Presumably their licenses preclude streaming to PC because the only reason anyone would do that is to pirate the shows.

Yes, I think that's their motivation. They allow web streaming of broadcast TV and standard catch-up to a PC in line with what channels your package includes, presumably because they can slap a third party DRM/player onto that process and don't have to code it themselves. They allow the same to phones and tablets, unless their software 'detects' that the OS has been rooted or modded. This is shit and doesn't work properly so that dozens of perfectly un-modded and un-rooted phones are disallowed. Virgin won't address this fault.

They do allow streaming of recordings from the Tivo V6 to phones and other mobile devices and there doesn't seem to be any checking on whether the phone is modded or not. My phone streams recordings but not broadcast TV.

Streaming to mobile devices is reputedly buggy and hit & miss as to whether it works. Virgin won't address this fault.

You are allowed a maximum of two devices (PC, Mac, mobile). Once these are registered, you are only allowed to make one change of registration in any calendar month. This process is buggy. Registrations fail because devices are not properly detected and you are left with a month's wait to try and troubleshoot because your 'choices' are locked. Devices that work fine for ages suddenly stop working for no obvious reason and are reported as unregistered. You can go to make a change and be told that you've made the maximum number already when you've done nothing. Virgin won't address these faults.

The reason for this lack of urgency is the fatuous argument that fixes are 'low priority' because the streaming service is 'free'. This is, of course, rubbish. Avoiding chip-shop related metaphors, it's a bit like a car manufacturer touting a high performance radio/cd/usb/bluetooth entertainment centre as standard and then refusing to fix the numerous faulty ones because they're 'free'. 

I'm told there are problems with the Sky Q offering as well. My conclusion is that both of these companies have their thinking stuck a good ten years behind the technology and spending strategies some twenty years behind that.

 

Incidentally, apart from a long-overdue upgrade to the Tivo box components, the V6 owes many of its improvements in speed to a revised internet strategy. With the old Tivo boxes, as Graphitone said, you could add an ethernet cable, assign an IP address and... nothing. What you had was an invisible box on your LAN and a second IP address on the Virgin Network that continued to do all the work for the box.

With the V6, it's goodbye to the reserved bandwidth on the Virgin Network. Your Tivo only has an IP address on YOUR LAN. All box commands, updates, patches, Netflix, catch-up, iPlayer, ITV Hub, etc. etc. etc. go through YOUR network bandwidth. So if you log on and stream Netflix in 4K, it's your own connection that takes the 7GB/hour hit (3GB for HD, 750MB for SD).

And the V6 is still invisible on the network.

Are you calling me a gypsey pirate?

 

Hmm, not sure. Do you have a bear? And can you count past 6?

I'd like to throw a chip shop analogy in.

It's like you've gone to a chip shop and ordered a special. They take time providing you with a decently cooked, good sized fish and they're about to wrap it up. They ask you if you want salt and vinegar on it. You think 'aye, I'll have a bit of that', you up end the salt cellar and give it a shake. A measly few grains pour out of the grease encrusted top. You suggest that perhaps a cocktail stick inserted in and out of the holes will improve matters. The stout chip shop person shakes their head and saying, 'ah, it'll be reet, I'm not gonna fix it now because there's some salt coming out and the fryer's getting close to overheating so I'm going to go and deal with that'.

To save time you sellotape two open salt sachets to the vinegar bottle and upend the whole lot over your tea. However the salt spills over the counter and the vinegar ends up splattering over your jeans.


I'm having trouble thinking of a chip analogy for streaming. :C

 

Hmm

But it's more like the shop sites itself next to "Jo Smith's Chip Shop" and calls itself "Harry Smith's Chip Shop with its famous range of Sauces and Exotic Vinegars" and then fails to provide any of the Sauces & Vinegars and its chips are the same price as at Jo's and taste no better.

No Virgins where but my parents and sister have it. I hate using the Virgin TV box. It's way too slow.

we've resisted changing ours for ages because it was one of the last pre-Tivo "good" ones in that it's just OK. Before that, mainly disasters, after that, heard bad things. Now we have to have it swapped apparently, and it's a mystery if we're getting the shitbox they say they're improving in software or the fancy new one that is more or less how they should be.

I'd actually ask, but we have a complicated relationship where they say "hang on, you're not an employee anymore" (my wife was, ten years ago) and want to take away our discount and then we say OK then and they somehow fail to do it and we go back to normal. But we have to go through this staff-only number and it's a mighty faff. Worth it, obv.