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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Too much money to be made (including for the actors) in re-runs and sales to other markets.
Keeping "everything" on the cloud, free to access by customers, would destroy that model. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
The 'available to play' should be based on your download speed.
It does some calculation to ensure you can't start playing it until it knows you will not catch up with how far it has downloaded. I find UHD series (up to one hour) are available in a few second. Quote:
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
So the whole point would be to inhibit the service, restricting recordings to a few months, why not restrict the capacity to something like 1TB as well?
Might as well keep a V6 as is. As I’ve said structural issues in the UK market mean we are unlikely to see it, despite Liberty rolling it out elsewhere in Europe where it doesn’t have the same issues. |
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Two years would be good, I think, but one year would be too restrictive. About half of my recordings are one to two years old. If we had cloud recordings, what would be the difference to broadcasters? I think you are seeing obstacles where there are none. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I fail to see how it could reasonably be described as having no obstacles.
The difference to broadcasters is you have a finite amount of recording space. So while you may keep a limited amount of content (and most of it temporarily) this would allow almost four million households to hold a significant back catalogue of broadcast television through series links without ever having to worry about running out of space. All the while some of the same content providers are considering a subscription platform for their back catalogues. As Hugh points out content providers want more control of reruns and overseas distribution, not less. Liberty will have more success with this in non-English speaking markets where distribution through cable is more likely to be the platform of choice for delivery of any enhanced services and the content providers aren’t also the owners of rival platforms. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
A limit on the number of hours and short time limits on recordings isn’t what cloud based recording is intended to offer, barely better than what we have now and not representative of the service being rolled out in other Liberty markets.
It’s possible to launch an extremely watered down service because Virgin’s competition simply wouldn’t want a full fat version on the market. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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Your calculations are too simplistic, my figures are based on actual experience of recordings. Have you taken the following into account :- A HD football recording takes 2%, a UHD recording takes 5%. Football recordings of a match are usually around 3 hours with before and afters. I have recorded the same on UHD and HD as I was interested how much disk space they take. I don't know how much, but I suspect some of the 1Tb is used for software, EPG etc (certainly is on sky boxes) ---------- Post added at 20:28 ---------- Previous post was at 20:25 ---------- Quote:
Seriously doubt each person will have their own mini-cloud with recordings just for them - that would end up with an infinite amount of space being required. ---------- Post added at 20:31 ---------- Previous post was at 20:28 ---------- Why not just offer 2Tb or 4Tb V6 boxes? There was originally supposed to be a 2Tb option, this was quietly dropped by Virgin. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
The big mistake you have made is using the percentages displayed by the TiVo software. That algorithm has been wrong for a long time.
The 8-10 GB figure I quote is straight from programs recorded on channel 999. You can get this from going into My Shows, highlighting a show then pressing right. Once there, press the Info button then scroll down and you’ll get the actual GB figure for that program. When two different people tell you you’re wrong and they get their information from two different but valid sources, you’re usually wrong. |
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I can agree with your last sentence, however I can only find you telling me I am wrong (twice) - maybe I missed another post somewhere. As for the 8-10Gb figure - my recordings have been from BT sports UHD channel (555) and the corresponding recording from the HD channel - possibly BT has a less compressed offering? |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
jfman, post 2182, is the second person who disagrees with you. He gives the actual fugures for BT 4K, channel 555, at around 12 GB per hour, slightly more than the 8-10 GB I suggest for channel 999.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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See that post now, didn't pick it up before as it didn't quote myself. Yes 12Gb is higher than you suggest (between 50% and 20%) - I have not found anything on 999 I want to watch - hence my use of 555 as a yardstick. Again he is working on 2 hours of broadcast whereas 3 hrs would be a more normal length. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I only gave that as an illustrative figure to help the discussion.
Virgin TV Ultra HD broadcasts at a variable bitrate and recorded averages are 10-20% lower than BT Sport 4K. ---------- Post added at 23:48 ---------- Previous post was at 23:25 ---------- I don’t know what makes the percentages differ, but there is probably reserved space for software/apps/EPG and the rewind buffer for however many channels are running in the background. Also how they calculate megabytes and above (one million or 1024*1024 bytes, which carries on into gigabytes). Then how it applies rounding. It’s only supposed to be a guide to help clear recordings and make space. The margin of error makes meaningful and accurate comparisons pointless. |
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The reason cloud recording might be preferable to VM is that it would be cheaper for STBs not to include a recording function. Broadcasters would prsfer access to the cloud so they could control and monetise their shows. |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
It took minutes to wait for HD for me when I had Sky Q. The point is that on demand/cloud over cable wouldn’t rely on variability of internet speeds.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
A slow internet speed will mean slow downloading from 'the cloud' even if on cable.
Some users have slow cable speeds. Quote:
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
There have been many documented problems with On Demand over Virgin in fact lots and lots.
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Average speeds on cable are higher than non-cable fibre products, if they did opt for delivery over the internet. ---------- Post added at 11:25 ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 ---------- Quote:
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I think most OD over Virgin complaints are more down to using the old TiVo boxes rather than the V6.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I’d have fully expected you to have issues, it’s the best way for you to continue to promote Sky in a discussion about cable services.
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I'm starting to see why you got a ban over on DS , I guess some people like to believe they are always right and struggle to converse with people and accept differing opinions. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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I just find your contribution to this thread curious, as you obviously aren’t that interested in what may or may not be coming soon to Virgin Media. |
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All services suffer problems and downtime but on the V+ the service was more miss during the evening sadly. |
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Whether or not muppetman fits into this category, I tbink he makes a useful contribution to cable forum (even though he gets rather irritated with me sometimes!). ---------- Post added at 13:00 ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 ---------- Quote:
Happy to say that the V6 is a tremendous improvement and we've had absolutely no issues since we got two of them about 18 months or so ago. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Just seen on Twitter here
https://twitter.com/FreeSportsUK/sta...53845935857666 FreeSports in HD is on Virgin Media from tomorrow! |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
so 2 HD channels tomorrow :)
Gold HD Freesports HD |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
It seems that some satellite viewers are not at all happy that it won't be on Sky for the time being. Not sure what the delay is there unless Sky see this as too much competition with their own sports channels.
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I cannot think of any other reason Sky won't carry it. |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Any news on the channel number? Or is it just replacing Freesports SD?
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Ok thanks for the prompt reply |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
gold HD now on 124
Freesports HD now on 553 |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Not that much on Gold HD is going to be HD. The listings on the EPG are not currently properly tagged as being HD, when they are HD, eg "The Story of Only Fools and Horses". You have to get that info from elsewhere, eg Radio Times website.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Comparing gold HD on sky and virgin, sky looks much better.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
It's on the same TV through a Denon amp. The difference on adverts and promo's is huge.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Interesting decision to replace Gold SD with Gold HD rather than having both available, as there are many other TV channels that they could do the same but haven't done, for example 4Seven, Paramount Network, Quest, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News, Nat Geo Wild, History, Crime + Investigation, all of the Sky Cinema channels, and all of the BT Sport channels.
They have incorrectly labelled FreeSports HD as Freesports HD in the EPG. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
It's strange that other UKTV channels like Really and Home aren't in HD as most if not all content will have made in HD.
Does anyone know if Channel 5 channels like USA, 5star and 5spike will ever launch in HD? |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Although i'm a fan of the UKTV channels don't see much point of Gold in HD, most of the programmes weren't made in HD.
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Freesports wont appeal much to the football fan, Bull Riding!! lol, looks like there's quite a lot of rugby on there, womens hockey etc, doesn't appeal to me at all.
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Who needs Sky Sports lol I watched a bit of Ice Hockey and it kept me hooked for about 2 minutes the picture was good, it made a change from the abysmal SD Freesports picture. I wont be watching the channel much though. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
FreeSports had some NHL ice hockey last season, no idea if they will this season. They have UK ice hockey league this year and I think UK basketball league coverage (they certainly did last season).
There is football, though it's more the likes of Benfica Vs Desportivo Aves full replay I saw when I put the channel on this morning to check the picture quality. |
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The 5 USA catch-up seems to be available in HD but there is no HD linear channel. |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Don't know if this has been mentioned or not! From the "Customer News" section on the V6 box (Home>Help&Settings>Help>Customer News>HD as Standard recordings &...):
" We want you to enjoy your favourite TV at its best, so we're swapping some of your standard definition channels for their high definition versions. This means you'll lose some standard definition channels from your TV guide, but they'll be replaced with their better looking counterparts. In some cases you might lose your standard definition recordings after 3 months if they were taken from a channel that is now "vacant". You might also have to adjust your Series Link for these channels (if you use them) or switch to using Series Link+ to make sure you're getting episodes from all available channels. Plus, don't forget that recorded HD programmes will take up more space on your TV Box." |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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Those boxes are all either swapped or decommissioned now, and the remaining boxes with Scart outputs can downscale HD. So there is no need to have both an SD and HD version of Gold. There are quite a few other HD only channels on Virgin Media now. |
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Given what has been spotted in Customer News maybe we are about to see many other SD versions removed. |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Just read that Box Nation has been removed from Sky, is it still broadcasting on VM (I don't subscribe to it)?
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
It is still on Sky
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Another music channel goes to the dogs with VH-1 becoming a lifestyle channel. I really liked this music channel when we first got it on cable - I think it is a real pity that its programming changed, and this is the last straw. I won't be watching VH-1 ever again now.
Just as well we have YouTube. https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2018...style-channel/ |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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The music video channel genre has been in decline for a very long time and MTV has plenty of others. VH1 UK will now align with the US channel and allow for greater content sharing and brand development. They need to get VH1 UK a presence on social media by the time it re-launches. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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ITVBe, Really, TLC, Lifetime, E! etc are all in this space but Viacom are not as yet - so it makes perfect sense. |
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BT and Box Nation have a partnership which includes sharing rights to certain events and Box Nation being offered as part of the BT Sport Pack. https://www.boxnation.com/boxing-new...and-boxnation/ |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
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A couple of years ago I was abroad for 6weeks over christmas, and dropping everything except serial drama & natural-history stuff to SD made the difference between an overflowing box and "getting away with it". |
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So although there is a difference between the two, HD takes up a lot less disk space than it did and if you did the same again, you'd probably be fine with the six weeks in HD now. |
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Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I have no idea what the reasoning behind it was, so can't really comment on that.
But look at it this way - we used to have MPEG 2 SD and HD with the relevant file size differences HD has moved to MPEG4 which brings it closer to the MPEG2 sizes of SD. The UHD channels are HVEC which brings them close to the size of the HD channels when they were on MPEG2. So it's not far off 'standing still' when it comes to recording space needs, but we will end up with better quality recordings for the same file size usage. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I would suggest the current capacity is around 400 hours HD or 100 hours UHD or mix thereof.
The V6 is not an archiving box but a box to provide convenient playback of recordings. Certainly, for me, there’s more than enough space. I rarely go above 10% usage. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
The UHD channels are broadcasting at a higher bitrate than the MPEG 2 variants.
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Currently, I have 2 V6s and a DVD recorder, and that is barely sufficient. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
I appreciate that everyone’s different but how long would it take to watch 400 hours of recordings? Answer 7 weeks if you watch 8 hours a day and that’s without recording any more.
I suggest that 1TB is more than enough for timeslip watching. Anything more, I would suggest, is archiving material. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Is the TiVo able to take an external hard drive like the Xbox or PS4
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Now majority-owned by the estate of Bill Ives of Rainham Steel fame. Frank Warren and George Warren remain as directors. ---------- Post added at 00:14 ---------- Previous post was at 00:10 ---------- Quote:
Unless I'm missing something, anything close to 1TB of recordings sounds like recording hoarding to me. |
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Also Gold HD has only existed on Virgin Media after the official withdrawal of the SD only boxes, and is also in the same TV pack as the HD version. Dave SD is not current in the same TV pack as Dave HD, which is why those two are still around. But eventually I don't see any technical reason why most SD channels aren't swapped out for the HD versions. The only reason SD would remain is either because there isn't an HD regional version (BBC, ITV etc), or because the content agreement requires it to be there. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
As i'm having to be careful with recording space, i'm going to start recording things from GOLD +1 as that's still SD. Even if SD only boxes were still around, the channel would still be available, albeit an hour later :D
Do we now have an odd situation where a pay channel like GOLD is in a lower pack than a channel like Dave that's available FTA? |
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Dave HD and Gold HD are both is Mix and above. Dave SD is in Player as that then aligns to it's FTA availability. |
Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
Also with the V6, there is the potential to double or treble storage by having 2 or 3 boxes.
The functionality of being able to watch recordings across boxes is brilliant. Although I do agree with the hoarding of materials stated in earlier posts, the V6 isn't for really for archiving programmes, but being able to watch more,at your convenience. I watch the recordings and then delete them. |
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As do I! That is not 'hoarding'. |
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You have 2 x V6 and DVD recorder...what do you watch? How do you have time to watch it all? lol ;):D:D I'm up to 75% on one box due to missus recording all of her rubbish haha I haven't tried recording any UHD yet, so not able to comment on the space it takes. Is there any news of other programmes coming to the UHD channel? |
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I wonder if Virgin dropped the idea of a 2Tb box when they realised people were prepared to pay the extra for a 2nd box - rather cunning really. As for the idea that filling 2 boxes is hoarding - I am about to go away for 8 days, my required recordings for that period would more than fill 1 empty V6 box - hoarding? Not at all, just recording things I would otherwise miss. |
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When are you going to find time to watch those 400 hours? |
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