Why not a simple SD / SIM card on TV boxes?

[stevecleary]

I have just had to renew my V6 box and upgrade to 360 as a result of a DVR serious error on my box. Consequently, I have lost all my recordings and series links which were carefully built up over a long period. This is not the first time this has happened. Would it not be beyond possibility that instead of this, Virgin could enable recordings to be periodically backed up onto a simple SD / SIM Card to save this angst?

[TheCaddy]

Wouldn't be allowed due to this country's barmy copyright laws

[japitts]

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@stevecleary wrote:

I have just had to renew my V6 box and upgrade to 360 as a result of a DVR serious error on my box.

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V6 are fully supported for fault replacements, and - although I wouldn't be at all surprised if VM sales have told you otherwise - this is no basis for (what is) a voluntary conversion to TV360. There is no reason your V6 shouldn't have been replaced with V6.

That said, it's standard process for recordings to be lost with any box-swap. Recordings are intended for short-term timeshift viewing and not long-term archiving - there is no facility to copy recordings to alternative storage.

[asim18]

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@TheCaddy wrote:

Wouldn't be allowed due to this country's barmy copyright laws

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As far as I'm aware, you can record television for personal time-shift viewing from any service using any method if you have a TV Licence.

You can use a VCR, HDD Recorder, DVD recorder, whatever method you like really, you don't have to use VM's own hard disk. You can plug the output into any video recording device.

If recording wasn't allowed, VCRs would have been banned years ago.

Do I need a TV Licence? - TV Licensing ™
A TV Licence covers you to:

• Watch or record TV on any channel on any TV service (like Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview).
• Watch live on streaming services (like ITVX, All 4, YouTube and Amazon Prime Video).
• Use BBC iPlayer*

[asim18]

This is why I use a cheap DVB-S set top box. It's perfectly legal to own and use a DVB-S set top box which allows you to have completely raw access to the footage you have recorded.

The fact that VM locks down their recordings has nothing to do with your rights as an individual.

[japitts]

This has nothing to do with recording laws in the UK - you can easily copy to DVD or suchlike from a Freeview recorder.

The issue is VM is primarily a pay-TV provider, and TiVo/V6/TV360 boxes allow recording of channels carried on VM's network. Those boxes are not intended for long-term archiving, and whilst the vast majority of the time there's no restrictions on viewing, recordings can only ever be viewed on the box they were recorded on. There is a minor exception where legacy TiVo's are concerned, but those boxes are being actively retired.

[Roger_Gooner]

Recorded programmes are not regarded as so important that the likes of VM, Sky, EE, etc want the added cost and complexity of a backup and restore system. In any case there is often Catch Up available for major channels, not to mention the reruns which some love to hate.

[nodrogd]

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@asim18 wrote:

This is why I use a cheap DVB-S set top box. It's perfectly legal to own and use a DVB-S set top box which allows you to have completely raw access to the footage you have recorded.

The fact that VM locks down their recordings has nothing to do with your rights as an individual.

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Downscaling to SD is still tolerated by most content owners, but HD copying is seen as theft of content unless it is “locked down” on a PVR. I have a now very rare Freeview HD Blu-Ray recorder. I can record from the Freeview HD channels to its hard disk, & can then make one copy at broadcast HD quality onto a Blu-Ray disk. If I want to make any more copies I am forced to downscale the recording to SD.

[nodrogd]

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@stevecleary wrote:

Would it not be beyond possibility that instead of this, Virgin could enable recordings to be periodically backed up onto a simple SD / SIM Card to save this angst?

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It is against VMs rebroadcast agreements to allow recordings to be stored on any kind of removable media. Also TV use (including recordings) is restricted to the address the account is held.

[stevecleary]

A brief update.......the V6 box we had installed only a couple of days before to replace a previous box which had died with dreaded green screen itself was faulty. An engineer kindly replaced this second faulty box with a new one today and told me that from January 2025, Virgin is planning to roll out cloud storage for TV box recordings rather than on the HDD itself. Was he a) giving me bull, b) spinning a yarn or c) telling the truth? Answers on the back of a postcard, please......