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Originally Posted by mersey70
I think it took me 2 minutes to connect my PC to the TV, pretty easy really and I can easily do a lot of the things you highlight for the cost of a 3 metre VGA cable. Not ideal for everyone but it works for me and it cost £20 for the cable and no further subs involved too..
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I think saying it is not ideal for everyone is an understatement. People just dont bother to do that. We are talking about two diferent experiences here anyway. For instance I can watch iplayer on my games machine but it is such a frustrating experience that I would only do it if desperate. By comparison the cable interface is a joy to use even on my old SA box.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mersey70
I agree if you find your V+ is always full then a bigger HDD would be useful.
I also agree that anybody would welcome a dynamic EPG, including some Freeview users who have that now with a cheap box and it is pretty lame that we as Pay TV subscribers have to pay around £200 or whatever it costs to get this feature.
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The point I made was that it has the potential to be better than a Sky box where even their customers say they sometimes lose the end of programmes. Which with reduced (or non existant?) padding, when then the third tuner is enabled, should give a clear advantage over the Sky box.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mersey70
Going back in time for catch up through the EPG is a great feature but far from unique, YouView will offer it, Talk Talk and a lesser known on demand service VeryTangyTV have offered it for ages.
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Yes it is a great feature and yes you may be able to do it other boxes but you wont be able to do it on a Sky box. They will have to purchase another box from another platform. Not ideal is it? Also if it is a great feature then that is a plus to buying the new box. The fact that I will be able to do it by buying a youview box in the future or subscribing to tangytv is as meaningless to me as it will be to sky users. Sky users cant even watch iplayer yet or HD with no timeframe as to when they will be able to. When they can it will eat in to there internet bandwidth. A real problem if you aren't near the telephone exchange.
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Originally Posted by mersey70
Apps to allow the latest movie streaming in high quality would be nice and that might be a reason for me to get it in the future but I am not aware of any plans for this to be introduced. Our new TV has this feature, I haven't tried it though and it can be used for YouTube and other things too but I cannot comment on PQ yet but I doubt it would be as good as a dedicated Tivo app but my point is that again it isn't anything unique.
I used to have BT Vision before VM, in my opinion their STB was superior to the V+, the only area it really lacked was it only had 2 tuners but that was never a big problem for me personally as far as I recall. Dynamic EPG, great user interface, lightning fast too, smashing search options. A genuinely nice STB but that's all it was, a STB.
The reason I left is because overall for the cost it was lacking in linear content compared to VM, nice hardware, bells and whistles as you say but not as much on offer for what it was actually used for, watching TV. It couldn't find content that wasn't there but then again the box was free.
They introduced a new STB before I was leaving, I believe it was faster but functionally it was identical but most importantly it only received the same channels and content as my older box though and until this changes with Tivo I think I will stick with the V+ as I see no overwhelming reason to change.
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The tivo will also have smashing search options in fact I would imagine second to none. The cnet review says it is superior to both Sky and existing cable boxes.
The thing is that the tivo box has the potential to make the V+ and Sky + HD look like something from the ark. Saying you can do
some of those things on other boxes isn't much of a defence any more than saying a universal remote is useless because I can use all these other remotes. It would be an even dafter argument if I had to buy all the other remotes to replace the one universal one.
One more thing just to turn your arguments on their head. People will be able to view the content on Sky Atlantic by other means both legal and not so legal. Unlike many of the things you have said it might actually offer a better viewing experience because it can be viewed dog and advert free. Is that an ideal situation? Of course not but then neither are most of the reasons you say the new box wont be worth paying some dosh for. As it happens neither of us are personally bothered about having that channel anyway. I do like the look of the new tivo box though. I just hope that VM exploit it's full potential.