Virgin Media is to bring TiVo to the UK in 2010, it has been revealed this week.
The deal is a significant one for the UK media giant, and will provide considerable competition to Sky Plus – good news all around for British TV viewers, as competition generally means better services at lower cost.
Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo said that he expects a "long-term, strategic partnership with Virgin Media," speaking in a recent announcement of his company's latest financial results.
TiVo-tech powered
TiVo is set to develop a converged television and broadband interactive interface – which will be the tech that powers Virgin Media's next gen, high-def set-top boxes.
"TiVo will offer Virgin Media's nearly four million UK customers TiVo's advanced television software and user interface on both its traditional and DVR set-top boxes, including TiVo's broadband to the television capabilities," said Rogers.
Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media said, "TiVo's proven track record of innovation, strength of its patented technology and experience in developing best in class user environments, make it an ideal strategic partner for Virgin Media as we move aggressively to bring our next generation TV service to market.
"The superiority of our fibre optic network combined with TiVo's capabilities, will allow us to offer consumers the most significantly advanced and compelling TV service available in the UK, and we believe will do to the TV market what Virgin Media has done to the high speed broadband market."
For more on TiVo head over to its website. TiVo was recently voted as one of TechRadar's 20 bits of tech that changed the world.
Via Pocket-Lint
Your comments (8) Click to add a new comment
wildjohnny
February 5th 2010
8. I have been using Tivo for over 12yrs here. And it's always been better than sky+. I just can't understand why sky didn't join forces with Tivo was an still is, way ahead of it's time. Sky has changed its boxes several times and Tivo still beats it!! Please Tom Rogers, build a standalone for the UK, so the long time users of Tivo can enjoy Tivo with all that new tech it has onboard. Does any know if we can buy one of these tivo/vm boxes to work with sky?
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lovlid
November 30th 2009
7. And I do mean in this country, not in America where it took off big style.
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lovlid
November 30th 2009
6. "Most people that rave about Sky+ have no idea that TiVo was what Sky+ was based on and that TiVo was available in the UK many years before Sky+, it was just a little to early for its time."
Most of us that have, and yes, rave about sky+ looked into Tivo when it came out. The problem wasn't that it was a little too early for its time, the problem was that it was cheaply made, buggy as all hell and wholly unsupported by a manufacturer who didn't give a damn about its customers. It ended up being a niche machine, put right by a dedicated group of tinkerers.
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comfy
November 30th 2009
5. well, id have to see the spec, but we've had a tivo for about 12 years. Its the best and i say best pvr out there. Its been hacked and upgraded, 1tb of storage, webserver, video grabber, ethernet. It has everything. So, if its got all that stuff and i hasten to say it must have the storage capacity + the other stuff ill be in line for one....
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tech89
November 30th 2009
4. It kind of has to be limited to cable seeing as Murdoch rules the sky.
Sky would just make the Tivo not compatible for the sake of it wanting people to use it's own box.
If it worked with Freeview it would be winner for sure, however, freeview+ can do alot of what tivo does (such as series recording), with the exception of streaming media to portable devices.
TiVo cannot compete with sky, seeing as sky is a content provider and TiVo is a hardware device. Sky offers prgrams and TiVo records programs.
Basically Virgin Media is bringing in a divide which itself should have manufactured years ago.
Sky wins against VM because it plans ahead what it's going to do, and it's not clutching at straws for ideas to sign up more people.
Content wise, sky has more. VM has on demand content, but will only interest those who are up for watching old seasons of tv series, If they haven't seen them in a long time.
TiVo can do room to room video, yes, but there are already devices out there that do that.
TiVo can pause, rewind, and record tv. Freeview+, Sky+ do that, and VM.
It's search and record features are interesting, but not overly exciting enough to warrant a purchase.
Where TiVo is interesting is that you can access youtube, netflix, amazon video on demand.
Like mattdoc30 said, if they could gain more partners such as Lovefilm, then it would be even better.
Exciting stuff though!
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healeydave
November 25th 2009
3. Its great that TiVo coming back to the UK.
Most people that rave about Sky+ have no idea that TiVo was what Sky+ was based on and that TiVo was available in the UK many years before Sky+, it was just a little to early for its time.
Its a shame Cable is the only platform for the new box though. With Cable being so limited in availability in the UK, TiVo really need to cover more bases for Digital TV like Freeview and possible even FreeSat too!
That would be a strong move putting TiVo back on all the Platforms (Terrestial, Cable and Satellite). It would mean Sky+ would be simply just another PVR dedicated to one Service :-)
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dodfaefife
November 25th 2009
2. Very exciting news. The interface on my 10 year old TiVo box is still more responsive that my SKY HD. If TiVo come to the UK ready to take on Sky and bring all their services then it could be great.
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mattdoc30
November 25th 2009
1. I've just been looking at the features of a TiVo HD box and they are excellent - everything anyone would want from an HTPC really! It's a shame they are going to be limited to Cable users because if it could be made freesat compatible (or better yet be linked to some form of IPTV service) and make use of services like iPlayer and perhaps linkups with companies like LOVEFiLM for the movie rental services - it'd be all anyone would need for their TV!
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