Virgin on Demand News

[TV Boy]

Hi

I have open up this page for any news you have on anything coming soon or been added to Virgin on Demand

Virgin 1 has acquires a series of concerts for linear presentation on the channel and for use on Virgin Media's cable on demand service.

Virgin 1 Presents... from Music Engine Productions will comprise 13 hour-long programmes containing a mixture of music performance and artist interviews shot at venues across the UK. Virgin 1 has picked up the series on an exclusive basis.

The first episode, Virgin 1 Presents The Guillemots at The Astoria, will go out at 11pm on Saturday, November 17 followed by Virgin 1 Presents Robert Plant at The Cornbury Music Festival on November 24.

Info from Digital Spy.

[gadge]

Dont know about other ex ntlers but we had National geographic added today,i know ex telewest had it a few days now.

[Tali]

I might have missed it, but wasn't Lost supposed to be coming to VOD in September? I was half way through the series when SkyOne was withdrawn.

[daveetwo]

Originally Posted by Tali

I might have missed it, but wasn't Lost supposed to be coming to VOD in September? I was half way through the series when SkyOne was withdrawn.

Lost series 1 is there. 25 episodes in sd and 21 episodes in hd.
Tv choice on demand-drama- under J/K/L

[TV Boy]

Star Trek DS9 series 1 added to TV Choice.

Only for 1 month though.

[TV Boy]

As mentioned on DS Forum:

Discovery Lifestyle and Discovery Factual Folders have been added to TV Choice On Demand but as of yet there is no content.

[windy]

Originally Posted by TV Boy

As mentioned on DS Forum:

Discovery Lifestyle and Discovery Factual Folders have been added to TV Choice On Demand but as of yet there is no content.

Why....

[grabbi]

Some MAJOR news has been announced today, affecting Cable viewers in the near future.

A service currently named "Kangaroo" is to be launched online with Freeview and Cable platforms to get it later next year (no mention of Sky.)

"Kangaroo" you say?

Well, heres the story:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...hSE_AQDmP6QbHA

Three of Britain's biggest broadcasters have teamed up to launch an on-demand service, in what commentators said Wednesday seeks to avoid the fate of the music industry faced with online distribution.

The BBC, ITV and Channel Four televsion said the service, dubbed "Kangaroo", should be available from next year and will initially be available over the Internet, before being launched on other platforms.

"Kangaroo" will initially be offered online, but the broadcasters hope to move it onto cable and Freeview distribution in due course.

So, that ITV content could be coming after all!

Of course, were already going to have iPlayer (BBC Content) and 4oD already supplies us, so maybe with this agreement, we will get more content off the BBC and C4, or just new content from ITV.

Either way, the door is open for us, the customer, to have a great time watching more TV!

[daveetwo]

Originally Posted by grabbi

Some MAJOR news has been announced today, affecting Cable viewers in the near future.

A service currently named "Kangaroo" is to be launched online with Freeview and Cable platforms to get it later next year (no mention of Sky.)

Sky dont do VOD do they so not much point mentioning them.
Should help bring new customers virgins way as more and more hear about vod available "only on cable" or "only on cable or broadband internet".
I cant get my mind around the bbc player coming to cable. How will that work?

[grabbi]

Quite simple, really. The code is ready, just going through testing at the moment, getting rid of bugs and the such like.

Wanna see some pics?






Ill up a few more as I work on them!

What ID like to see, is the whole VoD implemented like this.

Keeps it neat and orderly.

[daveetwo]

Originally Posted by grabbi

Quite simple, really. The code is ready, just going through testing at the moment, getting rid of bugs and the such like.


What ID like to see, is the whole VoD implemented like this.

Keeps it neat and orderly.

Have a look at this post that i did eslewhere as it could be an indication that they are actively looking at the issue of presentation and selection. I got the reply back from virgin today:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...1#post19710863

[paul_hadley]

iPlayer on Virgin Media looks really good judging by those screengrabs - thanks for posting those, Grabbi.

I like the idea of having the radio catchups on there (like they do on BBC Radio online).

Nice to see BBC Parliament and BBC News 24 don't get missed out either.

In theory, would it be possible to have every single programme on every single BBC channel on iPlayer?

Will the iPlayer on Virgin Media have the rights to put US shows like Heroes on there?

Interesting they have a Search option on there - should be useful.

[grabbi]

The US shows all depend on whether the BBC have an "On Demand Clause" in there.

IE: they paid extra to offer the programs On Demand.

Im assuming, though, that if its on the PC version of iPlayer, we will see it here also.

The Radio Catch Ups are a must, IMO. I managed to get the Podcasts on my Xbox the other day, so maybe that is a possibility here.

Im guessing it would be possible to have every single program on the BBC on there, however, whether they would do it, again, comes back to the first predicament; a la On Demand Rights in Contracts.

Sure, though. If its funded by the BBC (Eastenders, for example) then why not!

The screenshots dont really do it much justice, as the actual days slide as you select days, much like the iPhone. Its very sleek and very 21st Century.

The old ntl: code wouldnt have been able to handle this. Now, they have sped up the Virgin EPG on STBs, it is possible to have this Sliding function, probably with no glitches at all.

Im hoping to get an animated GIF up at some point showing the actual function properly, sliding and all. Wont be tonight, though, I dont think...

---------- Post added at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 23:55 ----------

Originally Posted by daveetwo

Have a look at this post that i did eslewhere as it could be an indication that they are actively looking at the issue of presentation and selection. I got the reply back from virgin today:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...1#post19710863

Well, its definitly needed.

Your letter is spot on, to be honest.

The VoD content has always been all over the place.

I did email them once, and they cleaned up a little bit, but it is a joke.

A seperate section for HD, instead of Hiding it all over the show is also needed. In fact, all HD should be removed from SD content lists.

But if we could imagine something like the iPlayer layout, and instead of days, letters for the artists. Keep the genre button at the bottom. And it would fit in with the colour scheme and look very nice.

Plus, it would look very user friendly, which is what VM want, really. Unfortunatly, thats not what the VoD dept. think, placing content here there and everywhere! lol

[Chris Howell]

Originally Posted by grabbi

The screenshots dont really do it much justice, as the actual days slide as you select days, much like the iPhone. Its very sleek and very 21st Century.

The old ntl: code wouldnt have been able to handle this. Now, they have sped up the Virgin EPG on STBs, it is possible to have this Sliding function, probably with no glitches at all.

Bloody hell! And that's actually running on Virgin STBs? I was starting to think that the software wasn't capable of doing animated graphics like that, sounds a bit like the Dashboard on the Xbox 360.

[grabbi]

I THOUGHT THAT! haha

It looks like it too, just more gothic! :P And the Blades arent bended!

The animated gif is upcoming in the next few minutes.

EDIT: the animated GIF turned out to be 24Mb in size, and did no justice to the smooth framerate, so I will upload a video to my homepage.