Review: Samsung Virgin+HD

V for victory, or the Sky's still the limit?

About a month ago I took receipt of a Samsung Virgin+ digibox*, lured by Virgin Media's recent acquisition of six HD channels and its cheap subscription fees compared to Sky's (admittedly superior) HD lineup. Anyway, I'm delighted with the V+ box -- one of the latest Samsung models, which looks a lot sexier than its Sky+ competitor...

While I've never owned Sky+, I've used one countless times, so I can compare the two viewing experiences quite accurately from a general user's perspective... and Virgin undoubtedly have the superior kit. Here's a quick rundown of what I prefer about V+ over Sky+:

Aesthetics. The Sky+HD boxes aren't ugly, but Samsung's V+ box looks snazzier. It's slim and curvy with a glossy black finish, luminous blue LED's, a neat display that tells you when broadcasts are "HDTV" or "Live TV", and red lights that come on when it's recording. I always hated Sky+ and its distracting dial pulsing away, so V+ is a lot more discrete. In other terms: Sky+ reminds me of a chunky XBOX, but V+ reminds me of a sleek Sony Blu-ray player.

Personal Video Recorder. The V+ is the superior PVR, really. You can record TWO programmes at the SAME TIME, all while watching ANOTHER channel (which you can still pause and rewind, etc.) That's because V+ has THREE TV tuners, besting Sky's two. Fantastic! I also find the system more intuitive to use than the Sky+ platform, with clearer displays and more options for keeping your recordings in neat order. Also, I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember Sky+ being able to "bookmark" where you stopped watching a recording and allowing you to jump right back where you left off. Can anyone confirm/deny?

Responsiveness. The V+ box is very reactive. I'm not sure if it's faster than Sky+ necessarily (although it needs to be, because VM have more to explore in its menus), but it certainly beats the sluggish VM boxes I've had in the past. Virgin have a lot of on-demand content, so you really feel the benefit of being able to call-up its content quickly and have it streamed to you over their cable network. I used to be put off using the BBC iPlayer and 4-OD with great regularity, because it could be a pain waiting for menus and I'd often get "service unavailable" messages, but that hasn't happened with V+.

Picture. Image quality from the standard-definition channels definitely improves with V+. In fact, while watching Dragons' Den on BBC2, the difference between its high-def simulcast on BBC HD wasn't that noticeable. There IS a difference, sure, but the V+ box does a great job of upgrading the SD signal so that it's not as obvious as you'd expect. The signal obviously benefits from being sent to your TV via HDMI. Impressive.

Sound. The Samsung V+ box connects to your TV via HDMI and has an optical link for delivering Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound where available (cable not supplied). It's worth mentioning that Samsung's box has retired the red/white phono sockets, so you may need to upgrade your speaker system if you don't have modern HDMI/optical ports. Unless you're happy with the sound your TV's inbuilt speakers give you and connect with SCART or HDMI. Interestingly, Sky+HD can't send DD5.1 signals sound through its HDMI leads, but V+ can! Something for audiophiles to consider, perhaps.

High Definition. 1080i HD is still where VM fall down, purely because they don't have as much content as Sky. At time of writing, VM have six HD channels (BBC HD, Channel 4 HD, ESPN HD, National Geographic HD, FX HD, MTVN HD) and Living HD is coming soon. Hopefully more will follow, but it's hard to see VM rivaling Sky's content anytime soon, because Sky have homegrown channels they're unlikely to let VM carry. Thus, Sky HD won't be available any time soon, if ever. A particular shame if you're a fan of Lost, House, 24 and other Sky exclusives.

But, who knows, maybe Virgin will make Sky an offer they can't refuse one day..? We can hope. That said, if Virgin secure every non-Sky affiliated HD channel by this time next year, it could STILL be the preferable platform for people in a cable-ready area. It's also worth mentioning that VM have additional HD TV shows and movies tucked away on-demand, so the situation isn't quite as barren as it appears on the surface.

Electronic Programme Guide. I haven't used the new EPG that Sky are rolling out to HD subscribers, so I'm not going to compare the two. I'll just say that the 7-day V+ EPG is a more responsive version of the regular EPG, with some tweaks to improve it. A clock symbol now appears when you set a programme "reminder", and a show's listing turns red when it's set to be recorded. Small things, but very helpful. The general responsiveness of the system is very user-friendly, and there are plenty of options and menus to explore.

Price. The advertised cost of a V+ installation is £99, although I discovered that to be misleading. It's only £99 if you KEEP your existing digibox and pay £10 per month for the privilege. If you'd rather not do that, a V+ installation actually costs £150. And that is ridiculous, considering you're just renting the box and, technically, you're just paying for an "installation charge" that takes 20 minutes. There's no satellite dish to screw in or replace, is there? Sheesh.

In comparison, a Sky+ box costs a paltry £49 (you OWN it, too) with a £30 installation fee. However, it's worth remembering that Sky have a £15 p/month charge for their HD content (on top of your regular subscription), whereas HD content is free to V+ subscribers on the XL package and just £5 p/month if not.

For me (as someone who has phone/broadband/TV with VM), upgrading to XL only costs £9 more each month -- so the £150 initial outlay will soon pay pale into nothing as I only pay VM £39 per month. And, while I don't OWN my V+ box in the conventional sense, the bright side is that any repairs are free of charge. Overall, I guess price is something you need to investigate yourself to see if VM or Sky offer the best deal for what you want.

Remote Control. The controls supplied by Sky+ and V+ both have their pro's and con's. I narrowly prefer V+ overall, mainly because its PVR controls are out of the way at the top, so you're less likely to accidentally pause and rewind live TV -- or maybe that's a "problem" specific to my clumsy fingers? The buttons also have definite "clicks" when you press then, which I liked. You can also repeat the last few seconds of a V+ recording at the touch of a button, which is a neat feature. It beats having to grapple with rewind and play when something catches your eye and demands a replay. The Sky+ remote has nicer buttons to touch, I guess, but both are ergonomic and work well..

Nitpicks. I dare say Sky+ has its quirks and bugbears, but I haven't used it enough to notice them. Anyone care to dish? I will however call attention to a few, tiny things that bug me about V+:

Firstly, for about four days, my Samsung V+ box appeared to hum even after I turned it off. I'm not sure if it was a cooling fan, or if the box was "online" and updating itself, but it was never totally silent when I turned it "off". Then it fell silent for a few days, but now the hum is back intermittently. Can anyone shed any light on this foible? Initially, I thought the box was recording something I'd "series linked", or I'd accidentally put it in standby mode, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Anyway, the important thing is that it's sorted itself out.

Secondly, the V+ EPG doesn't tell you if something is broadcast in DD5.1 when you hit the "information" button, which is a shame. I'd quite like to know.

Thirdly, this doesn't affect me very much, but I know some people think the hard-drive in their V+ box ought to be bigger. My Samsung has a 160GB capacity, which is apparently enough to store 20 hours of HD content (40 hours of SD?) That's more than adequate for what I use it for, but maybe heavier users will fill their drives up much quicker. To those people, I suggest using VM's on-demand service more -- as it essentially eliminates the need to EVER record BBC and Channel 4 content. Unless you're the kind of person who records things and won't watch them until over a month later, or likes to keep things for months and months. But I still think VM's on-demand service negates extensive use of the V+ PVR functions, compared to how people commonly use Sky+.

Finally, it would have been nice to have been given an instruction manual for my V+ box. Maybe my engineer forgot to leave me one (I did get a 3-minute tutorial from him), but I'm sure customers who are less technically-minded would appreciate being able to thumb through a manual at their leisure afterwards. And it's just nice to have a manual to hand should you encounter problems.

Overall. As you can no doubt tell, I think V+ spanks Sky+ in most respects. Sky undoubtedly set the bar very high and blazed a trail for PVR's in the UK, but VM have clearly been watching very closely and have bettered their product. I'm sure Sky will counter with an improved Sky+ box sometime in the future, but for now V+ have the superior product.

If V+ could compete with the amount of HD content Sky have (and perhaps include a bigger hard-drive), it would be totally unbeatable. It's just as fast, easier to use, looks better, records more, has better sound options, access to extensive on-demand content (particularly on the XL package), and is financially the preferable option. For me, anyway. For those reasons, I'd recommend V+ over Sky+HD any day of the week if BOTH are available to you.... unless you place more stock in how many linear HD channels are carried.


* One thing to remember is that you're not guaranteed what V+ box you'll be given by VM. You're not buying their digibox outright, you're just paying for its installation, so the VM engineers could turn up with older kit you'll have to accept. I was lucky enough to get the very latest Samsung V+ model -- but it's pot luck!