tvdrive
 

So im looking at the new TVdrive
http://www.telewest.co.uk/html/tvdrive/index.html

Now £75 install fee........ My STB is up the blink and needs fixing thats what the NTL tech said but he said wait for tvdrive so what do i do..... Wait as he said or get my STB replaced now etc

I am confused....

Re: tvdrive
 

its upto you. You could just replace your normal box for free under your rental contract...

or...

you could ask for a tv drive. £75 install plus an extra £10/£15 a month (depending on your viewing package...

or...

You could get a tv drive, free install provided you take multiroom at £5 a month (only £60 in total spread ovewr the year) plus an extra £10/£15 a month depending on your viewing package

Re: tvdrive
 

Depending how long you have been with ntl, whether you're over your minimum 12 months contract I would get the sky+ box fitted because imo it out performs a pace or samsung, and it would depend when your area is able to get the tv drive.
The £75 saved buy a cure for your confusion ;) mine this month is magners :D

Re: tvdrive
 

been with NTL for 5 years

Re: tvdrive
 

Well the ball is in your court :)
I would take a look at sky, they are offering free installation at the moment, I also got 3 months half price when I switched, money saved there, which would have gone to NTL more or less paid for my sky+ box.
Look at the pros and cons of each one and decide, imo the pros with sky+ over what I had with NTL far outweigh the latter :)
Good luck.

Re: tvdrive
 

TV drive is NOT a pace or a samsung. And just to level the playing field my Thompson 160 sky+ box needs to be rebooted every 2 weeks. My freetv samsung box has not needed rebooting since its install 2 months ago. I WILL be dumping my sky+ box in January for a tvdrive. The sky+box will be on ebay in febuary. :)

Re: tvdrive
 

Yer TVdrive would rule AS LONG as i can somehow get the programs i record off there and onto my pc so i can burn them

Re: tvdrive
 

Well i cannot do that with my Sky+ box.

Re: tvdrive
 

I believe the TV Drive has a special function to back up programmes to a connected DVD recorder. You could either buy one of them, which takes care of the burning issue (geddit?), or you could connect the box to a TV input on your PC.

Re: tvdrive
 

Have you tried talking to CS about it? The £75 install fee sounds suspiciously like the standard tech call-out fee. If you can get them to agree they already have to come out to fix a faulty box (fault = no call-out fee) you might be able to get them to agree to replace it with a TVD rather than a standard box. Work out the figures that you can use to point out the extra money they'll be getting from you too. (If you were looking at the TVD and keeping the existing box then you can include that in the calculations).

To be honest I'll be surprised if they insist on you paying the fee in these circumstances. That said they have some odd rules in place now (although they're focussed on ARPU so might be in your favour in this case). We cancelled our phone line (we use VOIP for all calls now) and then a week after the phone/free-tv package came out. They wouldn't let us swap to that package with TVD despite the fact it would have meant a higher overall bill than no phoneline (would have also kept CLID and CF services) with the potential for other calls on it (the missus used to use the phone for voting on Pop Idol, etc when we had the line). The guy agreed it would be more revenue but "computer says no".

Re: tvdrive
 

How come the guy you had round never fixed your problem there and then?

Re: tvdrive
 

Yes the TVDrive has a copy to VCR/DVD function so you can happily back-up programmes to a VCR/DVD Recorder and while its recording the TVDrive functions aren't tied up because your free to watch any channel and record programmes to it as normal.

Re: tvdrive
 

lol, well not lawfully if you follow the current T&C consumer contract,iv heart tell it can be done though...............

you could always just re-encode the scart conposite output with a PC encoder card or softwere encoder for far more effort and a werse picture quality than a simple binary copy of the stored files would have given you if NTL:tw has seen fit to include that softwere option in their firmware.....

---------- Post added at 02:49 ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 ----------

Yeah, its called re-recording the scart composite out to a DVD rather than a VHS video tape, makeing a totally seperate version of the already saved copy rather than just a quick and simple file copy.

infact its rather akin to the old vhs piracy of making a copy of a copy, but with Virgin Media(NTL:tw:virgin) blessing LOL.;)

Re: tvdrive
 

... at which point the content supply to cable would immediately dry up. ntl:tw don't care if you make digital copies, but the copyright owners most certainly do.

Without DRM, it'll not happen.

Re: tvdrive
 

I'm well aware of what it does. The "special function" was referring to the fact that it removes all the on-screen overlays and allows you to watch/record other things whilst the back-up is playing.

I agree that it would be nice to be able to plug the TV Drive into your home network and be able to browse/watch/copy the .mpg files on the harddrive from any connected PC. It's probably technically possible with the current box. But as Spiderplant says, it would be commercial suicide for NTL to enable such an option.

Re: tvdrive
 

yes thats true :( , but with the points Tristan makes and i also advocate, id be willing to have a lock-in key to say the STB MAC so as to allow playback anywere on the lan for instance.:cool:

Re: tvdrive
 

Nice idea but the problem is that MAC address cloning is so simple to do - my router has it included in the firmware options for example.

Re: tvdrive
 

;) .

yes.. but the idea is to make it easy to use within the home but hard for your average end user to simply copy it and sell it in micromart...

they will just stick to VCR quality copys for now.

there are (as you probably know)far better ways to protect the content other than DRM, but that involves paying more to impliment it for NTL, they could have payed for the already existing add-in for the TVDrive firmware and that has content protection AFAIC but again they didnt pay up and include it.........

it doesnt matter what the (C) holders force in the end, as it will always get broken or a way around it found, that not withstanding , its still wise to allow some form of home streaming/multicasting the better quality picture or they loose out a lot in the cash intake from IPTV and prevent the UK cable/hi-tech innovation growth.

and lets face it if theres in new kit to play with and pay out for then thats a MASSIVE cashflow problem for the likes of Virgin-Media.

as an example of why they need to relax the content copying
rules then just look at the IPTV worldwide.

i fully expect them to clamp down later after the markets have been seeded and the products re in place, but everyones got something coming so VM:ntl:tw better get moving with new financing and kit that can do the expected things or get eaten bt the big boys..
http://www.digitalmediapublishing.co...uly_online.pdf
http://hiddenwires.co.uk/resourcesar...061101-03.html
http://www.iptv-news.com/component/o...limitstart,40/

Re: tvdrive
 

Bill I am not saying that the tv drive is a pace or samsung ;)
The point I was getting at was that given that this person is having to wait for the tv drive to be available in his/her area, what is the alternative?
From somebody who has had stb's from NTL and my blood pressure is strangely returning to normal :) I know the nightmare that they can be, when they fail going through the pain of phoning NTL every other week to be dictated to by a script to do things I have already tried BEFORE calling NTL it really is not worth the hassle.
How long have you had the thompson?
I would call sky and haggle for a deal but that is up to you ;)
I am not suggesting that people do not have problems with sky boxes but in my own experience, and at the end of the day it is me who is paying for the services, I have not had an issue with my sky+ box since it was installed in september last year.
As far as I know there is a pc out socket on my sky+ box, and if I want to transfer from it I can just transfer it across to my sony hd recorder using the outputs from the sky+