Virgin TiVo

Virgin Media have announced plans to partner with TiVo, the PVR market leader in the US. TiVo actually launched in the UK back in 2000 (partnering Thomson Multimedia and Sky), but their boxes never really took off with the British public. It was left to Sky to push the idea of PVR's into British homes alone, via Sky+ in 2001, which people were far more willing to upgrade to. Virgin Media followed Sky's lead a few years later with V+ (formerly TVDrive). But now Virgin are teaming up with TiVo, as outlined by this press release:

It's exciting news for VM subscribers in the UK, mainly because TiVo have better PVR technology and capabilities. However, VM are obliged to keep using their current TV Navigator EPG until at least 2011 on all existing receivers. It's likely that the first true Virgin/TiVo PVR will be a new model you'll have to buy, so don't expect a free upgrade. Having just bought a V+ PVR this summer, I'm not sure I'll be willing to shellout another few hundred quid so soon.

While I'm not enough of a technophile to be able to compare TiVo to Sky+ or V+ in any detail (let alone BT Vision's broadband-based system), my layman understanding is that TiVo has a lot more options in terms of searching, recording, storing and series-linking. Basically, remember when you first heard about PVRs and people would say you can do things like set your box to record everything starring your favourite actor? That never came about in the end, but it should become reality if TiVo put their technology inside Virgin-branded PVRs. Setting your recordings via the internet, searching for TV shows by keyword, and having the PVR record recommendations based on what it knows you like? That all might happen, too. Basically, everything you imagined Sky+ and V+ would be in the first place!

Is anyone in the UK excited by this news? Any Sky subscribers thinking TiVo is enough to make them defect to Virgin? Are there any US TiVo owners willing to sing its praises, or is TiVo perhaps overrated? Has anyone ever used all three PVRs? If so, how do they compare? And how will Sky counter this VM/TiVo partnership? I'm guessing they'll invest in improving their own Sky+ box by copying some of TiVo's features, so could they get the jump on Virgin by launching an improved PVR before 2011?