January 11, 2010

New Virgin Media HD STB arriving Jan 2010


According to this thread on Cable Forum, Virgin are introducing a new, non-recording HD set top box this month.
Later this month VM will be releasing a new HD standard stb. This box is aimed at customers who would like HD viewing but do not require the recording options offered by the V+.
Initially it will be released on a trial basis accross the country.
They will be using the Cisco 4585
Virgin staff in the thread have confirmed its imminent arrival. More pictures in this post.
Not something the Nialli household will be getting too excited about. However, it would be nice if those of us with the original V+ SA boxes could upgrade to the whizzy Samsung V+ for a nominal fee - the sluggish response to the remote causes much teeth-gnashing on the sofa now that we've seen someone's Samsung in action. How about it, Virgin?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

It's too bad the industrial design on STBs is always so utterly abysmal. My old V+ sits next to an Apple TV. It's like sitting a Ferrari next to a combine harvester.

lee said...

I guess it could be useful to those of us who might want a second V+, but already have a PVR too.

Do you know what I REALLY miss, not really applicable to the V+ with HDD, but certainly to this new box, and the existing non-HD set-top box - on the old analog Virgin service, there was a setting you could use that would determine when your box would turn on and off, so that you could have it turn on automatically at some point so that an external device could record something. I miss it so.

Luke Valentine said...

I've often thought about ringing virgin and trying to get a newer V+ box out of them, this original I've had for nearly 2 years, and aside from the sluggish response and tendancy to change channel at random, it makes a sound like the harvester tvsersity mentioned. Has anyone ever tried to haggle a new box?

BikeNutt said...

Man that is ugly. It looks like an alarm clock I had nearly 30 years ago.

LewishamLovely said...

why can't virgin get any sleek, modern looking boxes? what an eyesore.
rather than doing this, couldn't they have released a HD box that would allow people to access the memory of their existing V+ box in another room? surely that would be more forward thinking than this sideways step. being able to stream your recorded shows to another room would be a killer.

Meakin said...

Luke - I managed to get a new samsung V+ box by complaining that the old SA box was too noisy (partly caused by the hard drive about to fail. The engineer that turned up said the only way to make it quiter was to replace it with a samsung box.

Luke Valentine said...

Thanks Meakin, probably worth a call to them. It's so slow aswell, went to my folks who have sky and the difference in speed is huge!

BikeNutt said...

I must be lucky as my SA V+ really isn't that slow at channel changes etc. I've had 3 since Telewest launched the TVDrive back in early 2006. My parents have the Samsung V+ and it is quicker but only marginally.

Personally, I think the SA box gives sharper SD pictures too.

The Samsung does appear to quieter though.