Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2010) Vol. IV

[Horizon]

VM's bosses have just finished their presentation to the City, so here are some titbits of news coming out of that:

Main TIVO launch next year.

Aim to have 80 HD channels within 3 years.

100mb to be formally launched in next few days.

Broadband tiers to be upgraded next year.

More TIVO boxes next year with different (smaller) hard drive sizes.

A Tivo remote with qwerty keyboard alluded to.

Free calls from VM mobiles back to VM landlines.

A phone credit system. If you have a sub (triple-play?) to VM services, you can use that to get discounts off mobile calls.

Lots more TIVO apps to come, will launch with Facebook, Twitter, ebay and others.

VM director descibes the launch of tivo as "first rung on the ladder" "lots more to come in the future."

Should be able to watch content from different TIVO boxes throughout the home in January.

Ability to control TIVO and watch home content on mobile devices.

[Perfect Choice]

Some very interesting comments there not just on Tivo.

Looking forward to a Broadband tier upgrade for example as currently on 10MB.

VM really seem to be on a charge right now on features and capability, may not be premium TV since Sky will always retain some level of exclusivity, but on the rest they certainly will be IMHO.

[mattboothers]

Originally Posted by Horizon

VM's bosses have just finished their presentation to the City, so here are some titbits of news coming out of that:

Main TIVO launch next year.

Aim to have 80 HD channels within 3 years.

100mb to be formally launched in next few days.

Broadband tiers to be upgraded next year.

More TIVO boxes next year with different (smaller) hard drive sizes.

A Tivo remote with qwerty keyboard alluded to.

Free calls from VM mobiles back to VM landlines.

A phone credit system. If you have a sub (triple-play?) to VM services, you can use that to get discounts off mobile calls.

Lots more TIVO apps to come, will launch with Facebook, Twitter, ebay and others.

Vm director descibes the launch of tivo as "first rung on the ladder" "lots more to come in the future."

Should be able to watch content from different TIVO boxes throughout the home in January.

Ability to control TIVO and watch home content on mobile devices.

Thats already in affect. As I am wondering weather to get a mobile on contract from Virgin Mobile the blackberry £10 a month deal if your on virgin media. And it says free calls to and from Virgin Media to Virgin Mobile lines.

[muppetman11]

May seem a stupid question but could the TIVO platform help Virgin with channel negotiations , surely the advanced search helps people to find the shows they want and these broadcasters want you to watch there key shows.

[pauldavies83]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

May seem a stupid question but could the TIVO platform help Virgin with channel negotiations , surely the advanced search helps people to find the shows they want and these broadcasters want you to watch there key shows.

I'd say the "Pick of the Week" and the bar at the top showing images of programmes are definite revenue opportunities. Prime advertising slots they could be thought of.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by mattboothers

Thats already in affect. As I am wondering weather to get a mobile on contract from Virgin Mobile the blackberry £10 a month deal if your on virgin media. And it says free calls to and from Virgin Media to Virgin Mobile lines.

No idea about blackberry, don't have one and don't have virgin mobile either.

As I understand it, you currently get free calls from VM landline to VM mobile but not the other way. So it is new to gets free calls from VM mobile to VM landline. But as I said I don't take the mobile service, so can't say for sure.

[nialli]

Horizon: that's correct. Currently free to VM mobile but not the other way around.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

May seem a stupid question but could the TIVO platform help Virgin with channel negotiations , surely the advanced search helps people to find the shows they want and these broadcasters want you to watch there key shows.

I doubt it would help with channel negotiations at this early stage, but into the future it could well do, yes.

Another remark from an analyst I picked up on was, he asked if the pvrs are too expensive and a waste of time, now that VM has network storage and VOD capabilities and customers should just use that. One of VM's director's responded that the cost of the boxes was "significantly less than £199" and still falling and VM don't see any need to phase out pvrs yet, especially as they're just launching a new one!

[Perfect Choice]

Customers like the comfort of knowing they have the recording local to them (network or VOD fails you can still watch) and VOD features do not match those of the PVR especially with Tivo "intelligent" analysis coming. Partly watch a VOD programme and you cannot stop and start later from when you last watched is just one basic feature mssing for example. A long way off to get rid of PVR and the network would not cope anyway I believe.

[DJ-SWITCH]

Originally Posted by Horizon

VM's bosses have just finished their presentation to the City, so here are some titbits of news coming out of that:

Main TIVO launch next year.

Aim to have 80 HD channels within 3 years.

100mb to be formally launched in next few days.

Broadband tiers to be upgraded next year.

More TIVO boxes next year with different (smaller) hard drive sizes.

A Tivo remote with qwerty keyboard alluded to.

Free calls from VM mobiles back to VM landlines.

A phone credit system. If you have a sub (triple-play?) to VM services, you can use that to get discounts off mobile calls.

Lots more TIVO apps to come, will launch with Facebook, Twitter, ebay and others.

VM director descibes the launch of tivo as "first rung on the ladder" "lots more to come in the future."

Should be able to watch content from different TIVO boxes throughout the home in January.

Ability to control TIVO and watch home content on mobile devices.

Thats all gooooooooooooooooooooooood news woop woop

[Horizon]

Another titbit of news I missed out is VM are looking at what they call "Metro wifi", ie attaching wifi antennas to their street cabinets. They're running trials now, but are unsure whether to rollout yet.

VM's bosses said today that data usage on mobile is rising exponentially, and they are very keen to capture as much of that as possible and have as much of that data on their own network rather than someone elses.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Horizon

Another titbit of news I missed out is VM are looking at what they call "Metro wifi", ie attaching wifi antennas to their street cabinets.

VM's bosses said today that data usage on mobile is rising exponentially, and they are very keen to capture as much of that as possible and have as much of that data on their own network rather than someone elses.

Already being discussed here .

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...ay-virgin.html

[Ben B]

All this TiVO news is very exciting, even the new customer price is cheaper than Sky's 1TB box and it does so much more

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by pauldavies83

I'd say the "Pick of the Week" and the bar at the top showing images of programmes are definite revenue opportunities. Prime advertising slots they could be thought of.

They aren't advertising slots. That's the "discovery bar" and they're recommendations based on what shows you like, not paid for advertising.

[DJ-SWITCH]

Originally Posted by Horizon

Another titbit of news I missed out is VM are looking at what they call "Metro wifi", ie attaching wifi antennas to their street cabinets. They're running trials now, but are unsure whether to rollout yet.

VM's bosses said today that data usage on mobile is rising exponentially, and they are very keen to capture as much of that as possible and have as much of that data on their own network rather than someone elses.

That will be good