Virgin Media and Easeltv Extend Collaboration

Posted on Friday, September 30, 2011 by MegaZone

Virgin Media TiVo Virgin Media and Easeltv are extending their collaboration over the Virgin Media TiVo platform in the UK. Easeltv has developed the core framework Virgin Media uses to create apps for the UK TiVo. The framework has already been used in apps for the latest Harry Potter film, the V Festival, and Virgin Shorts. Virgin and Easeltv will bring additional apps to the platform together.

Via Broadcast Engineering.

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Virgin Media Drops TiVo Costs By £50

Posted on Friday, September 30, 2011 by MegaZone

Virgin Media TiVo Virgin Media is ramping up their efforts to grow their TiVo user base with a price cut. Activation fees for the first TiVo on the account had been £49.95 for the 500GB model and £99.95 for the 1TB model, they’re now free and £49.95, respectively. If you’re a new Virgin Media customer and you order online you get free installation. Existing customers looking to get a TiVo pay a £49.95 installation fee.

If you order additional units at the same time they remain at the £49.95/£99.95 activation pricing. There is a £3 per month TiVo charge on each account, and additional boxes add £6.50 a month on most service plans.

Virgin is further pushing TiVo by removing online availability of the previous generation V+ HD box. The older DVR is no longer available from Virgin Media’s website.

Via The Virgin Media TiVo Blog.

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Virgin Media’s TiVo Marketing

Posted on Friday, September 30, 2011 by MegaZone

Virgin Media TiVo Virgin Media today (re)posted several of their TiVo videos to YouTube, and I watched them again. It got me thinking about how well Virgin seems to be marketing TiVo in the UK, and how it contrasts with the marketing of TiVo here in the US. TiVo has rarely run television advertisements. Years ago they ran infomercials in the middle of the night. TiVo has a number of videos posted to YouTube as well, but in my opinion they’re not as effective as Virgin’s.

Virgin’s videos are slick and very well produced. They’re short and to the point. They use a known star (well, known in the UK). And I think they do a good job of explaining the features. TiVo’s videos in the US tend to be more tongue-in-cheek and cute. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fall flat, but I don’t think they’re as effective at conveying the advantages to owning as TiVo. I’d love to see TiVo run an ad campaign similar to these.






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Woot! – Motorola XOOM 10.1” 32GB Android Tablet with Wi-Fi Just $349.99!

Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 by MegaZone

Motorola XOOM Today’s Woot! deal was the first Android tablet released running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and it still measures up to the best of the current crop in features. It is a refurbished Motorola XOOM 10.1” 32GB WiFi for only $349.99 + $5 S&H. That’s $150 off the $499.99 MSRP, and even over $100 off Amazon’s new price of $458.01!

It runs Android 3.2 and has a 10.1″ 1280×800 display, a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra2 CPU, 1GB RAM, 32GB of on-board storage, a microSD slot for up to 32GB more, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 2MP front & 5MP rear cameras, Bluetooth, and HDMI output. It supports video capture at 720p resolution via the rear camera which you can playback on the HD screen or via HDMI. And it runs Adobe Flash, unlike the iPad.

The XOOM is definitely a solid tablet, and while the main downside is normally the price, with this deal that’s really not an issue. It is a lot of tablet for a decent price. I expect these to sellout quickly, so don’t hesitate.

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Sellout.Woot! – ioSafe Solo 2TB Fireproof & Waterproof External Hard Drive Just $199.99

Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 by MegaZone

IoSafe Solo 2TB External Hard Drive Backups are important, you probably know that. And you may be doing backups to an external drive or a NAS already. But what if the worst happens and you have a fire – is your backup safe? It will be if you use today’s Sellout.Woot! deal, the ioSafe Solo 2TB Fireproof & Waterproof External Hard Drive, which is only $199.99 + $5 S&H.

But you get more than just a ruggedized, fireproof & waterproof 2TB USB 2.0 hard drive which can survive fires up to 1550 F for 30 minutes and submersion in up to 10 feet of fresh or salt water for 72 hours; you also get a year of data recovery service. If the worst happens ioSafe will do their best to recover your data at no additional charge, once during your one year window. You can extend the data recovery service to three or five years for even more peace of mind.

Amazon sells these for $297.50, so this is nearly a $100 savings.

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