for them and bought a license to use a certain interior and had it custom designed and developed.

Originally Posted by Andy C (Post 35132936)

VM do not require you to have TiVo, it's currently a premium service so if you don't want to pay for it do without.

Originally Posted by ahardie (Post 35132932)

All your negative posts tend to suggest that you dont think it is worth having a tivo box anyway so you are perhaps not the best to judge whether the price is worth it.

Originally Posted by ahardie (Post 35132932)

Personally I do think from what I have read that it is worth paying extra for tivo and a 1Tb drive

Originally Posted by Masque (Post 35132918)

You pays your money you make your choice, it is down to you if you want the latest piece of kit or not as SKY will not have TiVo.

Originally Posted by pauldavies83 (Post 35133066)

You can source your own equipment - I believe by the letter of Sky's T&C's it has to be Sky branded, as their branded equipment is the only equipment that supports their encryption system. You are free to obtain it from anywhere (i.e. eBay) and they will configure your viewing card accordingly.

If you supply your own box, they aren't going to repair it.

---------- Post added at 18:45 ---------- Previous post was at 18:39 ----------



There is no way they would sell such a box for £500 - it would have to compete in its marketplace.

You can get dual-tuner PVR's for less than £200 - how would they get away with charging ~£300 more for similar hardware?



I'm willing to bet nothing in the box Cisco has manufactured is proprietary - it will be off the shelf components that have been assembled for VM in this instance, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the same hardware making its way into other global cable provider's stock (albeit more than likely in a more generic casing).



Given the quality of the V+ service, maybe they do require people to have TiVo? And maybe VM are relying on this? Otherwise, why has the V+ not seen any reasonable improvement (especially in performance) for years. As I have stated before, I had one of the original TiVo's, and at a reasonable price given the age of the technology I'll be more than happy to finally ditch the V+ and have one again - here's hoping the existing customer price is a lot more reasonable as has been winked at.

---------- Post added at 18:49 ---------- Previous post was at 18:45 ----------



Not at all, i've had a TiVo before and I'd absolutely love one again - if it wasn't for the dual-tuner and the very good deal we got from Sky on Sky+ I'd probably still be using my Series 1 TiVo now (providing I had it and it still worked). My negativity is aimed at the spin that is being put on this "revolutionary new product", that sans a few changes is 10 years old, yet is being priced not far away from what it was 10 years ago when it first arrived. Technology prices drop over time, not stagnate.



Personally, I think the only reason to have a 1TB drive is HD - and you've already paid the company for HD, so surely they can allow you the ability to record what you have already paid for? And 1TB drives can be had for peanuts to consumers, let alone trade. The £200 wouldn't suddenly become < £100 by halving the drive capacity, as the cost difference between the two drives would be negligible.





Thanks for the constructive addition to the discussion. I do "pays my money" and will make my choice - at £200 it will be a no.

Originally Posted by grimwau (Post 35133074)

If you pay £200 up front for the box do you still get charged for it ob the monthly bill?

Originally Posted by Masque (Post 35133075)

They usually just add the cost onto your next bill.

Originally Posted by pauldavies83 (Post 35133066)

There is no way they would sell such a box for £500 - it would have to compete in its marketplace.

You can get dual-tuner PVR's for less than £200 - how would they get away with charging ~£300 more for similar hardware?

Originally Posted by BenMcr (Post 35133082)

Not for that amount that won't ;)

It will likely be payment at order

Originally Posted by BenMcr (Post 35133082)

Not for that amount that won't ;)

It will likely be payment at order

Originally Posted by pauldavies83 (Post 35133066)

You can source your own equipment - I believe by the letter of Sky's T&C's it has to be Sky branded, as their branded equipment is the only equipment that supports their encryption system. You are free to obtain it from anywhere (i.e. eBay) and they will configure your viewing card accordingly.

If you supply your own box, they aren't going to repair it.[COLOR="Silver"]

Originally Posted by pauldavies83 (Post 35133066)

Personally, I think the only reason to have a 1TB drive is HD - and you've already paid the company for HD, so surely they can allow you the ability to record what you have already paid for? And 1TB drives can be had for peanuts to consumers, let alone trade. The £200 wouldn't suddenly become < £100 by halving the drive capacity, as the cost difference between the two drives would be negligible.