Is it time for better new boxes ?
tvmad-alan
Posts: 1,996 Forum Member
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Over the last year I found that my boxes are using all 3 turners to record shows that I like and that means that I switch to freeview or Freesat or Youview to watch other shows, but I am TV mad and not all people have those services.
So as the owners of Virgin also have other companies around the world that have boxes that have 4 or 6 turners to record channels on cable, why can we in the UK not have boxes that give better service ?
maybe Tivo could build a box that could give 6 turners and 3TB hard drive along with more internet services like text service or e-mail between box owners
The box could text or e-mail TV / Radio/ App trouble to Virgin, so at night when there is no way to report troubles the box could do it for you and this will help to see were the weakness are along the cable network quicker.
With the HD and may be soon 4xHD channels space can become trouble, so a jump to 3TB would give space.
Also a Picture with in Picture service that could allow customers to see two or more channels at the same time as we all are getting larger TV's which allows this type of service easy without trouble of viewing the images.
may be a freeview or and Freesat services could be linked to the box, to allow viewers to have TV if and when cable network goes down easy, yes I know most TV come with those services but the box could record from them to give a + service to those channels when cable is down or cable dose not have those channels.
I would also like to see a led screen back on boxes to show details like channel, booting, epg data so you do not need the tv on to set to record as I do not like having see what a flashing colour lights mean .
may be the screen could be full colour to allow viewing tv on it or text messages or app data or service update data or messages from virgin etc...
So as the owners of Virgin also have other companies around the world that have boxes that have 4 or 6 turners to record channels on cable, why can we in the UK not have boxes that give better service ?
maybe Tivo could build a box that could give 6 turners and 3TB hard drive along with more internet services like text service or e-mail between box owners
The box could text or e-mail TV / Radio/ App trouble to Virgin, so at night when there is no way to report troubles the box could do it for you and this will help to see were the weakness are along the cable network quicker.
With the HD and may be soon 4xHD channels space can become trouble, so a jump to 3TB would give space.
Also a Picture with in Picture service that could allow customers to see two or more channels at the same time as we all are getting larger TV's which allows this type of service easy without trouble of viewing the images.
may be a freeview or and Freesat services could be linked to the box, to allow viewers to have TV if and when cable network goes down easy, yes I know most TV come with those services but the box could record from them to give a + service to those channels when cable is down or cable dose not have those channels.
I would also like to see a led screen back on boxes to show details like channel, booting, epg data so you do not need the tv on to set to record as I do not like having see what a flashing colour lights mean .
may be the screen could be full colour to allow viewing tv on it or text messages or app data or service update data or messages from virgin etc...
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i'm no expert in satellite tv but i understand it is possible to get boxes where you can add in extra tuners and do freeview too, but they aren't as good for setting recordings away from home (ie. you can't use sky or virgin apps etc to set recordings from your phone)
as time goes on and things get cheaper i'm sure more options will be available but it wont be for a while
A mini colour display sounds like a waste of time and a distraction when you have the TV on, and also an expense that would be passed on to the consumer
it reschedules to the next available slot without bothering you, what happens when a series restarts that you have a link for and clashes and you are on holiday, do you want it to wait for an answer?
if each box cost £200 to make virgin would need to spend £400,000,000 upfront to replace them, and would only get their money back after a couple of years of people subscribing... i.e. they not you would have to finance it.. and you would have to pay that in higher prices and longer minimum contracts... do you want to finance that or wait until the machines naturally get replaced in a couple of years especially as the number of people who would choose a better box to record more than 3 things at the same time (which are not also repeated or available on catch-up) would be a very small number of the current customers and would not want to pay more for a service that they wouldnt use... likely to mean they would leave and so even fewer people would have to pay even more to cover the costs?
i would expect VM to make smarter use of the remote recording ability, the fact most shows are re-broadcast on channels these days and thus the customer accesses a second screen app like the virgin media tivo app for smartphones and tablets to "manage" their recordings better... using the servers at VM rather than need to swop out everyones (still rather market leading 3 recording tuner) stbs... that of course would need the buy in of the channels themselves who i suspect have a lot to do with the data on the epg for their shows....
It's not as if you can look at the D.O.G to see what channel you are on
LED Matrix display was on the Tivo series 3 in the US but since removed for them pesky single LED's.
Thats true, but sometimes a properly fitted display could tell you the following:
-channel number (the old analogue boxes did and thats how I learned the channels so quickly)
-Audio mode (2.0/5.1)
-Video mode (HD/SD)
-Channel Name (useful for those that don't have a dog. BBC for example)
-Elapsed time (both recording and live), Clock in standby
-Recording status
-Network status
Most boxes in germany all use displays such as the famous Dbox, the premiere box, the T-Com box, humax....
to me an LED means nothing, I know what the three green LED's mean on the TiVo but my father or friend wouldn't!
A display is much more intuitive and user friendly but does cost more.....
Not on all channels Sky1 decided to remove theirs that was another story though...
Might be an improvement, but what do you do when you have a recording scheduled that does NOT actually clash but the TIVO decides it does? This has happened to me a few times.
Never happened to me and I've had a Tivo since the 1st ones were issued
http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/08/tivo-mega-24tb-dvr/
Where would someone get all that time to watch television
I don't get that and I hate D.O.G.S., scrolling banners or anything else that spoils the picture. We tried the Travel Show in BBC News HD which had the news scrolling along the bottom of the screen making it impossible to avoid. We stopped it, deleted the show and cancelled the series link.
You are watching a programme, why on earth should it matter which channel is it on? If you really want to know, press the OK key. (Actually just realised, it's the Select key - it's the OK key on my Harmony One remote.)
"Hot, swappable drives", mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
We watch 2-3 hours of TV a day. That would hold over 4 years of watching even if we never went on holiday. Just a fraction pointless for the average viewer.
As the article says, that is really going to appeal to programme developers.
It would be nice to see some new technology though, as it is starting to show its age. The Tivo we have is a bit long in the tooth in tech terms. It was out before the iPad even existed!
It is all a bit slow and clunky, particularly when doing any of the interactive stuff. When watching stuff like Youtube, iPlayer and Netflix I never use the Tivo as it is slow compared to the TV itself.
Hopefully this new software will help.
Are you the average viewer then?
I had only 2 recordings scheduled at the same time, so couldn't understand why the TIVO box actually cancelled one because of 'clashes' (annoying as I was out at the time).
Turns out the recording which clashed with the schedule was a 'suggestion' which had started recording 30 minutes earlier.
Had I been at home I may have had a warning and could have quickly scrolled through the TV guide, found the suggestion recording and stopped it, but I wasn't.
I don't want to turn off suggestions as sometimes it turns up something I may have missed, but I think I'm going to have to.
But what actually annoys me about the TIVO is setting the series links. Each new series link goes to the bottom (so gets hit if it clashes),but moving series links up the scale takes forever, as they all have to be done individually, and you get the 'still updating' message for a long time...
the dots are easy to work out which do what...
however, the placing of the channel logo and number on the epg should be top right, not in a weird place on the right hand side... that is annoying
the only issue i have with my tivo... which is far better than the v+hd box (but it was more than adequate) is it sometimes takes a while to "fully wake up" - it will ignore remote control presses... or ignore the "3rd" button... so you cant change channel for a while...
if i had any use of the "apps" i would no doubt complain about them too... they are slow and annoying rather than useful. the "red button" on the v+hd was used for what has become an "app" on tivo (and in some cases not transferred over at all)... but, smart tv is a poor mans way of accessing anything and so they were never going to be as good as via another system... like a smartphone, tablet or pc
to an extent yes.
Take my parents for example, If i told them what does the greed LED with a heart above it means? they'd say I don't know.
Also what about the blue LED? do you know it's purpose?
For VM Tivo and US tivo it means it's downloading something, however we dont have anything to make use of that. In the US you can download stuff from hulu to the hard disk to watch later.
I didn't know it did that also. Thanks for letting me know.
Weird, never happened to me. Are you sure Holby City was recording on the HD channel and not the SD channel?