Virgin Media gives TiVo users access to Netflix

Virgin Media is planning to let Netflix subscribers watch the video-on-demand service through their set-top TiVo boxes. The cable company announced that the Netflix app would be coming to 1.7 million TiVo homes this year, starting with a pilot rollout this week. Around 40,000 customers have been chosen for the pilot scheme, …

[John P]

This is good news if they enable pay-per-view at a reasonable price. I just don't have enough time to watch TV to have a Netflix subscription, but if the PPV prices were reasonable, it would be a great addition to an already excellent service.

[Phil W]

Your statement doesn't seem to make an awful lot of sense, may it's just me?

If you don't have time to watch tv much, then why do you have a paid subscription to Virgin Media with a TiVo box? (which costs significantly more than a Netflix subscription).

I watch a fair amount of TV, both through VM and with Netflix on using my Blu-Ray player's smart features, as I rarely actually use it to play discs this is potentially a helpful move to me.

[Jediben]

I concur Phil W. We cancelled our Virgin Tivo service and took up a Netflix subscription, simply because the amount of time we had availabel meant we were very selective of what we actually watched. With Freeview/Freesat taking care of 'live' telly, the majority of output on these two services are substitutes for each other.

I can't see this being beneficial for Virgin to be honest.

[wikkity]

For many people virgin is the only way to get more than 4 channels, there are still are areas where channel five is just too poor to watch. And presumably if you don't have much time to watch TC then a tivo box should help make sure that when you do have time there is something available to actually watch.

[Peter Hewitt]

I'm sorry are you from the past? Did Digital Switchover not happen?

Admittedly there are plenty areas (hello my flat in the centre of a city) where only Freeview Lite is available. Hence I throw my money down the Virgin black hole. Netflix would be an incredible boon as I'd not have to clart around plugging HDMI leads into my laptop anymore.

[Slik Fandango]

Love Netflix

I get it through my AppleTV, and also on the Smart TVs that we have.

BUT - the Smart TV interface is no where near as good as the Apple TV.

AND I dread to think what the interface will be like on the TiVo! The interface for iPlayer is hideous and clunky - when we use it we tend to use the Smart TV interface. It tends to fall over less! I have been near the end of a programme and suddenly the TiVo chucked me out! Not nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Love Netflix

Its nice and easy to use and clean to navigate around.

There are two columns and on the left column is a number of rows that are the sections (TV, Films, Action, kids, documentary etc.) then a column on the right that gives details about the item you have highlighted.

Simply go up and down then list and press OK to play.

Not used the website version before so not sure what that is like!

Really impressed by how quick it buffers a HD film or show and starts to play it - MUCH better than iPlayer and ITV player etc.

And yes, Im testing it at the moment!

[Anonymous Coward]

Android App

Shame they still haven't got a working app to control the TiVo box on Android, I've had to resort to a 3rd party app that costs £1!

[Phil W]

Re: Android App

While you are correct that Virgin don't have a working app for this I'm not sure why you've resorted to paying? There are several free Android apps for this that work just fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Android App

I couldn't find one that worked with my box, they seem to only work with the America TiVo boxes and they don't seem to have the channel logos.

Which ones did you find that worked for the Virgin box?

The one that I found is called "MyAV" and jumps straight to the channels (I find Virgin's numbering system very strange indeed. BBC 1HD is 108 & BBC 2 HD is 184 or something crazy.

[Phil W]

Re: Android App

Both "RCX for TiVo" and "Network Remote for TiVo" worked last time I tried. Perhaps it varies by hardware revision and firmware version.

[Red Bren]

Delivery channel?

I'm not a netflix customer but I do have VM telly & broadband. The biggest benefit I can see is that the content would be delivered to the STB in the same way as any other on-demand content, i.e. It doesn't depend on your broadband connection. Although on-demand content often buffers especially on a Sunday evening.

[Robbie]

Re: Delivery channel?

I've been using Netflix via Apple TV and Virgin cable for nearly a year with never a single problem. The TiVo is a great box, but slow ... so so slow, so I wouldn't bother with a Netflix TiVo app myself, but I'm hopeful it would work out OK.