A review of the apps on Virgin Media's TiVo

A while ago I bemoaned about the lack of movie streaming apps on Virgin Media's TiVo. Perhaps I should have covered the rest of the available apps in that previous post.

When I reviewed TiVo, I said:

Its this combo of Apps plus dedicated broadband connection which makes this PVR ooze with potential. Virgin are already talking to potential suppliers of video content, indeed, Virgin have declared that they have no fear bringing Apps for the likes of Lovefilm (who aren't shy about getting their content on as many devices as possible), Blockbuster and Spotify to TiVo. Virgin intend to have hundreds of TiVo Apps available within the next 12 months, so, watch this space and dream of the possibilities.

Indeed, Cindy Rose, Virgin Media’s director of digital entertainment, explained while talking to PaidContent:UK in December 2010 that:

We’re launching with a handful (of apps); within 12 months, we’ll have hundreds. We needed to start with the household names.

It’s just a question of doing the right deal, making sure our customers actually want it - power to the people; we’re a Virgin company. We’ve got an online forum we’re moderating to ask what they want.”

It would have to be the right deal commercially and add value. If Lovefilm came along and said ‘we’ve got something that adds to this’, we’d be the first ones to embrace them - we’re not precious about that.

I wouldn't imagine for an instant that TiVo would or should have hundreds of apps by now, 13 months later. But a quick look at the apps page for TiVo reveals just 13 apps in total. To be fair, 2 apps have been recently removed, these were promotional movie apps for Harry Potter and Twlight.

As for the rest of the apps:

• YouTube
  The new version of this app fixed the issue of playlists and subscriptions not being recognised when you logged in. How? By removing that feature altogether, much to the disappointment of customers.
• eBay
  I mentioned in my review that you couldn't login to your eBay account to place bids. The situation hasn't changed since then which continues to make this app next to useless.
• BBC iPlayer
  Probably the best app on the platform at the moment, but its had its network issues. Plus, I have to say that the quality of streaming on the TiVo iPlayer app is inferior to the quality provided by the same app built into my Samsung TV.
• VM Shorts
  One of many promotional apps seen on the platform. Speaking of which...
• Sky Movies
  Ditto.
• Sky Sports
  Same again.
• CNBC
  Great. If you have stocks and shares.
• Twitter
  Would be so much better if it could be used with live TV, so that you could truly interact with live TV events such as sending feedback on the latest candidate who has just been fired on The Apprentice.
• Weather, Celebrity and Photo Gallery apps.
  Unchanged, to be fair they did the job already.
• Spotify
  New to the TiVO platform, can't really say much about this because it requires a subscription.
• Millionaire
  Addictive to play. Which probably explains why you now need to pay to play it.

Lets hope that the number of apps increases and soon, because TiVo is in serious danger of being left behind in this area when compared to other devices - my Samsung TV has 19 apps just for watching VOD content, while games consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3 allow you to watch streamed movies from Lovefilm and Netflix, which isn't an option Virgin's TiVo provides.

Sure, Virgin have a deal with Flimflex (who are the primary providers of VoD Movie content for Virgin), but if Virgin are so worried about stepping on Flimflex's toes, then why encourage talks with the likes of Lovefilm to get Apped-Up on TiVo?

Still, the apps should continue to come, and hopefully they won't all be promotional apps. easeltv's core framework application has already been used for apps on TiVo and that framework will also be used in future apps. Also, we have a BBC Sports app on the way.

Why the 15.2 software update has affected BBC iPlayer for Virgin Media's TiVo

The 15.2 software update has improved the TiVo service provided by Virgin Media - apart from one area: BBC iPlayer.

iPlayer has been a shining example of the Video-on-Demand (VOD) capability of Virgin's network - Virgin was the first TV platform to provide iPlayer and as of January 2011, 16% of all iPlayer views were made from Virgin TV customers.

With Virgin, there's dedicated frequencies within the physical cable for each service that enters your home. Think of the cable as a 5 line Motorway, with separate traffic lanes for Linear TV Channels, VOD, Home Broadband, TiVo's 10Mb Broadband and Voice Data for your phone.

Until now, when you've requested some iPlayer content on TiVo, its been delivered as a MPEG 2 stream via the 'VOD' lane of the Motorway/Cable, and that iPlayer content, along with the majority of other VOD content, has been delivered from your local headend. There's over 50 regional headends and they each contain VOD servers which provide the on-demand content for your area.

One problem with that approach is keeping content in sync for the VOD servers at those regional headends. When new content becomes available (from the BBC and every other supplier of VOD content), it needs to be copied to all of those regional headends. That's why you may not have VOD content which other customers report as being available in their area, the recent rollout of  Sky Anytime content is a recent example of this.

With 15.2 on TiVo (and only on TiVo - V and V+ HD boxes are unaffected), that's changed for iPlayer. Now, all iPlayer content is delivered directly from the BBC. The advantages of this approach is that as soon as the BBC make the content available, its also available for your TiVo, and the delay between a BBC programme being broadcasted and becoming available to watch on TiVo via iPlayer, is greatly reduced.

It also means a lot more iPlayer content is available to watch via TiVo, compared to the older V/V+ HD boxes - up to 950 hours on TiVo from 350 hours on older Virgin boxes.

It sounds good, and it also has the advantage of not using one of TiVo's three tuners to watch iPlayer content. So you could watch last week's Top Gear while recording up to three programmes.

So....why all the recent complaints about iPlayer not working since the 15.2 update?

Well, leaving aside the annoying delay between requesting iPlayer content and the completion of the iPlayer app loading (seriously Virgin, can't we just play the damn content already instead of loading the app first?!?), the problem isn't TiVo's dedicated broadband connection which provides up to 10Mb of bandwidth - that's more then enough bandwidth to stream HD iPlayer content which requires a bitrate of 3.5Mb.

The problem is somewhere else in the network - either a lack of bandwidth between the Beeb and your TiVo, or a lack of server capacity at the BBC's server farms or content delivery network, in which case the iPlayer servers are being bombarded by so many requests from VOD-hungry TiVo's that they're struggling to stream content without buffering issues.

Virgin have acknowledged there's an issue and are working to fix it. Someone, somewhere, has been caught out by the extra bandwidth and/or server capacity requirements needed to feed iPlayer content to all those TiVos - and there isn't exactly a lack of demand for them, especially at this time of year.

Looking ahead, Virgin will potentially face the same issues as they go from using the legacy delivery system of VOD (streaming MPEG 2), to using TiVo's broadband connection (streaming MPEG 4) to provide content from other on-demand providers like 4oD, Demand Five and Warner. Hopefully Virgin can avoid the issues which has made the unmissable missed for fans of BBC iPlayer.

More on BBC iPlayer Catch-Up on Virgin Media's TiVo

It looks like the newly established links from the Catch-Up EPG to BBC iPlayer content actually link to the legacy VOD MPEG 2 stream instead of the streamed content in the iPlayer App.

When playing back streaming content from the App, TiVo allows you record 3 programmes simultaneously. However, when playing back iPlayer content from the Catch-Up EPG while recording 3 programmes, TiVo will ask you if its OK to stop recording on a tuner, in order to use it to play back the legacy VOD stream.

Virgin Media Staff employee BenMcr posted on Virgin's Help and Support Forums that:

The iPlayer app is staying on the Red Button, because it has more content than VoD does. However if you don't want to use it, you can find the iPlayer VoD content via: Catch Up On Demand, Backwards EPG (and) Search and Browse so there are more ways of finding the content than there was with the V boxes

BBC iPlayer content available to Search, Browse and access from Catch-Up EPG on Virgin Media's TiVo

One of the best features about Virgin Media's TiVo is the 7 day Catch EPG, allowing easy access to VOD content previously shown on four of the five terrestrial channels. However, the EPG didn't allow you to access content from the most popular UK VOD service of all - BBC iPlayer. Until now.

As revealed early this morning by Virgin Media Staff employee and Cable Forum poster BenMcr, the Catch-Up EPG will soon link directly to related content on BBC iPlayer.

Virgin have since been dispatching messages to TiVo boxes informing customers of this, and the fact that BBC iPlayer content will also appear in the On-Demand menus as well as in TiVo's search results. Links and messages have also appeared in TiVo's Discovery Bar.

At the moment, the links to BBC iPlayer from the Catch-Up aren't visible (not for me anyway, they should be available pretty soon now), but I can locate iPlayer content on the On-Demand menu:

The impending arrival of iPlayer content on Virgin's TiVo follows the BBC's earlier decision to enforce their syndication policy which prevents platforms from creating their own versions of the BBC iPlayer. This meant that for TiVo, Virgin had to use the BBC-endorsed Flash-based App and all access to iPlayer content had to be via that App. However, Virgin had hoped to restore direct access from the Catch-Up EPG to iPlayer content and it appears they've now got their wish.

BBC's new syndication policy means removal of iPlayer content from Virgin Media TiVo's Backward EPG

While the update to the BBC iPlayer app has brought more Catch-Up content from the Beeb to Virgin Media's TiVo, one drawback is the removal of links (for now anyway) to that Catch-Up content from the Backwards EPG. Broadband TV News reports that:

The BBC has begun to enforce rules under its new syndication policy that prevents platforms from creating their own versions of the BBC iPlayer. This week Virgin Media was forced to remove direct access to BBC content on its new TiVo service, replacing it with the new BBC-endorsed Flash-based version.

A new contract signed between the cableco and the BBC means that instead of being able to access BBC content through its backwards EPG, Virgin TiVo users must instead go through the Apps and Games area. Alternatively, Virgin customers can continue to press the Red Button from a BBC channel, as is the case with boxes running the Liberate/TV Navigator middleware that remains unaffected by the changes.

Although the BBC syndication policy is yet to be officially approved by the BBC Trust, the BBC told Broadband TV News that it was working within the guidelines of the draft policy.

Virgin’s own figures show that 80% of traffic for the iPlayer is currently running through its own servers rather than those of the BBC. Although the proportion could fall now that the iPlayer has been separated from the rest of Virgin’s on demand offer – a move against the cableco’s wishes – it is still early days for viewer usage patterns to emerge. Broadband TV News understands that the link between the iPlayer and TiVo may be restored later in the year.

A positive for Virgin is that the new format will allow an increase in the amount of programmes available that will increase from around 300 to 700 hours on average. This brings Virgin into line with the iPlayer on connected TV devices.

BBC iPlayer app now delivers HD Catch-Up content on Virgin Media's TiVo

As reported by TechRadar (and eariler by the Virgin Media High Definition & TiVo Services Blog), the BBC iPlayer app has moved out of beta release and is now ready and willing to deliver HD Catch-Up content.

Other improvements include a much larger range of content (around 1000 hours compared to 350), radio shows, subtitling and signing. Virgin Media told TechRadar that:

The new service will also gain new functionality over time and supersedes the existing BBC iPlayer service on Virgin Media to provide the most complete TV on Demand service possible.

BBC iPlayer app arrives on Virgin Media TiVo

According to this thread over at the TiVo Community Forums, the BBC iPlayer app has gone live on Virgin Media's TiVo.

Unlike the normal DVB-C app on the V and V+HD boxes, the app on TiVo uses the dedicated broadband connection to stream its content and appears to offer a wider selection of content compared to the app on Virgin's older STBs.

On Virgin Tivo, there will be an App for that.....probably

One of the most exciting features about Tivo is that apps can be downloaded to add extra functionality and features. What, you thought apps were just for your mobile smart-phone? Think again! The Virgin press release goes into more details about what apps will be pre-installed on Virgin's next-generation PVR:

Built on an Adobe Flash-based platform, the latest videos, social networking and information apps will be updated regularly. The service launches initially with apps from major web brands including catch-up TV from BBC iPlayer, videos from YouTube, shopping from the online marketplace eBay, Tweets from Twitter and photos from sites such as Facebook, and the app line up will expand over the next several months

iPlayer is an odd choice, considering that its already available as part of Virgin's TV VOD service. Then again, not all of the web-based iPlayer content isn't available to watch on Virgin's TV version of the service due to content rights issues, so the addition of an iPlayer app could potentially mean all of the BBC's Catch-Up content becoming available, and easily watch-able, on your TV set via Tivo.

YouTube was an obvious first choice, having made an appearance on several networked TVs and media streamers for some time now. On at least some of those devices (like my Samsung C650 TV and WDTV Live Media Streamer), certain content (like some movie trailers) is not allowed to be streamed to TV devices, and no access is allowed to YouTube's HD videos. So don't be too surprised if the same restrictions apply to Virgin Tivo's YouTube App.

Some of the apps will be accessiable from EPG menus. As Cindy Rose, Virgin Media’s director of digital entertainment, explained while talking to PaidContent:UK:

Every search you do on TiVo will yield results that include internet applications as well as the television assets. Important to say - the product we launch this month is not a static environment, it’s a very future-proof platform. There will be a constant drumbeat of new content, applications, features over time - we’ve got a pretty robust development roadmap.

We’re launching with a handful (of apps); within 12 months, we’ll have hundreds. We needed to start with the household names.

As for the future, Rose reveals that Virgin are open to apps from entertainment companies like Lovefilm and Spotify as long as the deal is right and the customers demand the content:

It would have to be the right deal commercially and add value. If Lovefilm came along and said ‘we’ve got something that adds to this’, we’d be the first ones to embrace them - we’re not precious about that. Let a thousand flowers bloom! It’s a managed environment but we’re really open in terms of who we host on the platform - as long as the commercials are right and customers are interested in it.

With the dedicated 10mb broadband connection Virgin are supplying with every Tivo installation, the potential for streaming content from the likes of BBC iPlayer, Lovefilm and YouTube is there - and in HD too - 10mb is certainly fast enough to stream web-based HD content when it becomes available via Tivo. Being a dedicated connection, it won't affect your existing broadband connection, so your enjoyment of watching say, last week's Top Gear in HD from BBC iPlayer on Tivo won't be interrupted by your son downloading the latest content for Call of Duty on his Xbox 360.

So, prepare for the invasion of Virgin Tivo apps, and lets hope none of them make Fart sounds.