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Virgin Tweets a sorry for TiVo series link snafu

DVR = Don't Video Repeatedly?

Virgin Media left serial linkers hanging this weekend after a glitch centred on its highly promoted TiVo-based DVR borked the box's ability to auto-record entire series of programmes.

The bug struck on Saturday, but by yesterday evening a workaround had been devised by users posting on Virgin's forum.

Not that forcing the box to perform a network update solves the problem for everyone. That said, some of the folk in this particular basket may not have left the box for the requisite hour while it processes all the EPG data.

Either way, punters seem more put out by what many of them perceive as a high-handed approach from Virgin than by the bug itself.

"Can I say that I to am disgusted by the attitude of Virgin Media. No apology, no status change, no message to my Tivo," said one, whose sentiments are typical.

"Absolute shambles!" said another.

Virgin has now apologised for the snafu, a minute or so ago, on Twitter: "Woohoo! Really sorry for the interruption." ®

I refuse to enoble a simple forum post!

gonna go against the flow here BUT

I had Virgin cable (and NTL before that) I also used the Virgin BB service (and NTL before that) and I never really had any problems with them. I had the Virgin HD box and it all worked as advertised, I found their service to be fine. If I needed engineers they turned up on the day and at the tiem specified... really can't fault them. Sorry.

I only got shot of them when I decided I had better things to do with £60 a month when I was barely at home to watch TV and Orange offered me BB for nothing as aprt of my mobey package (can't fault them either TBH)

Anywho...

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If you think things will be any better for you with Sky...

...think again. Having been with Sky for 5 years now, I'd dump them in an instant if there was an alternative source for all the channels we watch regularly. It's not so much that we watch a lot of different channels, more that the selection we do watch only seems to be available via Sky, and only then if you buy practically every channel bundle on offer.

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Woohoo indeed.

Hmm, sounds like a typically-Virgin response to genuine concerns. They're all about their trendy informal branding nowadays.

The TiVo thing looked interesting until I realised it was inexplicably tied to Virgin Media. Could I buy the TiVo box seperately and hook it up to Freeview or Sky if I no longer wanted my Virgin subscription? Er... no. OK, so having bought the box surely I wouldn't need to pay more of a subscription charge to Virgin? Er... no again.

As I'm already stuck with them for 12 months after getting a HD box upgrade without realising that tied me into another 12 month contract with them (I double-checked afterwards, and there was no mention of a new contract from the pages I signed up from) I can't see myself ever signing up for this sort of thing from them.

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@ If you think things will be any better for you with Sky... → #

I just took up the TV package, the phone is BT (who are another shambolic bunch to be fair) and ISP PlusNet (who have been truly fantastic).

TV outages are likely to be something physical with the dish, rather than trying to figure out if something is up with the underground cable network or if someone cut through the cable at the end of the street, and Skys main customer service centre is based in Livingston.

Their boxes, even from the SkyDigital era, were always way ahead of Virgin Media, who still have a lot of customers using downgraded OnDigital Pace set top boxes.

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You Don't Buy The Box

You only rent the box from VM so when your contract expires, it goes back to them

Also all failures are repaired free unlike borken Sky boxes

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