Relocating V6 Box In The House

[Poddys]

This is a bit of an unusual question but I'm sure we are not alone in this situation.

When our Virgin service was installed, we had our TV connection (now using a V6 box) in the front room, but the Router and phone were cabled to be at the back of the house, so 2 different locations for the cabling.

Due to a change in circumstances (elderly Mother-In-Law coming to live with us), we have had an extension built at the back of the house, so will be watching TV there instead.

My original thought was to get Virgin to cable to the back of the house so we could move the V6 box to there and I'm thinking that's still probably the best plan.

However, seeing there is now a 360 tv system I'm wondering if that might be an alternative, although I guess it would come at a price. Eventually we would want a TV in both rooms, however MIL might live for another 5 years and technology is constantly changing, so planning now for a future date seems in some ways pointless.

Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts and appreciate any positive suggestions.

[japitts · Accepted solution]

First the easy one - relocating any VM connection points can be done, you'll need a non-fault tech callout to make changes to your cabling or connections - this is a flat £25 and can be arranged either by calling in (on the usual number) or waiting here for staff to pickup.

360 - that's a whole can of worms, and I strongly advise you to do research into it. It's completely different to TiVo and is not TiVo. Opinions on 360 widely differ, but it is substantially different to the TiVo-software that powers your V6 - and once you've asked to convert, there is no going back. There are literally dozens of threads on the differences, but one notable one that's worth a read is here 

One difference worth highlighting, since you're talking about multiroom, is that for as long as you remain on the TiVo/V6 platform, multiroom boxes are fully functional with their own hard drives - which you can stream between too. Once you migrate to 360, any additional multiroom installs will be miniboxes that don't have hard drives and rely on the master box for all recordings. This is one reason alone, that if you are even half-considering multiroom - stay with V6 for now. If you do decide to convert to 360 later on, it's a simple software drop.

[Poddys]

Thanks very much, that's very helpful.

I think for now I'm going to stick with a single room system and then rethink when the time comes, which could well be 5 years time.

Incidentally, when I was living in Florida 13 years ago, I rented a room in a condo and they had a main box with TVR hard drive and a separate box for each tv. So, you could set a program to record and then watch it on any of the tv's.

Sounds very similar to 360, but I don't really want to take that plunge at the moment, especially as our contract is up for renewal in a few months.

[Carley_S]

Hi @Poddys

Thanks for getting in touch. 

The 360 software is still relatively new so there is still a long way to go to improve the software and add on more features to improve the overall user experience. If you have any further questions or queries then please don't hesitate to get back in touch. 

Thank you @japitts, for taking the time to reply. 

All the best,

[Poddys]

Thanks Carley.

[Robert_P]

You're welcome Poddys, don;t hesitate to get back in touch if you need us further 🙂

Have a great weekend.

Rob

[Poddys]

Thank you.

I do have just one question and I think I know the answer already.

When you connect the V6 box up to the internet, that's just for Internet services (iPlayer, Apps etc) I assume?

So if I want to move the box to another room and watch "regular tv" I would need to get Virgin to run tv cable run to that room?

Thanks

[japitts]

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@Poddys wrote:

When you connect the V6 box up to the internet, that's just for Internet services (iPlayer, Apps etc) I assumeSo if I want to move the box to another room and watch "regular tv" I would need to get Virgin to run tv cable run to that room?

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Indeed so.

Your V6 needs two connections..

1: The co-ax cable carries broadcast TV channels, and without it the box won't bootup and you won't get live TV.

2: The internet is used for OnDemand, streaming & various updates. Without it, OnDemand won't work and your TV Guide won't receive any updates - which will cause issues with recordings within a week or so.

[Poddys]

Ah exactly as I thought, thanks very much for confirming and so quickly too.

Cheers.

[Carley_S]

Hi @Poddys

Looks like @japitts has fully answered your questions again. Let us know if you need anything else :). 

@japitts Thanks again for helping!