Cable TV in the UK went through numerous
mergers and rebrands before becoming Virgin Media in 2007. Cable TV is now
available to over half the homes in the UK; to see if there’s coverage in your
area, go to http://store.virginmedia.com
and enter your postcode.
Cable not only provides a wide range of TV
channels, but also superfast broadband with speeds up to 100Mbit/s. In addition
you can sign up for cheap landline calls and even discounted mobile phone
contracts, making it the only ‘quad-play’ provider.
Virgin Media doesn’t produce its own TV
content and has a long-running and fractious relationship with Sky, which
provides some of its content through the cable platform.
Virgin
media’s logo
In practice as with Sky, you’ll need to
transfer your telephone, broadband and TV service to get the best value.
However, with all three proving reliable in our experience, and with only a single
bill to deal with every month, that’s no bad thing. In addition, the TiVo box
and router remains Virgin Media’s property, so any repairs are at its expense.
Interface and remote
The centerpiece of Virgin Media’s TV
offering is the impressive TiVo set-top box. It has three tuners to help
alleviate scheduling clashes, plus you get practically all of the 500GB or 1TB
hard disk to store recorded programs.
Outwardly the interface has changed little
since its launch two years ago: it’s still flexible and capable in places, while
feeling awkward and fragmented in others. This is partly due to the sheer
wealth of content on offer, with lots of channels plus on-demand and catch-up
TV. To help you navigate this jungle is TiVo’s clever search and preferences
system.
The TiVo box creates links between programs
to offer content you might want to watch. Some of these are obvious ones, such
as having actors in common. You can also give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to shows
at any time This information is then compiled among all TiVo owners, so the box
will offer you shows that other people who liked a particular program also
enjoyed. It also uses your preferences to record content it thinks you might
enjoy automatically.
TiVo’s
box
The TiVo system also has a fully integrated
search function. For example, search TiVo for ‘Tom’ and it quickly pulls up Tom
and Jerry and Tom Cruise; pick the latter and you get a list of available
movies from various sources. Browse through these and you can see which are on
TV and which are available on demand.
Our main gripe is that you can’t adjust the
search parameters to match the content available to you. While search won’t
show you TV content for channels you don’t have, it will show you pay-per-view
rental content and movies on subscription services you aren’t signed up to. You
have to navigate through to find this out, though, which is frustrating.
BBC
channel
The main program guide works well, though:
it’s clearly laid out, and catch-up content for terrestrial channels is
integrated into the timeline. Like Sky, there's a video window in the top
right-hand corner. Unlike Sky, HD channels aren’t placed at the top of the
list, so you have to browse to find them. You can filter channels by type,
including HD, but we’d recommend setting up a favorites list instead and
clearing away all the rubbish.
The excellent remote control is comfortable
to use and has good feedback from the buttons. There are lots of shortcut
buttons to take you to regularly used menus. The colored buttons are used for some
shortcuts, though they aren’t as central to the interface as with Sky+. One
plus is that the red button can now be used to access additional content on BBC
channels.
Recording programs is easy, either while
watching or from the EPG. Press record and you can set up a single recording or
a series link. There are three tuners in the TiVo, one more than in Sky’s box,
making clashes unlikely. If there is a clash, then the box deals with it well,
looking for an alternative screening. As with Sky, your recordings are neatly
grouped by program title and it’s easy to manage series links, changing what
gets recorded and on what channel. This means you can filter out Top Gear
repeats on Dave and just record new episodes on the BBC, or record them all if
you’re a huge fan.
The
EPG works brilliantly
Live content
There is no shortage of TV channels on
Virgin Media, though as with Sky most of them will never be watched by most
viewers. For a full list of what you get from the various packages, go to Http://tinyurl.com/virginchannels.
In short, the M+ package has over 100 channels, the L package has over 135
channels (both with six in HD) and XL has over 200 channels, with 30 in HD.
Note that the cost of HD is built into each package, rather than being an
additional cost.
Virgin has a complex relationship with Sky,
both its main competitor and provider of much of its premium content. Sky
Sports is available through Virgin Media but only Sky Sports 1 and 2 are
available in HD, rather than the four HD sports channels through Sky on
satellite. There’s greater parity in movies, with both having the full raft of
Sky Movies channels in HD. Sky also has MGM HD, but that’s balanced out in our
eyes by Virgin showing Film4 in HD, although this will be coming to Sky in
September.
Virgin’s
box
Other notable Sky channels are Sky Sports
F1, which again is included with the Sky Sports package but not in HD. The HD
version of this channel is available to non-Sports subscribers on Sky who have
the HD package, although that offer is to end shortly for new customers, who
will then have to subscribe to Sky Sports to see the 10 exclusive races. Sky
Atlantic is the other big draw, with lots of HBO content; this channel is not
available on Virgin. Sky 1 and Sky 2 are available across all the packages.
Euro
sport
On the plus side, Virgin media includes
ESPN HD and Euro sport HD in its XL package Sky charges $15 a month for ESPN,
and as with all Sky packages you’ll have to pay for HD to get Euro sport in
that format.
