Re: Is this a workaround to record more than 6 channels on cable boxes?
 

As I recall 6 tuners was a Unique Selling Point (in the UK) when the V6 launched.

There are many possible reasons why VM have chosen not to use them all.

It may not be desirable to allocate more than 6 active streams to each box on the network, resources need allocated and the cost/usage ratio may not be favourable. Remember, someone might watch a couple of channels most of the time and the remaining tuners are still actively working regardless. So VM may have decided it's not a good use of their network resources to have 8 active streams on every box when the average user uses 2-3.

Forward planning for something that didn't happen. The 8 tuner component might only have been marginally more expensive and VM wanted the option to offer more at a later date, depending on how customers used those they already had. It could have been that VOD may not have become popular, so extra streams may have been a greater selling point, but the market decided otherwise.

The 2 extra tuners might be configurable to take over if one of the other 6 cease operating properly.

Of course it could be argued that VM could offer a variety of tuner options and enable/disable them depending on what the customer wants and is willing to pay. They may have indeed considered this, but upon weighing up the costs it was much cheaper to provision for all TV customers to have the same setup, rather than complicating the Services Offering and systems required, and to maintain those on an ongoing basis.

I have a vague recollection that VM said years ago why they didn't use all 8 tuners, but it's so long ago and I can't remember.

Re: Is this a workaround to record more than 6 channels on cable boxes?
 

This sounds quite possible, redundancy is always a good thing.

Re: Is this a workaround to record more than 6 channels on cable boxes?
 

I remember when the TiVo first came out that it didn't initially have all of it's tuners activated for some reason.

Re: Is this a workaround to record more than 6 channels on cable boxes?
 

I'm pretty sure that's because Virgin Media's TiVo box was the first TiVo box with more than two tuners.

So TiVo had to update the software to deal more than two.

Re: Is this a workaround to record more than 6 channels on cable boxes?
 

Thanks Ben, I think you're right.