Virgin Media Community

[Sage1962]

Old virgin box won’t update, I don’t have a tv package but they told me it was still usable as a service ie. channels 1 .2.3 etc

[LittleMick73]

Hi if you don't have a TV package and are not paying for one then how do you expect to receive TV images. Regards Micky

[japitts]

You need an active Virgin Media subscription to use VM-TV.

All active subscriptions will have one of the boxes shown on this page - do you have one of these, if so which one?

[Roger_Gooner]

A box which is not activated cannot decrypt content, so is only able to show free-to-air channels such as BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

[vircom · Accepted solution]

Which old box have you got? I don’t know about current policy, but in the past people who cancelled TV were sometimes left with the box just providing free to air channels, in the hope that they would re-subscribe in the future. However if the box failed or became obsolete, I do not believe that it would be repaired or replaced. You will need to connect a TV aerial or take out a new Virgin TV subscription, which would come with a replacement box of some sort, depending on what service you ordered. If it is a Tivo, V6 or 360 box, you should ask Virgin if they want it back, as all equipment remains their property, in theory they could ask you to return an older box, but I think that is unlikely.

[nodrogd]

Whichever box you have there is now an automated “callback” set up where the box checks for an active subscription. Without this the boxes hang in the boot sequence. 
I would also point out that since all BBC1 & ITV1 regions have gone HD only on Virgin that only Channel 4 & Channel 5 SD now remain unencrypted. So even if the box did boot, you would only have 2 channels to view.

[Dominatez]

And this is why Sky is the way to go. You get literally about 100 channels free to watch without a subscription.
And all HD channels like BBC1 and ITV etc.

[Sage1962]

Virgin engineer came out said to my daughter with same problem, that you can’t use the box as a free service ie,channel 1 2,3 etc my thoughts are how the hell does she watch the videos she has purchased through there service 🙄

[japitts]

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@Sage1962 wrote:

how the hell does she watch the videos she has purchased through there service 🙄

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What videos are these? All content served over VM's paid-service needs an active subscription to view.

I think the previous post re Sky being free, may be thinking of Freesat.

[Sage1962]

so if you don’t want to pay for a tv package but you have bought films 🎥 through there service but still have there broadband package,how without paying does one access the films one has bought.?