Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

I'm wondering why TV only customers are only allowed to have the old Tivo boxes and why VM will force you to have their internet service if you want a more modern box, such as the V6 or the 360. Is it simply a business decision or might there be other reasons?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

V6 and TV 360 require Virgin Media broadband to work. TiVo has its own broadband connection.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

No rush to get rid of my old Tivo box. As well as it's independent broadband connection , it's supplementary scart output is useful.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

V6 and 360 require VM residential broadband to be able to access all the necessary servers on VM's internal network. They don't even work properly on VM Business broadband.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

how come?

As said, the Tivo boxes have its own broadband connection which surely uses the VM network so I don't understand why nothing ever gets added for customers who have a Tivo box, and only have TV from Virgin Media.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

The TiVo is past it's best use date. It's full. Nothing more sinister than that.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

They are old and maxed out on resources, there's a limit to how far you can develop old tech.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

It’s only a matter of time before the old TiVos are retired. They are no longer fit for purpose.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

What's the expected lifespan of a set top box spec? I'm guessing it's probably different for a consumer-bought unit compared to VM's business model where they have to purchase and supply millions of units to customers.

The Tivo was launched around 2010 and was never the snappiest, but the plum update in 2015/16(?) slowed it down even further - it was painfully slow at performing some tasks as a result. Was it a case a VM choosing a poor spec from the get go, or did Tivo's software advance more than was initially anticipated? Or maybe a bit of both, or maybe norther of those?!

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

According to who?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

When I had TiVo it was slow and turgid. It never worked properly for me and I never managed to get multi-room working. The V6 was a breath of fresh air in terms of speed and functionality. I find the 360 snappier still, a little low on features at present, but what it does it does well.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

The main problem was the TiVo was specced to run Flash. But a few years later Flash had an unexpectedly swift demise and got replaced by Haxe and HTML5, which are more memory-hungry.

TiVo isn't going anywhere any time soon. It is needed for people who have no broadband, no HDMI, or want more than 3 TV boxes.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Thank you Spiderplant, and that's good to know.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

It's worth mentioning the modem inside the Tivo units are DOCSIS 1.1 spec, not 3.1 or 3 that Virgin are trying to push on their network, and were limited to 10Mb when Tivo was first introduced. Which could explain why the V6 lacks an internal cable modem, since every digital cable box featured one (Except for the ntl pace Di4001, which used DAVIC instead)

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

What's DOCSIS?

And 10mb is more than fast enough for streaming as it is said that you need a 2mb connection to stream effectively. I find that YouTube streams video perfectly well.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Thanks for the insight. I remember talk of Haxe now.

I'm looking forward to finding out more about the IPTV product when it launches as it could be a potential successor, depending to the breadth of services that will be replicated from the 360. I guess it wouldn't resolve the cap on having three other boxes though.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

I know this isn't about the TiVo box but, my V6 is needing to be rebooted more than usual, is this a sign that it may be on its way out?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Why do you need to reboot it?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

It fails to load up any of the apps, Netflix, Prime etc etc.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Very much a TV Lite package from what I've heard (no NDAs were broken).

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Will Virgin Meida call this new IPTV product - Virgin Glass?:D

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

In simple terms it is the international standard for sending data over cable tv networks. Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification.

---------- Post added at 18:43 ---------- Previous post was at 18:42 ----------

Virgin Broken Glass perhaps. ;)

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

That's Virgin on the ridiculous..:D

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Youtube will stream at what your broadband will allow. If you only have 10mb then the stream will suit that.

10Mb is NOT good enough for some good quality HD. You need nearly 30mb for one live 4k tv stream.

https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/gu...and-streaming/

Weird fault. Have you tried rebooting your Hub?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Not tried the hub as yet, but it sorts itself after a reboot, which lasts a few days then does it again, there have been quite a few complaints about this on the Virgin forums.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

One thing I do find with the Tivo box is that you do have to reboot it every few weeks as bit by bit the quality of the playback on YouTube gets worse with freezing and picture stuttering and eventually it become unwatchable until you reboot it with a switch-on and switch-off of the box. I don't see it as a fault, just as an annoyance.

---------- Post added at 16:00 ---------- Previous post was at 15:59 ----------

Thank you for your reply.

Back on topic, I believe the boxes have a 10mb connection which should mean that things like Amazon Prime would work perfectly well. After all, Netflix is available so I don't understand why Amazon Prime to the Tivo box, especially given that it has its own EPG number?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

It's not just about the speed of the broadband connection, but how well the box makes the whole app perform

Netflix, YouTube and iPlayer were all on the TiVo box before the V6 box launched. So they are part of that user experience. However they all run much faster on the V6 boxes to the TiVo boxes even before you start watching anything.

However Amazon Prime didn't launch on Virgin TV till after the V6 was available. So my personal view is that a decision was made that the best experience for newer streaming apps was on the V6 only. Trying to get the TiVo boxes to run them wouldn't be a good experience.

I'd also think that there could be commercial considerations with the streaming providers as to the minimum best user experience.

And as Virgin are a company that are there to make money, it's also a good way to encourage upgrades to have some services exclusive to your newer hardware.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Thank you for your reply Ben.

And i do agree that there has to be an element of business decision here to get TV-only customers to take VM's internet service so that they can access all these application add-ons such as Pluto TV, Amazon, BBC Sounds, and presumably many others, which are not available to TV-only customers.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

The problem there being that, as the missing services are largely streaming services, customers may decide to get a third party streaming device rather than an upgrade from Virgin.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Yes, there is truth in that. But the same issue applies for all 'classic' pay TV providers, not just Virgin Media.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Are there any other services and channels that are not available to TV only customers who can only have the Tivo box?

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

A thing I missed in the logic there - most customers still have a TiVo box because they don't have Virgin Fibre.

So unless they have broadband from another provider, they wouldn't be able to use another streaming service.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Last time I looked, TV-only (is it still called Solus?) costs around £50-60pm for Maxit (I can't get the bundle builder to work to check exactly). So, unless you want BT Sport, it's an expensive entry point compared to Sky. Even then, with Sky you'd pay a similar price and get Netflix included as well as BT Sport and a Q box.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

Just following your logic of an upgrade from Virgin, which would need a broadband connection. I wouldn't like to guess at how many of Virgin's TV only customers already have broadband from another provider but I'm sure they exist. It would also be interesting to know the actual amount of TiVo boxes still around in homes with Virgin Fibre.

---------- Post added at 18:44 ---------- Previous post was at 18:38 ----------

The 4K channels. I can't think of anything else. After that, it depends if you are comparing the TiVo with the V6 or the 360 box and if you prefer to record from SD channels to save disk space.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

I'm one of them who gets broadband from another provider and I'm happily contracted to that provider.

Re: Why TV only customers are only allowed to have an old Tivo box
 

The only Virgin TV only customer I know has Virgin TV because they can't get Sky. They won't use Virgin for broadband as they had long term over-utilisation issues with Virgin in the past.