THE NEW VIRGIN MEDIA TIVO - A REVIEW

VIRGIN MEDIA TIVO - BASIC SPECIFICATION
Size (approx.): W - 14.5" / 37cm D - 9.5" / 24 cm H - 2.75" / 7 cm	Connections On The Back (L-R): - Cable Co-Ax In - SCART - HDMI - Optical Audio Out - 2 x USB* - Ethernet Network Port* - Mains Power (* these don't work yet)
Recording Capacity: SD: 477 hours HD: 121 hours
The unit currently has two tuners, which means you can record two things at the same time whilst watching a recording; OR one thing whilst watching On Demand content. The third tuner will be activated in the next update which is due in March.

Let's start with the bad things. There's not many and they don't mean a lot as they will get fixed in time.

1. THE MENUS
Can be rather annoyingly slow and many of them are not in HD. There are also a few quirks and niggles but they neither distract nor detract from the core functionality. For details of these, see the Tivo Community Forums in the link at the bottom of this review.

See! Told you there weren't many problems with it.

Onto the good stuff...

1. IT'S A TIVO!!!
This is most important because (to the best of my knowledge) there is still no mainstream, mass-market product exactly like it from any other provider.

2. Finding Stuff To Record
Whether you only watch a small amount of TV or a lot of it, wouldn't you prefer to sit down and actually watch what you wanted to, there and then, without having to trawl through the a hard copy of a TVguide first? Well, this is where Tivo excels itself; by giving you a few ways in which to find stuff you'll like. You'll find them all in one place, too: "Search & Browse", right there on the Home Screen.



Here you can either search alphabetically for any title or person. For example I have found both STEVEN SPIELBERG and AARON SORKIN in the list. The former is, of course, a director whilst the latter is a writer.



 As you can see, when you highlight an entry, a box appears on the right-hand-side with more information on the selected item. Click on the entry to go to the next screen which presents you with more options for that entry.

Before I get carried away, I must remember that this is supposed to be a review rather than a "how-to"! So I'll just say this.... I have not yet come across a better way to search for content than this.

One interesting, and welcome, feature is that you can now optionally turn off the video preview window that appears in the top-right-hand corner; except in the EPG!

(Note: If you are on a Sky channel  - Sky1, Sky Movies, Sky Sports, Sky News - then you will not see the channel in the preview window. This is not a fault. Sky has told Virgin Media that it does not want it's channels to be displayed in this way.)



There are other ways to find things to record. One, of course, is the usual EPG; that's Electronic Programme Guide.

However, this one is different. Not only can you move forward in time, up to 14 days, but you can also scroll backwards too. Doing this you will find programmes that are available to watch via Virgin Media's Catch-Up TV On Demand service which is the only place you will find the pick of the previous week's best programmes from all five of the standard "terrestrial" broadcasters; that's BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. However, you should remember that this content is chosen by the broadcaster and not Virgin Media.

If you use the 'Browse' option rather than the 'Search' option then you will be presented with a nice, graphical system that displays things like posters for films and pictures of actors. Again, highlight something to get some basic info.



Whichever method you use, when you click on something you get another screen with a whole load of choices of what to do



In the above screen-shot, the option "Get this show" has been clicked-on. As you can see, this enables you to set either permanent Series Link, a one-off recording of the next-available episode, or to view all available episodes, whether they're to be shown on TV or On Demand.

I have to say that this is a really great idea; that is, to show all available content in one place, whether it's to be broadcast on TV or accessed via VM's On Demand service.

As you can see, other things you can do from this screen include viewing an episode to the show, see what other things the cast have appeared in (and get those shows too, if they're on!) and get recommendations for other programmes you might like. "Bonus features" just shows you the results of a You Tube search for programme title.

Personally, as the vast majority of these will be copyright-infringing clips uploaded by YT users, I don't think that VM should be making them available so easily. In fact, I don't see any reason or necessity for YouTube to be available at all anyway. That's just my opinion though. I have my PC for internet access and my TV for watching TV. Of course, streaming movie services are another thing entirely!

Another nice touch is that if there is nothing found for the programme/film/person you are searching for then you will be given the option to create a Wishlist for it. However, this doesn't work perfectly at the moment. I did a search for STEVEN SPIELBERG and it duly asked me if I wanted to create a Wishlist for him, which I did. However, it only put his name in as a 'Keyword' search. This would only find his name if it appeared in the synopsis of a film or TV show when it should really have created a Wishlist for him as and put name in the 'Director' option. However, there's nothing stopping you from creating your own Wishslist and that 'bug' may be corrected eventually.

Wishlists are fantastic. What's even better is that, if you like, you can get Tivo to automatically record anything it finds for a given Wishlist. You can search by Keyword, Title Keyword, Actor, Director or Category. As an example, I have a Wishlist that shows me all the Films in the 'Science Fiction' category. You can also add exclusions and optional words too. So you might like to create a wishlist search for, say, George Clooney except where he appears in "ER".

Suggestions
Another of the unique Tivo functions is to suggest programmes you might like, based on things you have already recorded. It works because part of the meta-data within the EPG is to give each programme at least one category; documentary, soap or drama, for example. There are many categories and sub-categories. Each time you record a programme, it is given one "thumbs-up". Tivo then has a think and a search and then suggests other programmes from the same, or related, category. The more you record, the more relevant the suggestions that Tivo makes.

Of course, naturally, the opposite is also true in that you can give something the 'thumbs-down' if you don't like it. I quite often do this with one-off random recordings of, say, a news bulletin or a documentary where, although the subject of the programme might be of interest, I don't want Tivo to start suggesting other documentary programmes that won't be of any interest to me.

Incidentally, you don't have to only record things to have them given a thumbs-up or -down. You could just spend some time going through the EPG and giving things the 'up' or 'down. As I mentioned earlier, the more you teach Tivo your likes or dislikes, the better it's own suggestions should get. I specifically wrote "should" there because, of course, it's not an exact science. This is because any given programme might be in couple of categories; one you like - e.g. drama - and one you don't -  e.g. childrens. (This is not to say that a Children's drama might not be any good. I'm only illustrating a point here! This is one reason why I have the "auto-record suggestions" function switched off. That said, it only takes one button to delete a programme you don't want; and you do have over 300 hours at standard definition to fill!

If you want to see what suggestions Tivo is making, then click your way to..... Search & Browse / Browse All / TV / TV / Suggestions
If you click through to ... My Shows and Recordings / My Shows / Suggestions / Improve My Suggestions you will find a list of every programme you have ever thumbed either up or down. Make sure these are accurate to improve suggestions.

The Discovery Bar.
Shown at the top of some screens, the Discovery Bar is, basically, just another way of giving you ideas about things you might like to record. However, these might not always be based on your use of Thumbs! For example, when you first get your Tivo, the Discovery Bar is populated with things that are "Recommended because we like it. We hope you will too."

I suppose there's no reason why this could not be used for 'paid promotions' at some point.

Use the 'up' arrow move up to it and then Left or Right to move between Suggestions. Again, if you 'okay' on one, you will get the options shown in the screen-shot above.

Series Links.
These were called "Season Passes" on the original Series 1, but I guess that was because it was (and still is) an American product and they refer to Seasons over there; whereas they tend to be called Series over here.

Anyway, this is basically the way that you get your Tivo to automatically record episodes of your favourite shows. There are a number of configurable options when setting up a Series Link. These are:

Record	Do you want Tivo to record just the new episodes, or every episode
Keep at most	The number of episodes to keep on your Tivo. Options are 'one' to 'all' . Default is five.
Keep until	If available recording space is getting low, Tivo will start deleting programme, starting with the oldest. You can tell Tivo to not delete a given episode by changing this to "Until I Delete"
Start recording	Use this to start the recording earlier that scheduled
Stop recording	Use this to end the recording later that scheduled.

3. Watching Stuff
Okay... so you've recorded a load of shows and films. The good news, of course, is that you can now skip all the ads and so a one-hour show from a commercial channel will only take you around 45-50 minutes to watch instead of an hour!

You can FF and REW at three different speeds by pressing the relevant button 1, 2 or 3 times. Just in case you go too far, over-shoot protection will skip back 8 seconds when you press 'play' again after a FF or REW. Personally, I would prefer it not to do this as I got to be an expert at hitting 'play' at exactly the right time on the S1. On that model, this function could be turned off and I wish they'd do so with this new one!

There are specific button to:
a. jump back 8 seconds
b. FF 30 seconds
c. enter slow motion mode
d. delete something.

You can also jump in 15 minute increments by using a specific button whilst you are either FFing or REWing. There is also now an undelete function too; which is a good idea as there isn't the usual 'confirmation' - i.e. "Do you really want to do that?" - box when you hit the 'delete' button!

TIPS & TRICKS
Here are un-documented shortcuts to various screens.

Press Home twice takes you My Shows
Press Home then 1 takes you to Manage My Series Links
Press Home then 2 takes you to Planned Recordings
Press Home then 3 takes you to Wishlists
Press Home then 4 takes you to Search All TV
Press Home then 5 takes you to Browse Al TV

CONCLUSION
It's a Tivo which, as a former Series 1 user is good enough for me. However, I understand that those of you who have never had the pleasure of using one might need a little more persuading. Well, I hope this brief look at unit has helped. By now, they should also be available in your local Virgin Media Store for you to have a look at and, hopefully, a play with. Because using one is really the only way you will really get to understand how they work and the difference they will make to your viewing habits.


UPDATES:
17th March, 2011: Third Tuner now active. Recording time has increased to 121 HD and 477 SD




NOTES AND LINKS:
I am hoping to get a few of my own screen-shots and videos created eventually. It might take some time though.

Did you like this review? Was it useful? Something specific you want to? Let me know!

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