I upgraded to a Virgin
Media V+ service three months ago. Although I have had some
initial teething
problems, I am pretty satisfied with
the V+ service.
The V+ box is a personal video recorder (PVR) similar to the
Sky Plus
service. The V+ box contains a 160GB hard drive which can store 80 hours
of recorded TV programs.
Recording a TV program is very easy. You simply navigate through the 7
day TV guide, select the desired TV program and hit 'Record'. You get
the option to either record the individual broadcast or the series (if
appropriate).
This is much preferable to finding an old video tape, wondering what is
on it and inadvertently erasing 4 hours of Olympic Gymnastics from
Sydney 2000. The whole operation is so easy, the rest of my family have
mastered it and my only problem now is educating them to erase programs
once viewed. Although the V+ box does have an option to automatically
purge the oldest recordings.
You can pause and rewind live TV too. This is especially useful for
'Have I Got News For You' which requires ones full attention to
appreciate all the one-liners and rapid fire jokes. So, if the wife
wants to discuss GCSE options for next year or the mother-in-law calls,
you can simply pause the program, make a cup of tea and resume when the
coast is clear.
I once suspended a football match for 75 minutes and I assume the
duration of 'Delay TV' is only constrained by the amount of free disk
space. The football match was a excellent example of the benefits of V+.
In the olden days, I would have to record the game on a tape, then wait
until the game had finished before discovering, to my horror, the tape
ended abruptly mid-way through the second half. With 'Delay TV', I was
able to resume watching the game (exactly where I left it) while the
actual match was still in progress.
You can rewind and forward at varying speeds (2, 6, 12 and 32) which
makes finding the crucial moment much quicker than tape technology.
The other great feature of the V+ box is that you can watch one program
while simultaneously recording two other channels. You get a warning if
you try to record three overlapping programs. This feature essentially
completely negates the need for the VCR for recording purposes, at
least.
Another useful feature is that if you watch a recorded program, you get
the option to resume viewing from where you left the program which saves
you having to waste time, fast-forwarding to the correct place.
Tapes do have only minor advantage though. You can play them back in any
TV with a VCR while V+ programs can only be played back on the V+ box.
This sounds obvious but my children did once ask 'Why can't I watch the
recorded program on the little telly ?' And when the program in question
is 'Big Brother' or 'Breast Reductions Gone Badly Wrong', they do indeed
have a valid point.
I also assumed the V+ box was intelligent enough to decode signals to
indicate the start and end of a program to cater for the World Snooker
Final overrunning by 3 hours. However, on one occasion, I swear
'Jonathan Ross' was replaced by, err, 60 minutes of World Championship
Snooker.
Overall, the introduction of the V+ box has changed the way I view TV. I
tend to select programs I really want to watch, hit 'Record' and forget
about it. Then, instead of mindlessly channel flicking, I simply scan
the library of recorded programs.
I can't comment on the High Definition service as I don't have it nor
have I ever transferred recordings from the V+ box to DVD which is also
possible.
More info on V+: