New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Samsung V+ hardware samples have been delivered along with the first official engineering build... Should'nt be long untill everythings Samsung built..
;)

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Source:)

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Is it any good:confused::shocked:

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Refer back to my post regarding my talk with a teccy last year saying hold fire dont get V+ yet wait until 2008 . Could this be why ?
if so I guess they will be for" brand new customers only"

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

maybe the techie was on a wind-up - ive not heard anything anywhere about this mythical samsung new V+ box

also why would they need to change the V+ box - at vast cost in terms of Research and Development charges ? ? ?

my V+ box works fine as it is - what do they need to add - except weblogon set the V+ to record & that would be a software issue

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

US cable companies have for a while been launching new HD channels in H.264 only, and have launched new PVRs to go with these channels. Existing customers with out-dated MPEG 2 hardware are welcome to stay where they are and watch SD content and older MPEG 2 HD channels, but they will not be able to receive any new channels unless they upgrade their boxes.

As everyone knows, Virgin's V+ is based on out-dated MPEG 2 tech, so a movie to a new H.264 capable box would make sense. Really too bad they've spent so much already on giving customers out-dated hardware though, as it will be a headache for everyone to change over.

I think they could also improve their EPG a lot on more powerful hardware. What they have frankly resembles a BBC Micro circa 1985, with crude low-res white text on a black background. Compare it to a media center PC and the difference is enormous. The difference is big in functionality too, it's just too bad the only way to get at locked networks like Virgin and Sky is through their own approved but technically incredibly basic boxes.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Or, unless the cable operator re-encodes in MPEG2. Seeing as Virgin have bought a lot of hardware to do this, I suspect that's the way they'll go.

Unfortunately, NTL were looking at a newer version of the current Scientific Atlanta box that did offer MPEG 4 as well, but the Telewest management are running VM and cancelled the project.
Actually, I suspect the current colour scheme was chosen for easy visibility to most people (a lot of people, even though they are not registered disabled, do have trouble percieving certain colours). This is actually something a lot of designers forget.

The current hardware is more than powerful enough to run VM's EPG at a decent speed. Tivo has a far superior user interface and EPG, yet runs on a power PC based computer with 16 meg of RAM and a 50MHz CPU (the V+ also has 16 meg of ram, but uses a CPU with a speed > 100 MHz).

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

I'm hoping any new box will also be able to read out the menus too.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

This isn't a wind up btw

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Transcoding to MPEG 2 isn't a smart idea though. Obviously you are flushing a good chunk of that lovely HD quality down the toilet immediately, and also because MPEG 2 is very wasteful on space. Ultimately all channels, or at least the majority of channels will be in HD, so carrying 150-200 MPEG2 1080i streams is not going to be very pleasant.

Windows Media Center has an option for a high visibility white on black colour scheme for those that want it, but it defaults to something far prettier. It doesn't help that the Virgin EPG is in 4:3 SD, and very, very badly upscaled to 1080i. Again compared to Windows Media Center, with it's transparencies and slick scrolling, zooming, and transition effects, the Virgin EPG feels like something from a couple of decades ago.

Personally I with we had cablecards here as they do in the US. That way the consumer can decide which box they want, then just plug the cable card in to decode all the DRM cable channels. Sadly though, as with many things tech related, the UK is way behind other countries. (particularly the US and Japan)

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

I have to admit, I would prefer H264 support, but Virgin (unless they are really going to surpise a lot of people) seem to be sticking with MPEG2. It's possible that they wish to support both (although they have spent a lot of money on transcoding hardware, I suspect it's a fraction of what it would cost to replace all the current V+ boxes), but it's also possible they wish to stick with MPEG 2..

It's also worth noting that MPEG2, given a high enough bitrate, beats H264 on quality given a similar bitrate. H264 gives a better image quality at low bitrates though.

It's worth noting, however, that (and I know this, part of my day job is helping students with video encoding) transcoding from one lossy codec to another lossy codec is never a good idea, however good they are. Both MPEG2 and H264 are considered lossy codecs.

---------- Post added at 18:44 ---------- Previous post was at 18:41 ----------

TBH, I am suprised this is not a requirement of the Disability Discrimination Act. It would also be fairly easy to implement. After all, all you have to do is record someone reading out the screens, then get the box to play back the relevant recording.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

I'm not sure about that. When the DVD Forum were comparing codecs for high bit-rate (30mbits) 1080p HD DVD encoding they compared MPEG 2, H.264, and VC-1. They decided that VC-1 gave the best results, closely followed by H.264/AVC/MPEG 4, then way behind was MPEG 2.

Blu-rays now use H.264 almost exclusively (aside from Warner Bros, who still use VC-1), having moved away from MPEG 2 due to the huge amount of user complaints. Certainly in my own experience with HD DVD and BD, the MPEG 2 stuff is always far inferior to VC-1 and H.264. They're just far more modern codecs and give better results in any situation.

Looking at the quality of BBC HD and Virgin's HD VOD content the quality is pretty mediocre to my eyes. It's a far cry from blu-ray or HD DVD level, but is of course still far superior to the SD content on Virgin.

It's really a shame that the UK, and Virgin of course in particular are so slow in adopting high-def. It's difficult now to buy an SD TV, so they really should be transitioning to HD as quickly as possible. It's amazing and disappointing that we still don't have the core channels from BBC, C4, ITV, and C5 in high-def.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

It would probably be easier to use a small speech synthesis program on the box.

Still it's all money so I doubt it will happen.

---------- Post added at 20:15 ---------- Previous post was at 20:14 ----------

Good, I'm looking forward to seeing one.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

er in summary do the posts above mean

1. is there is a new Sansung box V+ box the way ?

2. when will it arrive

3. will is cost any £ for us the subscribers

4. will I be able to call it up remotely and set it to record a program or 2 ?

5. what color will it be

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Lets hope this one is the dogs proverbials before it is released then.
VM seem to get all excited about " outing " a new product before considering reliability issues.


" 4. will I be able to call it up remotely and set it to record a program or 2 ? "

Get yourself a slingbox ;)

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Actually it shouldn't have been posted as it was part of an internal brief. So its not VM 'outing' anything.

There is no definate date/feature set/price/colour choice etc for it.

All an engineering sample means is they are looking into it to see if it is any good.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Possibly. All we know is (as Ben says) that they have recieved Engineering samples. All this means is that Virgin are looking at boxes other than the current Scientific Atlanta/Cisco (SA are part of Cisco) boxes.

They've always done this sort of thing.
Possibly later this year
Unknown.
Unlikely. This is something that (hardware wise at least), Virgin *could* implement on the current boxes, yet haven't. Virgin tend to keep the functionality of their boxes roughly the same (so any new v boxes would have the same functionality as the current v box, and any new v+ boxes would probably have the same functionality as the current v+).
Unknown.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Hey all, i got a call from virgin media telling me if i wanted the new samsung V+ box for £25, he said its black, going to be installed on thursday so if its true what the person said at virgin media ill take some photos.

They also said that they are removing traffic managment in about 2-3 months as they are brining out a new 50MB service.

I do hope it is the new box like the person who rang me said it was.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

That would be the existing SA V+ box (which is black) NOT any 'NEW' Samsung V+ box as it doesn't exist!!!!

The launch of 50Mb broadband product would not remove the managment for anyone else at this stage.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

he said it was not the old SA box which i beleive is also black he confirmed to me it was defently a samsung box the new one. And he said somethign to do with the 20MB and 50MB service is going onto a diffrent platform or something which frees up the line for the 4MB and is it 2MB people so thats why they are going to remove it.

I suppose we will see on thursday.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

You cannot have something that doesn't exist. ALL V+ boxes are currently made by Scientific Atlanta! There ARE NO Samsung V+ boxes!!

Yes the 50Mb service is new technology and yes at somepoint the 20Mb service will be moved to that technology but you are looking at 2009 before that all completes

I would doubt the 50Mb service itself will launch before August/September

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Should i ring them and ask to cancel the install then, i only wanted the samsung box as the old SA one is too slow, i had it before, have the improoved it yet?

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

You can if you like, but you won't get it for £25 again

And yes improvments have been made

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Ok, well ill get it installed he said i have a month and if i dont liek it they will refund me.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Just to be clear, I know nothing about these alleged boxes, but as a current V+ user with the SA box, I wondered what else the exisiting box has to offer that isn't available through VM's choosing at present? Is remote recording technically possible?

I note that in VM's 2007 annual report, they stated "In 2008, we plan to further enhance the functionality of our V+ Box." (p10 of this pdf)

What do you think the possibilities might be? Again, I'm talking about the current box.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Yes remote record is technically possible as that has nothing to do with the box, more what software is ON the box

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

I would like the ability to watch my V+ recordings on another box in the house, but dont know if that would be possible ?

Maybe have a private VOD menu on my ordinary V box.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

If ntl had had their way, it would have been possible. the PVR they were testing had the ability to act as a Media Server, with the other standard compatible boxes in the house streaming recorded programs from it.

It was scrapped in favour of the current V+ which telewest had already rolled out

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Whilst a Media Server sounds great to the more technically minded, I think the success of Sky+ and the V+ is down to it being so easy to use. The rest of my family never mastered setting the VCR or even changing TV inputs for DVD playback, but they use the V+ with little difficulty.
Whilst I'd be surprised if the new Samsung doesn't support MPeg4 (it wouldn't have much of a market outside the UK if it didn't), I would expect a whole plethora of additional functionality over the existing V+. "Late Summer" is what they're discussing at VM, pending successful testing. More here.

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

The current V+ (aka TVDrive) hardware has this capability - it's just not implemented in the software (like record three channels at once).

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Let's face, hardware wise all it would need is an Ethernet port, enough processing power to stream the video and a hard drive.

All the Scientific Atlanta Explorer models have this..

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Not according to the datasheet. It isn't mentioned anywhere

http://www.scientificatlanta.com/cus...ce/7004921.pdf

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/coll...cd806c6b2c.pdf

The only reference I can find is this:

The US version, the 8300HD has a multi-room version, but its not the same box http://www.scientificatlanta.com/Pro...er8300HDMR.htm

Re: New Samsung V+ box on its way!
 

Perhaps there is a new vbox on the way, and that is why virginmedia are giving 50% discount on the Vbox charge at the present time to offload there old stocks.