Virgin Media

Meanwhile over here, the NTL name will be going too shortly, in favour of UPC who have bought out NTL's Irish operation. Sadly it looks like things will be going the other direction in terms of improvements / disimprovements here...

The website looks interesting and fun to work with (move about etc) - looks very fun and exciting!

Yes it does doesn't it.

I don't like the new menu on the telly box though. Basically one menu for everything, Interactive, On Demand, Settings and Guide, not how I like it.

If they can dump the old fault-laden Liberate software (for those without, consider Sky's OpenTV software but with most of the eye candy stripped) and move to something more robust and expandable then they might be looking at a better thing.

You'd think that Richard would recognise just what type of **** he's lent his name to, what with having to leash together 3 seperate types of network and deal with what is so far the poor man's Freeview PVR.

I agree, from my experience, it's slow, buggy and very dated compared to OpenTV on my Sky box. I think they should switch to OpenTV, as well as it being an all round better system, many channels already have applications developed for it (such as BBCi and Teletext on ITV1), so they could easily be deployed on cable.

They would but that'd mean a lot of new boxes to cope with OpenTV and given how they deal with the current software it can only be a benefit.

I still think that there's so much to fix due to bad management, what about the new HD PVR? Doesn't it recieve MPEG2 still instead of MPEG4?

When is it likely that we get a nice glossy brochure? Its not long until Virgin Media's launch.

Lts of people over at Digital Spy are saying they have recieve the booklet, but also say it happened the same day they receievd the new look TV guide.

They plan to have all the boxes updated by June! So it could be anytime between now and June!

We got the booklet last week, and you even get a letter from Sir Richard himself!

You have to think that they have to upgrade all of the NTL and Telewest network, so it will take some time. If you take a look at the DS Forums only one area has been upgraded so far, and even then I think that's for TV Drive users.

Yes it does, no MPEG4 support at all, which will come to haunt them sooner or later. It will come to the point where Sky has a nice selection of HD channels, and Virgin won't have space to fit in any more. It's just plain simple cost cutting if you ask me.

As I said earlier, I really do think that they need to upgrade the boxes. Maybe it will cost a bit, but instead of putting up subscription costs, maybe there is some other way.

But when you see some of the problems with the STBs in this thread, it should be seen as an investment.

I'm still waiting on the software update (even though it takes away the ability to organise channels yourself which stinks), got the booklet and whilst nice I don't think their branding seems very "quadplay service provider".

The service will improve once they get the network working on one service and then start to reinvigorate the services they provide to make it able to actually be a threat to the Sky juggernaut. For now though, it's not much more than a lick of paint and a new name.