Virgin Media to give birth to cheaper, 'Baby' TiVo this Spring

I guess TiVo is the father, which makes Virgin Media 'Mummy' ?

Virgin Media previously announced that the 1TB version of TiVo was just the first in a family of TiVo products. That was followed later by unconfirmed reports of a cheaper, 500Gb version.

Today, Virgin Media staff member and Cable Forum poster Digital Fanatic has revealed that the 'baby' TiVo is indeed on the way:

You'll have all the details on launch day (around the 11th April). VM will announce the spec/price of the lower spec TiVo, so you can make an informed decision. It's likely that the spec will indeed be around the HDD size, rather than functionality. I can't confirm pricing, but the "baby TiVo" (my wording, not VM's) will be considerably cheaper than the 1TB model.

'Baby TiVo' is believed to have a 500Gb Hard Drive. All other specs and functionality are expected to be the same as the 1TB 'Daddy' TiVo. If 500Gb is indeed the hard drive capacity, then (based on the reported recording hours for the 1TB version), that should be enough for around 268 hours of standard definition recordings, and 60 hours of high-definition recordings.

Meanwhile, Cindy Rose, Virgin Media's digital entertainment executive director, sent the following email reply to a couple of customers who enquired about the special deal offer for registered customers:

Please let me assure you that we have given a lot of thought to how we price Tivo to our customer base, and we are delighted to be able to offer our 1Tb Tivo box to our customers for £50 less than new customers will be paying. Tivo is a premium product with some ground breaking functionality and worth every penny! However, I fully appreciate that this offer may not be for you. We will be coming out with a lower priced box late Spring, and you may decide to wait until then to place your order.

As you have pre-registered your interest in Tivo online, we will shortly be emailing you to let you know that our pre-sale window for the 1Tb box is open, during which you can order Tivo in advance of it going on sale to new customers. At that time, we will also be communicating some special offers available only to our existing customers, including our VIP customers.