V+

The TVDrive began roll-out on 1 December 2005 on a commercial pilot basis before a full launch in March 2006, becoming the first HD service in the UK.

[7][8] In January 2007, NTL:Telewest began renting the set-top box nationwide and since the licensing of the Virgin Media name, it became officially available in all areas with the new V+ branding and the colour changed from silver to black.

[9] Under the mutually exclusive agreement, TiVo developed a converged television and broadband interactive interface to power Virgin Media's next generation, high definition set-top boxes.

TiVo became the exclusive provider of middleware and user interface software for Virgin Media's next generation set-top boxes.

The set-top boxes also support Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, which is currently broadcast on some HD channels and video on demand (VOD) content.

[14] The Explorer 8300DVB set-top box from Scientific-Atlanta, uses two 250 MIPS 32-bit RISC processors, 4 tuners (3 video, 1 data), a DOCSIS 1.x cable modem, a full graphics engine, 2 HD and SD video decoders, dual audio decoders and contains one Western Digital or Maxtor 160GB PATA hard disk, capable of storing up to 20 hours of HD Content or up to 80 hours of SD content.

The Explorer 8300DVB has been criticised for having blurred menus when set to 1080i, inability to record radio and its slow response to changing channels.

[19][20][21] Unlike the Explorer 8300DVB, the on-screen display and subtitles are output on the VCR Scart, when set to standard definition it is impossible to watch another channel during the archiving process and there is also the ability to record radio.