Something interesting...

[FliesOpen]

Talking to a VM engineer, he told me something very interesting. The TiVo software and EPG are not supplied by VM, but the boxes call back to TiVo themselves. Which suggests there is still an IP address to go to for data.

I wonder if they are switching off the phone line, but not the network...

[LarryDavidJr]

If that's the case then that stinks even more!!

[FliesOpen]

Not necessarily. What if our boxes could call the same mothership...?

[LarryDavidJr]

That's what I'm saying, if the EPG data is still being hosted by them its a pretty shitty move to turn off the S1!!

[healeydave]

Tivo are always going to want to be in control of the EPG system I think, so they can gather all the statistics if nothing else.

I never suspected this wouldn't be the case to be honest, but I hadn't really thought about how much worse this looks from the service shutdown point of view.

Your right though, it compounds the issue that they didn't really need to shut off the S1's, they just did it to keep VM happy and if it forces some people's hand to go VM its an added bonus

[Velocitysurfer]

Not necessarily. What if our boxes could call the same mothership...?

Iirc the mothership checks your TiVo serial number and only sends the data if you have a valid subscription.

I assume that TiVo will change their database to disallow our S1s, but obviously there are ways to fool the mothership.

Does anyone know if the virgin data is the same format as ours?

[spitfires]

Hmm interesting... we need someone with a VMTivo and a sniffer box!

[Countryman]

Just digressing slightly, I took a peek at the blog comments over on TiVo Inc. The latest from a US customer who thinks TiVo's attitude (a) sucks (b) is going to sell his own TiVo in disgust and (c) tell everyone in the US that he can what a lousy company TiVo is over what they have done to us!

And they don't seem to be moderating the comments at the moment !!!

[healeydave]

Nice support though, this is what I was trying to elude to when I said this could end up being bad publicity for Tivo for no real benefit.

As I have already stated, cutting off the UK Series 1 will not bring a hoard of numbers to the VM box, the majority of S1 users who haven't already taken up a VM box is because they are not able to or have no intention to irrespective of these actions!

...and you could forgive the guy's in the US thinking if Tivo can do this here whats stopping them doing something similar in the states in the future??

If you get a chance, it might be worth adding comments thanking the US guy's for their support and re-iterating these sentiments

[maxwells_daemon]

I suspect (and seem to remember seeing somewhere) that TiVo have updated their database formats (and probably update protocols) since the S1. So, even if they allowed us in, the S1 couldn't get updates from the new servers. (My guess was that switching off the old service will save them more from not having to support the old system than from having to keep modems running.)

Hmm interesting... we need someone with a VMTivo and a sniffer box!

That would be very interesting, but the VMTiVo connects over the cable, which is not nearly as accessible as a phone or network. If one could gain root access to the box, then one could peek at the network I/O, but no one's done that - even for the US S4s (last time I checked).

[Tcm2007]

The EPG VM are paying for will only have VM channels in it.

If the S1s could easily piggyback the VM data, why would they not just do that?