Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Sky offer a 2TB SKyHD box, but Virgin only offer a maximum of 1TB for the Tivo. I have been waiting ages for Virgin Media to catch up, but it seems they are not bothered?!? With Virgin's history of willy waving, why are they not motivated in this storage area? Or are Virgin planning to release a bigger storage box?
Many thanks for any useful replies.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

There is no demand for it, the 1tb tivos make a small percentage of actual tivos installed, 2tb tivos would be even less, plus it may annoy folk who paid for a 1tb Tivo box.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

A 2TB TiVo is of no use at all to those who use TiVo as intended.

It's not a device for archiving material that neither belongs to you nor could you ever find time to watch.

A 1TB TiVo can record 120 hours of HD TV. This would take five full days to watch.

TiVo is essentially a device for recording programmes to watch at your convenience.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

As more and more content is available on-demand, I imagine the average user will make use of the local recording facility less and less too.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Plus, think how much Virgin would charge for it!

1TB Tivo = £50. 2TB Sky = £150. You can buy a 2TB drive for around £50. One of the reasons I still use Windows Media Centre. Though the new Kahuna bundle is tempting me towards Tivo...

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I see no reason why I personally would make use of a 2tb Tivo - however, maybe if the USB port was activated, then at least we have the opportunity of expanding the drive storage.

The only cost of this would then be to the user, and not Virgin. Surely they could implement this so recorded programs could only be watched through Tivo and not on a PC (for example)

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I have a 1Tb TIVO that has never gone past 10% used, and yet I still have about 30 hours of backlog programmes to watch.

Ditto my PC 1Tb PC HD that languishes with only 15% used that drops to about 10% when I do backups or cloud storage.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Don't forget that the Sky box takes up a certain amount of space for Sky Anytime so it's not truly 2TB.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

That seems to be the way that a lot of cable operators are moving. There's also "Network DVRs" as well, which function like a standard DVR (Tivo is a DVR for those who don't know), but when you "record" something, it's archived in a data centre somewhere then just streamed to your box when you want to watch it. I know that On Demand allows you to watch old programmes this way already, but I think, for licencing purposes, networked DVR recordings are counting as personal recordings and not subject to the same restrictions On Demand is (so, you'd be allowed to record from any channel, not just those with an On Demand service).

This is one thing Sky cannot do easily.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Our 98% full 1TB TiVo downstairs says otherwise.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I think you need to start watching the TV:D

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

....so, what is your TiVo full of and when are you going to find time to watch it?

Go on, admit it, as I said above, it's an archive of material that you will likely never watch.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

No, I don't agree. As I have said before on this forum, I record everything that we want to watch, even the news, and we watch it at our convenience. I do not record films for the sake of it or to store because one day I might watch it; I try to watch everything as soon as I can. My problem is that I only have about one and a half hours in the evening Sunday to Thursday and if I stay up late (as I often do) on Fridays and Saturdays, I can get about 5 or 6 hours viewing in on those days.

At this time of the year, my hard drive is ram jam full, but with the summer season coming with all its sport and repeats, I am able to steadily work through the dramas and stuff that I have recorded. This leaves me at between a quarter and a half full by the time all the fresh programming comes back in the autumn and winter.

Personally, I would welcome a 2TB box, but I think it would be best that all the recordings went to the 'cloud' because the thought of losing all that programming when you have to change your box is too much to bear!

As for On Demand, I have lost faith in that to some extent. The 'Catch-Up' only stays on there for 7 days, and the rest of it can disappear without notice in the middle of a series.

Netflix is much better than on demand. It keeps track of where you are with the series you are watching and it remains there for the long term. I know things can get taken off from time to time as happened recently but this does not appear to be too big a problem on Netflix. I'm sure Breaking Bad will still be on there when I eventually flog my way through to the end of the last series on there! However, I do think that we should be told when material is to be taken off with a reasonable amount of notice.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Apologies for not remembering the specific technical details but I recall that VM and Sky use different video encoding which results in a 1TB Sky box being able to record more hours than a 1TB TiVo.

Changing this will also help those that are struggling for space, however as cloud storage is getting popular these days then perhaps any time/money would be used in that area instead of changing the encoding.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Mpeg 2 for VM and Mpeg 4 for sky do you roughly get double the space with Mpeg 4 (I think)

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

To be honest not one single recording is mine, I use the 500GB in the bedroom.

My wife records an entire series and watches in one go as well as loads of other crap.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I have whole series of quite a few dramas on my TIVO. I am very selective in what I record but I still end up with so many programmes recorded that I am a bit too close to 95% full for comfort!

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Very well put Robbo. Thanks!

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Well, if you watched everything over a five day period, you would have to resort to live TV in those repeat-filled summer months!

I am watching TIVO exactly as intended, and a 1TB box barely meets my needs.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I am sorry Old Boy but I think that the peeps who say there is no demand overall for 2TB are right....

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

We record a lot of different things for the family so we would certainly not moan if they did come out with a 2TB box.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

The percentages with 1TB mentioned above suggest this is rather unlikely Den...

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

If Sky can have one Doug then why can't Virgin have one?.:)

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I have a 1tb. I went for it over the 500gb as I wanted to make sure I didn't regret having the smaller box, and I generally hover around 65% which would presumably mean 130% of 500gb (although maybe not exactly that for various reasons), so I'm happy that I made the right decision. Now, I watch far too much tv - I work shifts and find myself with a lot of time during the week with my wife at work and the children in school - and I cannot possibly fathom how it's possible to be close to filling up a 1tb TiVo without it having a lot of stuff that really won't ever get watched.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Was this not explained above den? Is not really 2TB on Sky and costs £150?

Paraphrasing I know....

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Sky's 2TB has 500GB reserved for On Demand , that said it still manages 350hrs HD more than double the TIVO 1TB thanks to mpeg 4. Price is different dependant on circumstances that said many existing customers have managed one for £49 however I believe the advertised price is £149.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Intended by who? You?

Everyone uses Tivo in a way that suits them. It's quite possible to have shows going back to the time when people first got their Tivo and yet still haven't gotten round to watching them. Add several like that and you've soon got a full Tivo. And it's still time shifting even though the show may have been recorded two years ago.


But as explained, Sky use mpeg 4, which records almost twice as many hours. So even with the space sky reserve for download, they still have way more recording capacity than VM.

What I don't get, is why people who don't need the extra space, seem negative towards a 2tB box becoming available. It's no skin off their nose but will make those who do want extra capacity happy. Personally I am continually struggling to have enough capacity on my 1 TB box and having to delete things I haven't got around to watching yet just to record something I value more.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Am negative towards it being available Passingbat, just wondering whether VM would get enough take up to make it viable to issue?

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Exactly, I have loads recorded.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I wonder how popular a 2TB box would be if customers had to pay extra each month for it?

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I simply don't see the point in recording material that you can't possibly ever get round to watching.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Our Tivo varies between 75 and 99% full. Yes it will all be watched. No, it's not archived, but then we have three adults in the house, and 90% of the stuff we video is hi def.

We don't all have the same needs and wants in life, you know.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I'd go for that in a heartbeat!

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I have a 500GB and it is never more than 25% used and that is when I have a series of films saved.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

So the 1TB is of no interest to you, then, let alone a 2TB.

I do accept that there are those (how many I have no idea) for whom a 500GB is ample. But there are many others at the other end of the scale who would find a 2TB box very helpful. I don't only record programmes that I want to see, but also for my wife, for both of us and for our Grandkids, too.

There must surely be a lot of people in a similar position.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

I see a clear need for a 2TB Tivo based on today’s VM services. My family tend to watch a few series at a time but sometimes we want to record more series than those we happen to be watching weekly. So on that basis the backlog builds up and once with my 1TB Tivo I did reach maximum capacity and had to stop recording one series.

The trouble with on demand is that it does not necessarily have all episodes and keeps them for a long time. Sometimes we are watching series which were recorded over 6 months ago when the rate of weekly series recording reduces (at the moment we are only at 15% storage so we have caught up with our backlog).

There are also some recordings I want to keep and watch again in the future so use the Tivo drive for that.

The problem of backlog recordings also gets worse the more people you have in the house watching different things.

The ideal answer to this is to not go to a 1TB box but offer cloud based storage which I know has been mentioned by VM for future plans.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Indeed we have the same problem in our household PC.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Many different things being recorded on our 1TB disc too - two adults and three teenagers. Frequently hit 100% - so what? It will just delete the oldest stuff and if it hasn't been watched by whoever wanted it recorded - well they had a reasonable chance to do so. We do occasionally flag something for keeps, but most of the time we just let Tivo do its thing. A 2TB disc may be useful for us, but it would soon be at 100% full anyway.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

On those Virgin Media Tivo boxes is it possible to attach a stand alone DVD recorder to them?

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Yes.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Cheers bud.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Um if it is not to complex to answer... how??

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Attach the scart output of the TV (which stays active even when viewing via HDMI, unlike early V+s) to a scart input on the DVD recorder. Set the DVD recorder to record from the scart input (usually AV1 or AV2), and play back the recording on your Tivo.

Unfortunately, unlike the V+, the Tivo does not have any special support for archiving recordings, so you won't be able to watch anything else on the Tivo while it is recording.

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Many thanks!!

Re: Why is there no 2TB Tivo?
 

Thanks for the explanation, much appreciated.