Virgin Tivo and HD box question

[Crawley]

Sorry to repeat stuff that may have gone before.......

Having Virgin TV installed thursday, replacing Sky.

Do the Virgin boxes have to be connected to a telephone point the same as Sky? Or is it all done through the cable wiring?

Thanks

 

[hawk0012]

All done via cable

 

[Crawley]

All done via cable

Lovely!!

 

[DHSF]

haha I just switched from Virgin to Sky - paying 60-65 quid a month less. Was paying 110 all in but now paying 45-50.

Virgin was excellent but the broadband wasnt as good as it used to be. Im hoping Sky is good.

 

[Crawley]

haha I just switched from Virgin to Sky - paying 60-65 quid a month less. Was paying 110 all in but now paying 45-50.

Virgin was excellent but the broadband wasnt as good as it used to be. Im hoping Sky is good.

For want of repeating another thread......

I was paying a total £121pm when my TV was Sky (inc. broadband and phone)
I will now be on £87pm with more channels, the wi-fi super hub and 60meg broadband. We can not achieve broadband speeds above about 2 meg down the BT copper wires where I am, so luckily we are cabled in with Virgin.

 

[DHSF]

For want of repeating another thread......

I was paying a total £121pm when my TV was Sky (inc. broadband and phone)
I will now be on £87pm with more channels, the wi-fi super hub and 60meg broadband. We can not achieve broadband speeds above about 2 meg down the BT copper wires where I am, so luckily we are cabled in with Virgin.

Yeah sorry - merge haha.

I am hoping the Sky broadband is better than the virgin as where I am its shockingly bad maybe 2mb if lucky - when they were' promising' me 40 or 50mb.

You got a decent deal. The Tivo is brilliant I think absolutely fantastic. I have notived sky have barely changed their interface in a while same blue and yellow type graphics.

 

[Crawley]

Yeah sorry - merge haha.

I am hoping the Sky broadband is better than the virgin as where I am its shockingly bad maybe 2mb if lucky - when they were' promising' me 40 or 50mb.

You got a decent deal. The Tivo is brilliant I think absolutely fantastic. I have notived sky have barely changed their interface in a while same blue and yellow type graphics.

Reading this, my fear for you is you were NOT on Virgin cable broadband. No way would you only be getting 2mb. Was your e-mail a Virgin.net address?
If so, you were getting broadband down BT copper wires too, and your Sky broadband will come in the same way, and be the same speed.

It's all about the wires, not the provider. I've not heard of anyone on Virgin cable broadbsnd who is below 10mb.

 

[DHSF]

Reading this, my fear for you is you were NOT on Virgin cable broadband. No way would you only be getting 2mb. Was your e-mail a Virgin.net address?
If so, you were getting broadband down BT copper wires too, and your Sky broadband will come in the same way, and be the same speed.

It's all about the wires, not the provider. I've not heard of anyone on Virgin cable broadbsnd who is below 10mb.

I was on cable broadband on the 60mb deal not the 100mb. That was being shared by others in the household though which im sure impacted negatively on the speed. I am unsure of the email as it wasnt in my name and had nothing to do with the account.

Im now living on my own so im pretty sure that as the broadband wont be shared I will have all the speed that I get through my wires. Sky stated that I will get 4mb to begin with then an incremental increase day by day to ensure I get the max speed - not sure what the fudge that means. Cant they just give me the 20mb or whatever it is.

 

[Crawley]

Boxes all done.

The broadband speed is incredible (tested at 62mb)

However, I have to say, while the Tivo box is better than the Sky box, the HD pic quality certainly is not.

Feeling let down. And the SD pic quality is atrocious.

 

[Jammy]

Boxes all done.

The broadband speed is incredible (tested at 62mb)

However, I have to say, while the Tivo box is better than the Sky box, the HD pic quality certainly is not.

Feeling let down. And the SD pic quality is atrocious.

The only problem with cable is shared bandwidth. If you're last in the line down your road and everyone else has got cable too, you're going to get the rough end of the deal. My old dear could only get about 2mb on the broadband because she's the last house in the road. They switched to Sky and also commented about the picture improvement.

 

[Crawley]

The only problem with cable is shared bandwidth. If you're last in the line down your road and everyone else has got cable too, you're going to get the rough end of the deal. My old dear could only get about 2mb on the broadband because she's the last house in the road. They switched to Sky and also commented about the picture improvement.

I think the majority in my road have Virgin cable

 

[SteveAWOL]

Boxes all done.

The broadband speed is incredible (tested at 62mb)

However, I have to say, while the Tivo box is better than the Sky box, the HD pic quality certainly is not.

Feeling let down. And the SD pic quality is atrocious.

I've read elsewhere that the SD from the TiVo boxes is not that great, which is why I have not upgraded from my V+ as the majority of TV that I watch is still SD.

What upload speed do you get on the 60Mb service? As I'm currently on the 20Mb service but only get 1Mb upload so might upgrade that at least.

 

[P.D.]

Serves you right for moving to Virgin

I did read though tat TIVO upscales SD to HD -take it this isn't the case then?

 

[Jammy]

I think the majority in my road have Virgin cable

I did a quick search on your picture quality problem and it appears to be a fairly common complaint. There's a couple of things to try :-

a) Google the settings for your model of telly and optimal settings for Virgin TIVO. Apparently it can make a difference by having it set up not quite right. Make sure you're running through the HDMI connection.

b) If that's not working well, get an engineer round to test signal strength. Apparently they can boost the signal at the hub at the end of your road if you're getting a low bandwidth problem.

 

[Spursman]

I called virgin coz apparently they are meant to up my speed from 50mb to 100mb

I was told by Indian call centre id have to pay more. I thought it was free upgrade fr all.

Anyway he said he can move me onto 60mb for £7.50 less a month!

I was like Riiight so ur givin me faster broadband for £7.50 less? He said yes. So I said ok then and hung up!

I'll call next week about the 120mb service as it says on their website I can ey those speeds.

Might need a gigabyte card tho as my pc won't take the speed apparently.

 

[Crawley]

I've read elsewhere that the SD from the TiVo boxes is not that great, which is why I have not upgraded from my V+ as the majority of TV that I watch is still SD.

What upload speed do you get on the 60Mb service? As I'm currently on the 20Mb service but only get 1Mb upload so might upgrade that at least.

Think I noted the upload around 2.5mb

 

[Crawley]

I did a quick search on your picture quality problem and it appears to be a fairly common complaint. There's a couple of things to try :-

a) Google the settings for your model of telly and optimal settings for Virgin TIVO. Apparently it can make a difference by having it set up not quite right. Make sure you're running through the HDMI connection.

b) If that's not working well, get an engineer round to test signal strength. Apparently they can boost the signal at the hub at the end of your road if you're getting a low bandwidth problem.

I'll check for optimized settings. Can't be the bandwidth though, can it? With registered speed of 62mb, but more than that, the signal quality bar was pretty much flat, indicating no interference to the signal, which the engineer said was a better indicator

 

[Jammy]

Yeah, it doesn't sound likely if you're getting good signal strength. I'd do the optimal settings and see if it makes a difference. Check your HDMI connections, and also check that the TiVO box is set to output at a decent setting like 1080i. I don't think they do 1080p.