Details have been announced this week of the Sky Sports packages on Virgin TV – here’s the lowdown on the three bundles available…

The Followers Bundle

Aimed at keen followers and centred around Barclays Premiership League Football.

Includes Sky Sports and Sky Sports News

£13.50 a month for the first 2 months, then £19 a month – save £9 a month compared to Sky.

The Fans Bundle

A step up, featuring Barclays Premier League and Champions League games in HD.

Includes -

• Sky Sports 1 HD
• Sky Sports 2 HD
• Sky Sports 3 and 4
• Sky Sports News
• British Euro Sport

£27.50 a month for the first 2 months, then £33 a month – save £13 a month compared to Sky.

The Fanatics Bundle

One for the total fanatics, with all the football matches in HD and a full range of all sport.

Includes -

• Sky Sports 1 HD
• Sky Sports 2 HD
• Sky Sports 3 and 4
• Sky Sports News
• British Euro Sport
• ESPN HD

£27.50 a month for the first 2 months, then £50.50 a month – save £9.50 a month compared to Sky.

Great news for summer, Virgin Media have brought back one of their most popular offers – 2 months free on all triple bundles, starting from £18 a month. The deal is running until 31st August so make the most of it – click here to see it on the Virgin site or read more about Virgin TV packages here.

Here’s a great offer from Virgin Media but you’ll need to be quick as it finishes on 31st May. They are giving 3 months free broadband to new customers who take out the size ‘L’ 10MB broadband service with a size ‘M’ phone line. As well as 10MB speed, size ‘L’ broadband features unlimited downloads, a PC security package, a free wireless router and 25 free photo prints per month – the size ‘M’ phone includes weekend UK landline calls.

Here’s how the finances work -

Broadband ‘L’ is normally £12.50 a month plus £11.99 for the phone line. If you take this exclusive deal Virgin will give you the first 2 months broadband free and also credit your first bill with £15, so you’re actually getting just over 3 months.

This deal cannot be found on the regular Virgin website – you need to click here to get it.

It may not have a catchy name yet but we’re told that Virgin Media will be releasing their own take on the Sky Player in 2010 – bringing Virgin TV content to a new audience through online and mobile phone access. This was alluded to rather than officially announced at the IPTV World Forum last week in a speech by Virgin’s Executive Director of TV and Online Alex Green, but it fits in very well with the plan to incorporate TiVo web technology into the Virgin Media offering as discussed in this earlier Virgin TV and TiVo Premiere post and could therefore be reasonably expected to be unveiled at the same time, probably late 2010.

There’s a new digital TV service in the US called TiVo Premiere that’s going to be incorporated into Virgin Media’s TV packages and take their service to the next level. TiVo Premiere provides a link between your TV and the web , so while you may be watching an episode of Glee, say, on a channel in your TV package you’ll also be able to access any related episodes, information, behind-the-scenes specials and so on that exist on the web. This is done by having a ‘discovery bar’ at the top of the screen which displays related material available (whether free or paid) and is so seamless that the impression you get is one of a totally integrated service (TiVo invented the personal video recorder that many of us now know as Sky+ so they know their stuff).

This is how TiVo’s Chief Executive Tom Rogers puts it;

“Broadband and broadcast are integrated and the user doesn’t need to know how. This is the next revolution in television”

In the UK TiVo Premiere will be available later in the year as part of Virgin Media’s TV package, with new V+ boxes planned to incorporate the new functions like the discovery bar and the dedicated remote control with a flip-out QWERTY keyboard. The TiVo boxes in the US come with 320GB or 1 Terabyte of memory so Virgin TV will probably produce something similar, although depending how long it takes to reach the UK there may be a new standard of over 1TB by then.

So what exactly does it do? Starting with the obvious, you’re watching your favourite programme and you can very quickly see a list of any other episodes, related documentaries or even games available. Then you can click on the name of a cast member and see other shows and movies available on the web in which they feature. The clever thing is you can then mark one of these discoveries as a ‘favourite’ even though it’s out there on the web rather than in your package of channels – as long as your broadband is on it’s there for you ‘on demand’. This is what the main screen looks like…

What it’s really doing for you is gathering and organising all of the related TV content out there and giving it to you on a plate. Word is that Sky are working on a similar service but one that will not need a change of set-top box – more details on that as they come out.

Virgin Media have announced a new addition to the range of Virgin TV boxes, the V HD Box, which will sit in the middle of the range between the basic V Box and the V+HD Box. The idea is to give customers access to the growing range of HD channels without necessarily upgrading to the top V+ service, and is similar to what Sky have recently done in making the Sky+HD box standard issue to all new customers. The difference is with Virgin the basic box will still be available (at no charge) and the V HD box at £49 but with no extra subscription for the HD channels (as long as you have the M+ TV package or above). The new box will be available from 22nd March.

So here’s a run-down of the 3 boxes;

• Virgin V Box – 1 tuner – no HD capability
• Virgin V HD Box – 1 tuner – HD channels available – PVR built in (record, forward and rewind TV)
• Virgin V+HD Box – 3 tuners – HD channels available – PVR built in (record, forward and rewind TV)

Good news if you’re a football fan and a Virgin TV customer, as it’s just been announced that the ITV1 HD channel will be on Virgin from April 2nd. This means Virgin customers will have the 2 key channels for World Cup matches (BBC and ITV1) in glorious HD as they are both included in Virgin TV packages.

It’s not just World Cup action that will be available on ITV1 HD – sports-wise there’s loads more football to come with the UEFA Champions League and the FA Cup, plus the line-up of entertainment, drama and documentary which is also impressive.

HD dramas include The Prisoner, Foyles War, Father & Son, Identity  and Lewis; documentaries announced include Greatest Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones, Joanna Lumley’s Nile and new Survival with Ray Mears and in entertainment there are old favourites such as Britain’s Got Talent as well as new programmes The Whole 19 Yards and 71 Degrees North.

Virgin Media seem to be working hard on the HD channels at the moment, trying to keep up with Sky of course, and have announced that Discovery HD will be available on Virgin TV packages from this spring. Discovery has over 1500 hours of HD programmes to offer and and will be available 24-7 to Virgin XL TV users, offering science, history and natural history shows and of course Bear Grylls:Born Survivor.

Virgin already offer the following HD channels

• BBC
• Channel 4
• ESPN
• FX
• Living
• MTVN
• National Geographic

Plus the Eurosport HD channel coming soon, and is constantly adding to its archive of HD on-demand.

1. Get Freeview

The first money-saving option to consider for digital TV has to be Freeview – the clue is in the name! It really depends on which channels are important to you and whether you want a landline and broadband in a bundle, but if you’re currently paying a monthly fee for Sky, Virgin or BT TV and you only ever watch the main channels (BBC, ITV, 4 and Five) then you may as well invest in a Freeview box – it may even be built into your TV or recorder. If, however, you need a landline (you possibly do) and broadband (you probably do) then a bundle may make it worthwhile as it could cost the same for the whole lot as it would just for the broadband and phone. Think about the on-demand services though, you might miss those…

2. Look for Special Offers

It may sound obvious but if you’ve decided to take out a subscription with one of the digital TV providers make sure you time it to take advantage of any limited period offers they have. For example at the time of writing Sky TV are giving away £50 of M&S vouchers when you sign up online. Virgin Media recently gave new customers a £50 credit into their account for the same reason, and BT Vision are currently giving a discount for the first 3 months on the monthly fees for their Viewing Packs – every little helps!

3. Use Voucher Codes

Whenever you need to upgrade your TV or buy a Freeview box, hard disc recorder or any other electronic gear don’t forget there’s a wealth of voucher codes out there to save you money. If you’ve never used a voucher code (sometimes called discount or promotional codes) they are the web equivalent of cutting out a coupon and getting money off in a shop, except the discounts on a large item like a TV can be a lot more worthwhile than 10p off a tin of beans…

4. Get a Bundle for TV, Broadband and Phone

If you know you want TV, broadband and a landline phone then make sure you get all 3 in a bundle with the same company. Don’t be tempted to think “Oh, I’ve been with BT for years and I don’t want the hassle of changing my phone line” – if you’re going to do all 3 with BT that’s fine, just be aware that if your services are spread over more than one provider the chances are you’re paying too much.

5. Get ESPN from BT for No Monthly Fee

Sports fans – if you’re just choosing who to go with for your TV then consider BT Vision. If you take out one of their Single Packs or Value Packs (which you would if you were getting BT Vision) you get the sports channel ESPN for no monthly fee, just a one-off £9.99 card fee. Now we think that’s what you call a……..

If you’re wondering which HD service to go with then you should take a serious look at this Virgin offer. Until the 31st December the Virgin V+HD installation is reduced from £99 to £75.

“But I can get Sky HD for £49 at the moment!” you say – true, but there is one difference worth considering. The V+ box is the only one with 3 tuners, meaning you can watch 1 programme while recording 2 others. Now that’s serious telly watching but I know there are people out there who would use that regularly, and even the non-TV junkies among us find that good TV shows are like buses and they tend to come 3 at a time.

To check out the deals available visit our Virgin TV page or go straight to Virgin here.