Virgin Media slash installation fee and standardise service fee for TiVo; 1TB version now £99.95; 500Gb version now £49.95

One of these now gets you TiVoed

As Virgin Media begin their TV advertising campaign  for TiVo, they have boosted their efforts to obtain more TiVo customers by standardising the TiVo service fee across their TV packs, dropping the installation fee, and reducing the price of the 1TB version of TiVo.

Previously, customers on the M+ and L TV packs would pay an additional £8 per month for TiVo. From now, they only pay £3 per month - the same as XL customers. So, regardless of what TV pack a customer chooses, you pay an extra £3 per month for TiVo.

Also, the £40 installation fee (a topic of great debate on this and other blogs and forums), has been dropped. That means that new and existing customers can get a 500Gb TiVo for just £49.95, with free installation.

Meanwhile, the 1TB version of the next-generation PVR has been reduced. It was £150 for existing customers and £199 for new customers. Now, its just £99.95 for both existing and new customers. The requirement to have the TV XL pack in order to have the 1TB version of TiVo has also been removed - so 1TB of recording capacity is now also available to customers on M+ and L packs, as well as XL.

For more details, check out Virgin's re-designed TiVo website, which now includes help videos for different aspects of TiVo functionality. This blog's PVR comparison document will be updated shortly to reflect today's news.

500Gb version of Virgin Media's TiVo now available to existing customers; £49.95 + installation

Get TiVoed for one of these, plus installation fee.

The 500Gb 'Baby' TiVo is now available to order from Virgin Media's website for existing customers:

The 500GB box packs a mighty punch - it stores around 250 hours of standard TV or 50 hours of HD TV. Our 1TB box is the big daddy - it stores around 500 hours of standard TV or up to 100 hours of HD TV. They both have the same fantastic features, so just pick the one that gives you the right amount of storage.

Swap your existing box for a TiVo box and you'll pay an activation fee of just £149.95 for the 1TB box (our new customers pay £199.95) or £49.95 for the 500GB box. Once you’ve got your new box of tricks you can enjoy our TiVo service for just £3 a month on top of what you pay now.

Unlike the 'Big Daddy' 1TB TiVo, the 'Baby' 500Gb version is available to TV customers on the M+ and L TV packs, as well as XL. M+ and L customers pay an additional monthly fee of £8, those on XL pay £3 per month. The installation fee is £40.

The 500Gb version will be available to new customers in July. For now, the availability of the cheaper TiVo marks a key moment in Virgin's plans to assimilate its existing TV customer base into the TiVo Collective.

Virgin Media to ramp up TiVo deployment

Broadcast Engineering has an article on-line on how Virgin Media has committed itself to TiVo. The article mentions that Virgin will start advertising TiVo later this year to existing customers, as well as customers of Sky and BT Vision. The article also looks at how Virgin intend to increase deployment of TiVo:

So far, Virgin Media has been constrained by the time taken to show customers how to use the TiVo content discovery features, which takes on average at least an hour on-site. By training existing engineers and fine-tuning the process, Virgin Media has been able to ramp up TiVo box deployment to 1000 a day, which means it is heading for about 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2011. At that rate, it would take a decade for the TiVo box to make it through even the existing customer base, but Virgin Media plans to ramp up deployment further as its network continues to be upgraded and expanded in the move toward “through the middle” delivery to all customers. Through the middle is a term adopted to describe a kind of hybrid IPTV/Internet TV service that delivers pay-TV content through a dedicated portion of the operator’s broadband spectrum.

In the case of cable TV, this is over DOCSIS and ensures that the TV service is independent of broadband Internet activity, making it easier to ensure high QoS. In effect, this makes it a walled-garden IPTV service, but it also brings genuine over-the-top (OTT) Internet content to subscribers. In the latter case, QoS is largely beyond the control of the operator at present and is dependent both on the wider Internet and on the third-party content providers themselves.

For the Virgin Media TiVo subscribers, all content is delivered via the TiVo box, including scheduled services. TiVo has therefore had to adapt the box to integrate with both Internet content and Virgin Media’s own catch-up service with the normal linear broadcast schedule. This was a challenge for TiVo because it has not so far had to integrate catch-up services to the same extent for its existing U.S. customers.

The article also mentions how Virgin intend to become a customer of the proposed Fujitsu-built fibre network, which would allow Virgin to expand their cable network, "across a further 20 percent of UK homes initially, with the help of its TiVo box, in effect as a hybrid IPTV/OTT provider outside its footprint."

Read the full article at Broadcast Engineering.

Virgin Media's TiVo: Now available to order for new & existing customers; Baby TiVo arrival news

The 1TB version of the next-generation PVR is now available to order from Virgin Media's website for new and existing customers.

As expected, only XL customers can order the 1TB version.

The new pages on the site also confirm that the 500Gb 'Baby' TiVo will be available in May for existing customers and July for new customers (thanks to Xonification for the correction).

Virgin Media begin dispatch of pre-registration order emails for TiVo

Its taken them 4 months, but, finally, Virgin have started sending emails this week containing ordering information for TiVo (the 1TB version) to pre-registered customers.

VIP customers will be the first to receive these emails, followed by Triple XL customers, and then customers on the XL TV pack, so, don't panic if you've yet to receive your email. VIP 50/100 customers get the £3 per month charge waived, all existing customers (pre-registered or not) will get the £40 installation fee waived for bookings made in April, as previously reported.

Virgin Media prepare to give birth to Baby TiVo; 500Gb Hard Drive; £49.95; Available on all TV packs

TiVo. Yours for £50 plus change. Well, 1p change.

TechRadar had a nice chat with Virgin Media, who have confirmed the existence of the cheaper TiVo model.

Whilst the 1TB box is available exclusively to XL TV customers, the great news is that the 500GB box will be available to Virgin Media TV customers for just £49.95 and can be used with our L or M+ TV packs too, making it even easier for more telly fans to join the TV revolution that is Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo.

The Baby TiVo is due to be available in mid-May. Apart from the smaller hard drive capacity, the rest of the spec remains the same as the 1TB version - 3 tuners; Wishlists; Recommendations; Search & Browse; Dedicated broadband connection etc etc.

The £3 per month charge remains in place on the XL pack. For customers on the M+ or L packs, the monthly fee is £8. Don't forget the installation fee of £40. M pack customers will need to upgrade their TV pack if they desire to get TiVo.

If the 1TB version is any indication, then the 500Gb version should have enough recording capacity for around 250 hours of standard definition recordings, and 60 hours of high-definition recordings.

The beginning of the end for V+ HD?

This appears to be the first step for Virgin migrating their customers from the legacy boxes to TiVo. The existing V+ HD box also has a one-off 'HD activation' fee of £49.95 - the same one-off cost as the 500Gb version of TiVo. Given the much superior features of TiVo, plus a 500Gb Hard Drive compared to the 160Gb in V+ HD, the choice seems pretty clear regarding which Virgin PVR you should spend your £49.95 on.

The availability of 'Baby TiVo' to customers on the M+ and L packs, as well as XL of course - greatly makes the next generation PVR more attractive to Virgin's TV customer base.

By comparison, Sky's standard HD box is free to customers joining online, but also requires signing up to the HD pack at £10.25 per month. The actual number of HD channels received depends on the number of packs you've signed up with and well, its not TiVo now, is it?

Customers on Virgin's XL pack currently receive 17 HD channels for no extra charge - that will soon be 19 channels with the recently announced additions of Sky Arts 1 HD and Sky Arts 2 HD.

UPDATE: Apparently, the pre-registration ordering emails which Virgin begun dispatching today confirm the  details for the 500Gb version:

Coming 16th May, our 500GB Tivo box. Exclusively for existing customers

Tivo 500GB box
Storage for around 250 hours of standard TV
£49.95 for box activation
£3 additional monthly fee on TV XL
£40 installation fee applies

Prices correct as at 04/11

The 500Gb version will be exclusively available for existing customers first from May 16th, and available to new customers later.

Pricing update for Virgin Media's TiVo; Free installation for existing customers booking in April; Discounts for VIP 50/100 customers; Baby TiVo

Virgin Media staff member and Cable Forum poster Digital Fanatic has posted an update regarding TiVo pricing for pre-registered customers, before the official TiVo launch date of next Monday:

Some of you will get an email to book online and some will be directed to a special pre-sales orderline, this is because some of you have complicated billing arrangements!

Install is free in April, so you are getting that knocked off.

VIP's (50 & 100 only) are getting the TiVo monthly charge waived. It will appear on the bill, but you will get a bigger discount to cover.

[The £149 for the TiVo box] will go on to the bill (existing customers only), so no credit card required. we will up your credit limit on your account to cover the cost and stop any billing issues.

The free installation offer is valid for existing customers only and applies when you book an installation in April - customers who take advantage of this offer will save £40, bringing the price of the 1TB 'Daddy' TiVo down to £149 + £3 extra per month (XL pack required).

VIP 50 & VIP 100 customers look like they will get a discount to cover the £3 monthly charge.

Meanwhile, screen-shots of an TiVo article in Virgin Media's Electric! Magazine have been posted online at the TiVo Community Forum. The text at the bottom of Page 7 mentions the coming arrival of the Baby TiVo:

A lower spec box will be available soon, but the 1TB TiVo box is still our flagship product.

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.

Analysis, reaction and a new poll for Virgin's Media's pre-registered offer for TiVo

The initial reaction to Virgin's TiVo offer to pre-registered customers has been met with some disappointment from various customers on-line, with the £40 installation fee in particular not being well received. Others say that for now, TiVo is a luxury product and is priced accordingly.

The email dispatched eariler reveals that acceptance of the offer will invoke a new 12 contract. While the XL TV pack requirement and £3 per month charge has been known for some time, the email also reveals that if you drop down to the M+ or L TV packs after getting TiVoed, the monthly charge increases to £8 per month. TiVo isn't available to TV M pack customers.

So, 'Dean', now the offer for pre-registered customers is out of the bag (£149 for the TiVo + £40 installation + £3 per month on XL), will you take Virgin up on it? That's the question for the new poll, which can be located at the top right of this blog's pages. Voting ends next Friday at 9pm. In the mean time, the PVR Comparison Document will be updated shortly to reflect today's news

UPDATED: Virgin Media TiVo pre-sale event begins on April 11th for registered customers

Virgin Media customers who have pre-registered for TiVo have or should get this email (which assumes that all customers are called Dean):

Hello Dean,

Now here’s something you don’t see everyday. You’ve got the chance to be one of the first to order our amazing 1TB TiVo® box before everyone else because you’re a Virgin Media customer and you pre-registered your interest in our TiVo service.

During the week beginning 11th April, we’ll be opening an exclusive pre-sale event just for you, so you can order Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo. We’ll email you the details on the day and you can be one of the first to get your hands on our latest kit before it goes on general sale.

Here’s the deal:
# 1TB TiVo box
# £149.95 one-off activation fee exclusively for existing customers (everyone else pays £199.95)
# £3 additional monthly fee with TV XL

Our exclusive pre-sale event for the 1TB box is only available to you. Think of it as a little ‘thank you’ from us for being a Virgin Media customer and for being one of the very first to register your interest in our TiVo service.

We’ll email you again during the week of 11th April to tell you more. If you’d like to take another look at what our TiVo service can do, head over to our Discover TiVo site for all the details.

Keep your eyes peeled on your inbox

The Virgin Media team

General: £40 installation fee applies. TiVo box remains property of Virgin Media. New 12-month minimum term contract applies. 1TB TiVo box: you must take, or upgrade to, TV XL to be eligible. If you cease to be an XL TV customer, we reserve the right to charge you the then applicable monthly TiVo charge (currently £8 for TV L or M+). TiVo is not available on TV M. Information about your TiVo use: By having the TiVo service and/or by using it you are providing your consent for us to use your viewing information to personalise your experience of the TiVo service (in addition to the other purposes set out in our privacy policy). We may share with third parties information about your use of the TiVo service in an aggregated form which will not personally identify you. This aggregated data may be used by those third parties for their marketing purposes (e.g. to improve their targeting of advertising based on user preferences).

 UPDATED: Virgin have just resent the emails with the correct customer names.

UPDATED: Virgin Media TiVo 'Special Deal' emails to be sent this week to pre-registered customers; Order online?

As previously reported, Virgin will be dispatching emails this week to all customers who pre-registered for TiVo, all of those emails should be sent by Thursday - however, according this this post and this post by Virgin Media Staff member and Cable Forum poster Digital Fanatic:

A further mail will then be sent to invite you to order online in the following days...(this week's email is) a update email because they said they'd be in touch before the end of March. It's to make sure everyone is aware how the ordering process is going to go.

Virgin Media TiVo 'Special Deal' emails to be sent this week to pre-registered customers; Order online?

Virgin Media Staff member and Cable Forum poster Digital Fanatic has revealed that customers who pre-registered for TiVo should be receiving an email in the coming week - this email will contain details of a special deal for TiVo, plus hopefully (as previously reported), details of how to order your TiVo box online.

So, keep an eye on your inbox.

Virgin Media unleash another software update for TiVo

As reported on the TiVo Community Forums, another software update for Virgin Media's TiVo was released in the early hours of this morning. The included bug fixes/additional functionality are below:

• New Lx loader to resolve Cisco failure to boot STBs.
• SD recording menus default for series link now set for New and reruns.
• Recording capacity accuracy improved
• In the VOD navigation pane, the “available until” pane is now displayed correctly.
• Greying out of channels now recovers when RF is recovered.
• Channel logos no longer overlap programme synopsis.

So, what else was in the 3rd Tuner software update for Virgin Media's TiVo?

According to a reported post at the Virgin Media Community Tivo forum, below is the list of bugs fixed in the previous software update for Virgin's TiVo:

• 3rd Tuner support
• Recommendations improved by incorporating customer collaborative Thumbs data into the Discovery bar and recorded recommendations
• Box no longer displays ‘Channel not authorised’ during normal channel changes
• Customers no longer PIN challenged on watershed compliant channels
• Bookmarks supported in Movies
• Trailers now available and working for movies
• STB no longer reboots when return path is lost. 
• Green button now links to catch-up content correctly
• Music playlist fixes
• Metadata improvements 
• Quicker to restore TV service after reboot 
• Medium description utilised in VoD screens (adds rating guidance information) 
• User presented with choice of HD or SD assets in ‘Get from On Demand’ screen 
• Front panel LED’s now function when box is in standby

Today is the last chance to pre-register your interest in Virgin Media's TiVo

The pre-registration form for Virgin Media's TiVo is now requesting that interested customers sign up before tomorrow (March 13th):

Our new TiVo service is launching. We can hardly wait! Enter your details [into the form] before 13th March 2011 to be the first to find out more.

As previously reported, Virgin will be contacting pre-registered customers via email towards the end of March. That email will contain details of how to order your TiVo online. The rollout of TiVo to new customers is expected to start in April.

Are Virgin Media preparing to unleash a cheaper TiVo?

Square Eyes has informed the Virgin Media High Definition & TiVo Services Blog that a new version of the TiVo box will be available soon for £49.95 (plus £40 installation fee and £3 per month TiVo fee).

This cheaper version would include a 500Gb hard drive. If the 1TB version is any indication, the 500Gb version would be capable of holding around 162 hours of standard definition recording, or around 50 hours of high-definition recordings.

While there's no official word from Virgin yet on this version of the next-generation PVR, such a version would fit in with previous announced plans to introduce a family of TiVo products for the Digital Cable network, as well as making TiVo an much more attractive (and affordable) option for Virgin Media customers.

Software development and rollout details for Virgin Media's TiVo

TiVO Community Forum Poster Technix has re-posted the following from the Official Virgin Media Forum:

Hi all

Firstly I hope you are enjoying use of your new Virgin Media TV service powered by Tivo.

I wanted to share some good news which is that we have now launched the BBC iplayer app in our Apps and Games section! Please check it out and let us know your thoughts.

I also wanted to let you know that we are working hard to prepare the product for general commercial availability, which we expect to be in April.

In particular we are in the final stages of creating the the triple tuner functionality (allowing you to record/watch up to 3 channels simultaneously) and we anticipate releasing this software to your boxes around the middle of March. This software will also contain significant bug fixes and other improvements.

I'd also like to address some specific issues which have cropped up quite frequently:

---- Reminders: In "Tivo world" reminders do not exist, because in a world where you have a massive hard disk plus our upcoming three tuners, there is less and less need to watch TV according to reminders. The easiest thing is to simply record programmes if the timing is not convenient for you. We realise this is different to the way some people use our current V+ service but we do believe that "Tivo-type" usage will eventually overtake the use of reminders.

---- Padding: ie giving recordings "leeway" either side to ensure that endings or starts are not missed. We definitely understand the importance of this and is a high priority in our roadmap. Given the cycle of code releases we have with Tivo, this is likely to be available in September.

---- Multitap text entry: Again we understand the importance of this and indeed we do have this on several of our Apps. For core Tivo Search we anticipate this being available in September.

---- Some channels not playing in Picture-in-Graphic (the small video window when you're looking at menus): This is a legal rights-based issue and is the same for our V+ service.

---- Tivo Suggestions in your recordings: Most people are finding these great, while some are finding these more random! Anyway this element of the service should get better and better, especially the more you use Thumbs Up and Down. I would strongly encourage you to use the Thumbs (especially giving more than 2 Thumbs either way!) to allow the system to learn better about you.

---- Finally, regarding our roll out plans, we have deliberately phased the roll-out to non-staff in a VERY tightly controlled way, prior to general commercial availability. We have run 3 promotions - an offer to 1000 of our VIPs (VIPs are our highest spending customers), a prize draw of 1000 Tivo boxes among all XL TV customers who also have Broadband and Telephony from Virgin Media, and a specific promotion to Tivo series 1 users. This has been deliberately done in order to control the roll-out to a very limited numbers of customers. When we move towards general availability we will prioritise those customers who have pre-registered their interest. We realise this has caused some "healthy impatience" in our marketplace but we feel this is right way to manage a controlled release of the product.

Virgin Media to allow pre-registered customers to order TiVo online

Virgin Media Staff member and Cable Forum poster Digital Fanatic has posted updates here and here on how Virgin plan to contact customers who pre-registered for TiVo:

I've been told that pre regs will recieve a special email with ordering details, you will then order online before any other customers.

Once all pre regs have install dates, then it will be opened up to other customers and then new customers after that.

You should get your email towards the end of the month....It's going to be quicker than calling everyone and you should have an install in April.

UPDATE: Virgin Media's TiVo could start with you and 999 other XL TV pack customers

It looks like you don't need to wait for one of these to come in the post after all:

...because tonight a page went live on the Virgin Media site which accepts registrations without the Unique reference number which has been printed on the 'It all starts with you' cards.

So, if you haven't received the above card in the post yet, and you fancy a chance of getting your hands on one of "1,000 TiVo boxes which you could enjoy on us for an entire year", then click here, good luck, and ignore the 'thank you' message after registration which assumes your first name is Phil.

You'll also receive an email from Virgin confirming your registration, mine said this:

Thank you for your interest.

We will be in contact by 20th March 2011 if you are one of the lucky ones to receive a TiVo box on us for a year.

Best wishes,

The Virgin Media Team

50,000 pre-registrations for Virgin Media's TiVo

Virgin's CEO Neil Berkett revealed to Cable.co.uk (and Dow Jones Newswires) that so far, 50,000 pre-registrations have been received for the next-generation PVR.

Our new TV service, powered by TiVo, will provide a real step change in home entertainment as customers benefit from the unique power of the Virgin Media network.

Cable.co.uk have also revealed their own guide to Virgin's TiVo:

This broadband connection will allow you to browse the web on your TV as well as enjoying a vast array of games and applications, including those that use Adobe Flash technology. The new Virgin TiVo will integrate television and the online world in a way never before seen in the UK.