Well, I'm impressed.
Yesterday I was worried about the engineers turning up. Well, they woke me up
, they turned up at 8.20 (my place is nearby the NTL Headend for Coventry) and they even phoned me to get my lazy **** outta bed.
I made the engineers the hot cups of tea they both deserved
. Both of them are looking forward to the Virgin rebranding, one of them had a Virgin Wooly Hat on.
I was a bit worried when the picture from the TV Drive kept dropping out (I thought I had been given a box with a faulty HDMI connection) but a reboot fixed that.
As for the TVDrive itself, its a LOT faster then my Pace Box (which now has a new home in the bedroom). Browsing through the 8 day guide is great - program data appears instantly, I've yet to see the dreaded 'Searching....'. I've set up a few series records so I'll see how it copes with those.
I've had a few lockups, where the TV Drive appears to have a snooze before deciding to process commands from the remote control. This should be first priority for a code fix IMO.
The favorites system is different - you can select your most loved channels but you CAN'T select what order they appear in. This is no big deal however, since you now get a LOT more program data, a LOT faster then before. Of course, being able to record a program is the icing on the cake.
On Demand of course, is totally shagged for TV Drive users in Coventry (only 5 other people have Tv Drive in this area), so all VOD content and most of the help videos are MIA. VOD still works however, on the good old Pace box.
HD content is limited of course to BBC HD. It looks good, bloody good at times, but I'm convinced that my Toshiba can do better so I'll be messing around with the picture settings later.
All in all, a nice piece of hardware to own. Frankly, its worth having just for the extended, turbo-charged EPG. Now all we need are a few code fixes, VOD switched on and of course, those Sky HD Channels.