Would you please read what IPTV actually means and get out of your mind that IPTV involves the Internet. Ignore the tabloid and tech tabloid that feature articles written by clueless journos.
We're going around in circles because of your obsession that without TiVo or Internet integration there's no IPTV, this is not true, the IPTV upgrade is to free up space on the cable network for more HD and VoD it's
nothing to do with TiVo! You do
not need IPTV cable networks to run the TiVo services, they are running perfectly well over SDV and non-SDV CATV networks in the States and the TiVo service is
not IPTV.
Neither you nor I know what Virgin plan to do with the TiVo tie-up so to suggest it won't be TiVo Premiere rebranded and built into a VM branded box is an assumption. Indeed unless Virgin plan on giving every subscriber a TiVo equipped PVR, 4 million of them, it would seem quite likely that many customers will be using legacy STBs which are happily tuning in to IPTV streams.
My point is they are very separate things. Talking about them like they are the same is just wrong. People will not suddenly wake up one morning to find their area has been upgraded to IPTV and they suddenly are able to stream off YouTube and their STB has grown a hard drive and is running a Tivo-based operating system.
With the appropriate STB one could get exactly the same experience on a non-IPTV network - build a cable modem into the STB and use that for the internet content, which is likely what Virgin will do, and the job's done.
It's actually not unlikely that Virgin will release a home gateway box - a single STB which combines TV, PVR, DOCSIS 3 Cable Modem, Wireless Router all in one. Having a single cable modem for both video and internet access won't be a major problem, bandwidth can be guaranteed for video streams in between the uBR / CMTS and the cable modem using assured information rate service flows while using the same equipment as the existing internet services in the headend.
