Tivo to return to UK in 2010
Virgin Media tie-in
Virgin Media has announced impending plans to deliver Tivo to UK homes.
Tivo, the original PVR service, will provide “middleware and user interface software” for co-branded Virgin Media next-generation set-top boxes due to arrive in Blighty at some point next year.
Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media, said: “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.”
Little has been said about how Tivo will operate on Virgin Media’s STBs in the UK. Presumably, UK Tivo will feel and function much like it already does in North America, where customers can, for example, automatically record an entire series of Lost and search for shows by actors.
Google already displays a link to the “Tivo UK Official Homepage”, though the site isn’t currently active.
In related news, Google has inked a deal with Tivo to let the search engine snoop on audience numbers as a way of fuelling its TV advertising business.
Tivo first came to the UK in 2000 on the back of a partnership with Sky and set-top box maker Thomson. Sales were suspended in January 2003, and there has been no official Tivo offering here since then. ®
COMMENTS
Woohoo! Shit!
Awesome, my TiVo series 1 is still going strong but it could really do with HD support and twin tuners.
But what a pisser that the new TiVo is going to be tied to Virgin's crappy cable service which I can't get.
Let's hope TiVo tie up with a Freeview box manufacturer and put their awesome software in a useful box.
Good News
This is indeed good news.
TiVo was, is and will almost always be the leader in terms of interface and function.
Having moved to Virgin away from TiVo+Sky... I still hate the clunky, messy and confusing Virgin interface.
Happy days.
Sigh
It's a shame that Virgin Media's picture quality is so low compared to Sky's platform, otherwise this would be tempting.
What I do find ironic is New Corp moaning about the BBC on one hand, but then locking up their platform on the other. Why can't we have anyone make set-top-boxes for Sky? That way there would be choice (i.e. could buy whatever box one wishes and not limited to what 'Sky engineer' has on his van) and we could see some variation (i.e. three tuners, 576i output for SD channels, Tivo interface, etc.).
Very, VERY
glad to hear this. I had hoped TiVo would do a DVB-T version but, since I can actually get Virgin, I'll look forward to this instead. I'm hoping too that the TiVo box will mean that Virgin will be moving to MPEG4 compression at the same time opening up the possibility of a lot more HD channels too.
Amazing
This is about 10 kinds of awesome. Or maybe 12. I haven't decided yet.
