Keeping a Tivo box

[Deleted User]

Jomo wrote: »

Well I wouldn't know about that, I've had a few discussions with Sky customers over their broken equipment!

I admit it gets old and can need replacing after a long time, but otherwise it's very reliable solid state equipment.
In addition, those who cancel Sky can continue to use their equipment to view Free-To-Air satellite broadcasts. Virgin customers who cancel are denied any viewing choices at all.

PJD

I am with Virgin - and thinking of leaving and going with EE... EE have just told me that I am allowed to keep the Tivo box and that they have other customers who have done just that without charge.

I won't be doing this myself, it clearly states that their will be a charge... - but it's interesting that they are telling customers this

gjchester

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Since decoders very rarely go wrong outside the 12 month warranty, I'd say this was a somewhat spurious "benefit".

The decoder side may not but Skyy+ and Tivo have hard disks running constantly that do fail.

PJD wrote: »

I am with Virgin - and thinking of leaving and going with EE... EE have just told me that I am allowed to keep the Tivo box and that they have other customers who have done just that without charge.

EE can tell you anything but its not their box to say about. However without cable service a VM Tivo is effectively useless other than to play back any existing recordings.

Cycrow

gjchester wrote: »

EE can tell you anything but its not their box to say about. However without cable service a VM Tivo is effectively useless other than to play back any existing recordings.

afaik, you cant even do that, the recordings are tied into your account, and you need an active connection to access them. When i had a problem with my connection once, i was unable to watch any of the recordings until it was fixed

Nilrem

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

I admit it gets old and can need replacing after a long time, but otherwise it's very reliable solid state equipment.
In addition, those who cancel Sky can continue to use their equipment to view Free-To-Air satellite broadcasts. Virgin customers who cancel are denied any viewing choices at all.

The decoding hardware is.
The harddrive inside is anything but.

Guess which part tends to fail most in PVR's and PC's...

Also the boxes can fail due to things like overheating

Personally I quite like not having to pay out for Sky/rely on talking them into giving me a "goodwill" gesture when one of the boxes fails, especially as pretty much every time I've had to have VM out it's been next working day/second working day at most.


PJD, the EE rep you talked to obviously didn't have a clue
As has been said the equipment is always VM's and anything recorded onto the drive will be encrypted and require an active VM viewing card that is correctly paired with the box, and both the box and card to be authorised on the cable network to watch (the same thing happens to Sky+ content on their boxes, the use of the PVR features is linked to the active card).

gjchester

Cycrow wrote: »

When i had a problem with my connection once, i was unable to watch any of the recordings until it was fixed

Nilrem wrote: »

As has been said the equipment is always VM's and anything recorded onto the drive will be encrypted and require an active VM viewing card that is correctly paired with the box,.

Thought it would need a viewing card, didn't know the files were recorded as the encrypted streams rather than actual useable files on the drive but it sense as Sky do the same. Didn;t know it won't work it it can't see VM server too...

Have a Thanks each...