[pauldavies83]

Originally Posted by Stuart

Tell me. With Sky, are you free to use your own equipment (AFAIK you are)? Also, whether you use Sky branded or your own equipment, can you get it repaired for free when it's out of warranty?

Legitimatly. IE without having to threaten to leave.

You can source your own equipment - I believe by the letter of Sky's T&C's it has to be Sky branded, as their branded equipment is the only equipment that supports their encryption system. You are free to obtain it from anywhere (i.e. eBay) and they will configure your viewing card accordingly.

If you supply your own box, they aren't going to repair it.

---------- Post added at 18:45 ---------- Previous post was at 18:39 ----------

Originally Posted by Andy C

To buy the box in a high street store, if you could, would probably cost around £500+. Virgin don't just need to recoup the box manufacturing costs but also the cost of the TiVo license and development. Virgin wont be makng any money for a long time.

There is no way they would sell such a box for £500 - it would have to compete in its marketplace.

You can get dual-tuner PVR's for less than £200 - how would they get away with charging ~£300 more for similar hardware?

Originally Posted by Andy C

A car rental company just buys in a fleet of cars and rents them, they haven't had the car custom built for them and bought a license to use a certain interior and had it custom designed and developed.

I'm willing to bet nothing in the box Cisco has manufactured is proprietary - it will be off the shelf components that have been assembled for VM in this instance, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the same hardware making its way into other global cable provider's stock (albeit more than likely in a more generic casing).

Originally Posted by Andy C

VM do not require you to have TiVo, it's currently a premium service so if you don't want to pay for it do without.

Given the quality of the V+ service, maybe they do require people to have TiVo? And maybe VM are relying on this? Otherwise, why has the V+ not seen any reasonable improvement (especially in performance) for years. As I have stated before, I had one of the original TiVo's, and at a reasonable price given the age of the technology I'll be more than happy to finally ditch the V+ and have one again - here's hoping the existing customer price is a lot more reasonable as has been winked at.

---------- Post added at 18:49 ---------- Previous post was at 18:45 ----------

Originally Posted by ahardie

All your negative posts tend to suggest that you dont think it is worth having a tivo box anyway so you are perhaps not the best to judge whether the price is worth it.

Not at all, i've had a TiVo before and I'd absolutely love one again - if it wasn't for the dual-tuner and the very good deal we got from Sky on Sky+ I'd probably still be using my Series 1 TiVo now (providing I had it and it still worked). My negativity is aimed at the spin that is being put on this "revolutionary new product", that sans a few changes is 10 years old, yet is being priced not far away from what it was 10 years ago when it first arrived. Technology prices drop over time, not stagnate.

Originally Posted by ahardie

Personally I do think from what I have read that it is worth paying extra for tivo and a 1Tb drive

Personally, I think the only reason to have a 1TB drive is HD - and you've already paid the company for HD, so surely they can allow you the ability to record what you have already paid for? And 1TB drives can be had for peanuts to consumers, let alone trade. The £200 wouldn't suddenly become < £100 by halving the drive capacity, as the cost difference between the two drives would be negligible.

---------- Post added at 18:52 ---------- Previous post was at 18:49 ----------

Originally Posted by Masque

You pays your money you make your choice, it is down to you if you want the latest piece of kit or not as SKY will not have TiVo.

Thanks for the constructive addition to the discussion. I do "pays my money" and will make my choice - at £200 it will be a no.