Set recordings from your smartphone
We have talked about how technology is about making your life easier and television is something that plays a part in many of our lives.
Many of us probably have Sky or Virgin Media installed in your home, and their services have greatly improved over the years, more content when we want it, now in HD or even 3D.
However for such interactive services there have been limitations with how we can interact with out content outside our home. From the likes of actually watching the TV through to setting recordings.
Now I know there are workarounds such as Slingbox but they cost extra.
I wanted to draw your attention to apps/elements of these television services that are FREE and are under promoted and get missed.
Sky have pioneered the way in letting customers set programmes to record from their mobile with the Sky+ App (Android/iPhone) and now their Sky Go app (Android/iPhone) that allows customers to watch channels on the go.
Virgin Media might be a bit behind the times, but not wanting to be left out they have created an App, Virgin Media TV Guide (Android/iPhone) to allow you to remotely record programmes from your mobile device. This service is only available to those customers with a TiVo box however (thousands still don’t).
The app allows you to see what’s on TV and set recordings on your Virgin Media: TiVo Service by a one time login.
You can get a quick overview of what’s on now, or delve deeper for a full schedule for each TV channel.
Once logged in you can from your mobile device set a programme or a whole series to record on your TiVo box. You can even send an email or text to someone to suggest that they watch it.
A really excellent additional feature is the ability to customise the list of channels you see. So for example it is quite likely that you have 100+ channels but only 30 you watch regularly. Just customise the display to show you only your preferred channels.
Virgin do have an app to allow you to watch channels remotely like Sky but it is fair to say at this time it is poor.
The following is a short promotional video about the service.
The following are some screenshots from the Android version of the app.
So if you are a Virgin Media customer with TiVo and a smartphone, get this app. And if you are a Sky customer get their apps too.
