Fall Update for TiVo Premiere unleashed; Coming soon for Virgin Media's TiVo?

Over in the States, TiVo have released 20.2.2 of the firmware for the TiVo Premiere, Premiere XL, Premiere 4, and Premiere XL4/Elite. As previously reported, the latest firmware finally sees the conversion of several standard definition screens within the user interface to HD.

It also sees the arrival of several other improvements, including better reporting of recording conflicts and background re-indexing of planned recordings when the priority of Series Links and recordable Wishlists are changed.

There's no word of when this version of the firmware will show up on Virgin Media's TiVo, and what changes will be made in the process (besides repainting the colours in Virgin Red), but I'd say its pretty likely that the new firmware will show up for Virgin Media's TiVo at some point, since the code base for Virgin's TiVo and the TiVo Premiere is shared.

Read all about it at the TiVo Blog, and view some early feedback on the latest firmware release at the TiVo Community Forums.

Small software update on the way for Virgin Media's TiVo

Remember that pilot software update I was on about? Well, it won't be a pilot for much longer, software update messages are now appearing in a TiVo Discovery Bar near you, informing you of a "small software update" which will be deployed at 3am between 31st January and 9th February for TiVo(s) left on overnight.

As previously reported (and much to the annoyance of several customers) this update was reported to disable third-party apps from communicating with your TiVo over the home network. It now appears that only apps which don't provide valid authentication to TiVo (which, sadly, includes TiVo Commander) won't work after the update.

As for the rest of the update, BenMcr at the Help & Support Forums reports that it will also resolve issues with the YouTube app (does this mean we can login to our YouTube account?), along with a fix for the 'Channel Not Authorised' issue when changing channels and/or recording.

New pilot software for Virgin Media TiVo prevents third-party apps from accessing TiVos

Network Access? To this? Access denied buddy!

Virgin are pilot testing a new software update for TiVo. While not as significant as the 15.2 update, the repercussions are already being felt - the new software (Version 15.2-01-2-C00) prevents third-party remote control software (like Tivo Commander and other apps listed in the Network Your TiVo page) from having network access to TiVo.

It also means that the chances of multi-room streaming have (for now) taken a step backwards since TiVos running the new software won't be able to see each other on the same home network.

Virgin have posted a response in the Help & Support Forums:

Hi I just wanted to confirm that we're piloting a small new code release for TiVo in a small number of areas at the moment.

In addition to a number of fixes after this software release a number of unsupported apps will cease to work as these apps create stability risks to our TV platform.

We know you're interested in using this sort of companion app so we're hard a work adding adding new features to our forthcoming TiVo Buddy app which we'll be launching later this year.

While this news would indicate that authorized Virgin software to access TiVo is coming soon (like the TiVo Buddy app), this news hasn't gone down well with the developers of third-party software and the users of that software.

Virgin Media: "We're updating your TiVo box (and don't you dare interrupt us!)"

The 15.2 software update is coming, and so is a warning delived by the pop-up messages via a TiVo near you:

Ok, that's normal, leave the box on standby between 17th to 24th of November and its really, really important that you don't interrupt the update, reading the rest of the message reveals why:

Whoa! Saved settings and recordings will be nuked wiped if the update is interrupted! The staff at the nearest power station have just become my new best friends!

Tell your family and your pets that the update shall not be interrupted. Also tell them that their scheduled, early morning recording of....whatever, may not record. That actually shouldn't be a problem if the programme to be recorded is repeated, because TiVo should hunt down the repeat without mercy and kill it record it.

15.2 software update rollout schedule for Virgin Media's TiVo released?

Media Boy has revealed information regarding the rollout schedule of the 15.2 software update to each regional headend on Virgin Media's Cable Network. Virgin themselves would like to remind everyone that the rollout dates haven't been officially confirmed.

Meanwhile, its also been revealed that the pause timeout for VOD content during playback has been increased from a 'barely time to make a pee' 3 minutes to a 'take a pee and make yourself a sandwich' 10 minutes. Also, the number of skip bars within content has increased to once every 5 minutes from the current 10 or 15 minutes.

More news snippets for Virgin Media's TiVo: 15.2 rollout; TiVo Monthly Charge

• According to Square Eyes at the Virgin Media High Definition & TiVo Services Blog, the 15.2 software update will be unleased to a TiVo near you between 17th and 24th November. There's still no official word from Virgin on the dates of the rollout.
• As previously reported on Virgin's Facebook page, the monthly charge for all TiVos ordered from November has now changed to £3 per box, with that change now reflected on Virgin's web site. Ordered a 2nd TiVo before November? Congratulations, you've just saved yourself £36 over the next 12 months.

News snippets for Virgin Media's TiVo: 15.2 software rollout; Spotify; Sky; EPG

Some TiVo related snippets:

• The 15.2 software deployment dates for each regional headend (there's 50+ of them) will be announced later this week by Virgin Media, who will be eager to complete the task well before Xmas.
• The Spotify app is due to be released within the next month, following Virgin's announcement of their Spotify plans for TV, Broadband and Mobile customers.
• Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch, referring to competition from Virgin's TiVo, believes that "It’s always a trap to assume that customers think through the extreme of some technical gizmo, they think across the whole experience, simplicity, ease of use, and the importance of the user interface, which remains fundamental. Not to say that some gadget magazine might give you an easy quote."
• Speaking of Sky, they've come up with a PVR comparsion chart which, among other features,  highlights the lack of reminders and red button services on TiVo. I'm sure it won't be long until Sky have to update the red button section, along with the 'remote record from tablet' section.
• Speaking of red button - its available (and has been for a while now) on ITV, pressing the magic button on that channel just takes you to ITV Net Player content. Baby Steps, people.
• In my review, I mentioned that that "the assignment of EPG categories to channels needs some work. For instance, the HD category reveals the Sky Sports HD channels, but the Sports category doesn't. This is the same EPG limitation as on the legacy V+ HD, I could have sworn it would be fixed for TiVo."
  This issue has now been fixed - for instance, selecting the Movies Category will show both the SD and HD versions of the Sky Movies Channels. Likewise for Sky Sports.

Video of 15.2 software update for Virgin Media's TiVo

A very nice video which shows of the snapper peformance of the 15.2 software update has been created and put online by Cable Forum poster MarkyUK:


The video also features a look at a couple of multi-room streaming configuration screens. At present, Virgin haven't mentioned that this feature would be enabled in the 15.2 update, nor (to my knowledge) has any customer with the update successfully streamed content from one TiVo to another. If future multi-room streaming is something you'd be interested in, then I advise you to order a 2nd TiVo, quickly.

The software, which was piloted to 3500 TiVo customers in Crawley and Cambridge, is now rolling out region by region. A quick check to see if you have it is to goto any Sky channel and then press the Home Button - if you can continue to watch the channel within the Mini-TV window, then congratulations - you've been been updated to 15.2.

Major software update for Virgin Media's TiVo will contain support for iPad Companion App

From NASDAQ:

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 09/08/11 -- TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), a leader in advanced television services and personal video recorders (PVRs), and Virgin Media Inc. (NASDAQ: VMED) (LSE: VMED), the UK's leading digital entertainment provider, today announced details of a key new feature coming to their next-generation connected TV offering which will allow customers to take control of the TiVo powered service through a cutting-edge iPad companion app. The feature will be made available as part of the first major software update for the system and is designed to build on the user experience of the award-winning service. Virgin Media plans to roll-out the software update, which will feature the companion app as well as other new features to be announced, in the coming months.

The TiVo companion app will allow Virgin Media customers to use their Apple iPads to interact directly with their TiVo service and extend their viewing experience beyond the remote control. After installing the free TiVo companion app, users can interact with the elegant, intuitive TiVo user interface directly on their iPads to search across Virgin Media's content, including the TV Guide and thousands of hours of content available through its video on demand library, without interrupting what they are already watching on TV. With just a couple of swipes on the iPad user can immediately and seamlessly begin viewing the content they have discovered via their TiVo app right on their TV.

Cindy Rose, executive director of digital entertainment at Virgin Media, said, "The way viewers watch television is changing faster than ever. Partnering with TiVo has helped us develop the most advanced and flexible TV system in the UK ensuring our customers are able to enjoy the best connected television offering available in the market today. In less than a year since launch we are already building new features to offer our customers more ways to enjoy their service with an unprecedented user experience, and maintaining our position at forefront of technological innovation in TV. The companion app and other forthcoming enhancements we are working on form part of our long term strategy to deliver the most dynamic and user friendly multi-screen entertainment experience in the U.K."

Since its launch in December 2010, the Virgin Media: TiVo service has been heralded by mainstream media(1) as 'the most sophisticated piece of hardware you can connect to your television.' Users of the product are able to enjoy a host of content ranging from hundreds of traditional television channels to a myriad of content streamed directly from the online sources via BBC iPlayer and YouTube through its built-in broadband connection as well as Virgin Media's vast video on demand library all seamlessly folded into TiVo's award-wining user interface with its easy-to-navigate search and discovery functionality.

Joshua Danovitz, VP & General Manager, International, TiVo Inc., said, "Virgin Media is a partner that recognizes where the future of television is headed. Through working with TiVo, Virgin Media has quickly implemented an award-winning user interface with TV's most innovative features and functionality, available anywhere in the U.K. With the initial rollout of Virgin Media: TiVo Service underway, it is already driving more measurable user satisfaction than any other hybrid television experience in the UK further demonstrating that TiVo continues to be the best way to watch television, bar none."

TiVo and Virgin Media made this announcement during the 2011 IBC Conference which runs from September 8-13 in Amsterdam.

You can check out large photos of the App here, here, here and here. Meanwhile, Nick Ontiveros, Virgin Media head of TV Strategy (Digital Entertainment), posted on the Help and Support Forums that:

 ....the introduction of new features to TiVo planned for the second half of this year will not come all in a single update.

I just hope to set expectations because it seems that a rumour has been heavily perpetuated on this board that there is one all encompassing update to come. In actuality, there will be a large update, but other feature updates will follow very soon after this update (as their introduction had the update itself as a dependency).

The actual contents of the update (or should that be updates?) remain secret to anyone outside the beta trial panel, but we do know that improved picture quality for standard definition content is among the list of issues which Virgin are looking to fix. Red button functionality is probably on the list somewhere, indeed the website states that "Red Button functionality will be coming in the future to our TiVo service."

Revealed: Change Log for latest software update for Virgin Media's TiVo

Remember that software update which was released last week for Virgin Media's TiVo? Well, Virgin Media Staff Member NickO has posted the change log for that update over at Virgin's TiVo Help and Support Forums:

• The picture no longer freezes on HD channels within seconds of tuning
• Catch-up assets now display the correct date and time of airing
• Box rebooting without return path now recovers when restored
• Boot-up splash screen has been updated
• Cast information in EPG updated where missing for many programmes
• Correct time now shown in "Already Scheduled" pop-up
• LED lights remain on during boot-up
• 11% improvement in stability over previous build (Beta test results)

Future software update to fix standard definition picture issue for Virgin Media's TiVo

The picture quality for Standard Definition (SD) content on Virgin Media's TiVo has been a hot topic of discussion on various forums and blogs, with several customers commenting on the reduced quality of that content compared to the legacy V+ HD box. In my review of Virgin's TiVo, I said that:

If I was to set the SD picture quality provided by V+ HD at 100%, then I'd say that TiVo's SD picture quality comes in at around, say, 92%. For me at least, SD pictures from TiVo are definitely a tad softer than I previously received from my V+ HD on the same TV, at the same viewing distance.

After some serious investigating into this issue by posters over at Virgin's TiVo Help & Support Forums, Virgin Media Staff Member stephenfeatham posted the following:

As some of you may be aware, we started our testing process for the TiVo box last year, and gradually started to roll out the service from the end of last year, before making the product more widely available from April. During this time we've issued numerous software releases to ensure the product is something we can be truly proud of. 

However, despite following a rigorous testing process, following an investigation prompted by this thread, we've now discovered a small filtering issue affecting the upscaling of SD channels which can lead to the TV picture on those services looking softer than those produced by our V+ boxes on some TVs. The good news is that filter settings exist within the firmware, meaning that creating a fix is a case of issuing a software update, and hence won't need any sort of box replacement.

We'd like to thank those eagle-eyed members of the forum who've brought this issue to our attention and we are now working with our hardware partners to resolve this issue which will go into a software release later in the year.

As this update also contains new features, it will be a few months before we're able to release it, however we appreciate some of you with certain set-ups where the issue is more pronounced may wish to get the issue resolved as soon as possible, so we'd like to invite some of you to join our beta trial panel. It is important to understand that by joining this restricted group you will receive software at an earlier stage of development which may contain other issues, but at the same time we'd love some of you on board to help make this great product even better. The only caveat is that you will be required to undertake regular 'homework' assignments testing new functionality and you agree to certain restrictions on public discussion.

More information on how to apply to join the beta trial panel can be located in the same discussion thread over at Virgin's TiVo Help & Support Forums. In the meantime, this news will be good news who have noticed a drop in SD picture quality from the V+ HD, and for potential customers who have been put off getting TiVoed due to this issue.

Software update unleashed for Virgin Media's TiVo

Virgin Media this morning released a software update for their next-generation PVR (version 15.1-01-3-C00, if you must know), which (according to spiderplant at Cable Forum) fixes issues with some random reboots, picture freezes, and loss of the PIN. There's also some unspecified user-interface changes.

The latest update comes before the arrival of the 500Gb 'Baby' TiVo, available to existing customers later this month, and new customers in July.

Planned updates for Virgin Media's TiVo revealed: Reminders; Multi room streaming; TiVo download for V HD boxes; Red button & more

A post by °Keir° on the TiVo Community Forum has revealed what updates TiVo's development team have  planned for Virgin Media's TiVo:

Q. Parental control options on You Tube?
A. Looking at this option but could be next year. Last resort we have the ability to take off You Tube from an individual box.

Q. Will we have the ability to create files within files.
A. The team have been looking at the ability to create file for Mum, Dad, Jane etc. The idea to set play lists of shows you have recorded is also in the pipe line. The team love the idea but may be very difficult to build on the network. I will feedback more info as I get it.

Q. How do I get hold of a silver remote?
A. You cant, this was a limited edition remote which was given to selected customers.

Q. Will we have to option to set reminders.
A. The main idea of TiVo is the ability to record multiple shows with the massive hard drive the use of a reminder function seem unnecessary. Due to massive feedback about this function the TiVo team admit this was unexpected feedback and are now looking to give TiVo users the ability to set reminders. I will keep you posted when this is available.

Q. Will the info button work on the mini guide?
A. Yes, The phase 2 update (Q3) will see this function activated.

Q.When will we be able to transfer content to a computer?
A. This will not happen to contracts and copy right laws we have with our content providers.

Q. Will the ipad / iphone be able to be used as a remote control for TiVo.
A. Yes. This looks very cool, I was shown a video with someone using their iPad as a remote control, skipping through the guide and info pages while the TV was still showing full screen programme.

When using the Mini guide the ability to press 'info' to obtain show information - End of Q2 2011

Text style typing to search for content - End of Q2 2011

When going back in time on the channel guide the channel names will display on the right of the screen - End of Q2 2011

Due to a change in contract with Sky, previously blacked out Sky channels while viewing the guide will now be shown - 2011

Price of VOD movies will show as soon as the movie is highlighted rather than having to go through 5 screens before this info is shown - 2011

When viewing Sky movies TiVo customers will only be asked for PIN when needed and not on every movie. - 2011

Multi room streaming will give customer the ability to watch recorded programmes from one box TiVo box to another. - 2011/2012

VHD boxes will be turned into TiVo style boxes with no hard drives. Anyone who has the VHD box will have the TiVo display and functions. Cost may be involved. 2011/2012

Red button functions will be more app orientated. By the time the 2012 Olympics start we hope to gave users an option of 24 different events VIA the 'BBCi app' - 2012

Multi files for Mum, Dad, Gran etc so only shows enjoyed by a certain family member will appear in these personal files.

Sky sports red button will not be available on TiVo until late 2011 early 2012 however will be available next month on V+ and V boxes.

Finally just a little info on the 'Baby TiVo' box that we are launching next month.

The box should be available to buy as early as the end of May.

The box will have half the recording time but apart from that the box looks and works the same as its big brother.

The price will be £49.95 for activation and £40 for install. £3 extra per month for the service.

The main difference is the ability to have this box on M+ and LTV as well as XLTV. The TiVo cost will be £8 per month on M+ and LTV packages.

Feel free to talk about this box as well as the 1 terabyte box available now.

The absence of reminders from Virgin's next-generation PVR has been a issue of some debate, both on this blog and over at Cable Forum, so the addition of that functionality, commonly found on the vast majority of PVRs, is good news for those who desire it.

The planned update to give V HD boxes TiVo functionality (minus the recording features of course) would be consistent with Virgin's plans to migrate their entire TV customer base over to TiVo, and opens the door for an established TiVo multi-room streaming base on Digital Cable, once that functionality is released.