Gadgets & Gizmos

irgin Media has come up trumps with its team-up with time shifting pioneers Tivo. The partnership has resulted in a PVR that’s visually reminiscent of the first-genPlayStation3,with green and red buttons on the front, and an overhauled user interface that places personal recommendations at the top of the EPG screen, meaning you don’t need to scroll to find content that suits you.
On launch the 1TB box will have dual tuners, with the third activated via an upgrade. Unique to Virgin Media is the built-in 10Mbps modem, so you get fast streaming, even of  1080p without slowing down your internet connection.
Signup to Virgin’s XL package and you get 160channels, including 17HD ones. Add Sky Movies and Sky Sports at £14.50 each, and that’s 29 HD channels for about the same price as Sky’s 66-channel HD package. Hmm. You do also get 4,600 hours of on-demand content, and Film flex has 500 movies ready for download at £3.75pel’ film, including30 HD(£4.99)and five3D titles (from £5.49).
Where the Virgin service earns its not inconsiderable fees is with bonus features. For instance,the box presents you with shows it thinks you will like this is a nice feature, but we haven’t been granted enough lime with the box to lest its accuracy over time. It’s all slickly integrated: the excellent episode guides flow to actor bios, where you can record other shows with the same actor.
With all the on-demand and HD content and a killer interface, the Virgin/Tivo service is hard to beat.  All you need add is a good internet connection, we believe Virgin are keen to flog you one of those, too.