Early reviews for Virgin Media's TV Anywhere service and TiVo app

The first reviews for Virgin's TV Anywhere service are starting to appear online, after a selected number of customers were invited to view the beta version of the service.

From Binary Moon:

When you're at home you will also be able to use the iPhone/ iPad apps as remote controls (no more losing the remote down the sofa!). The iPad remote in particular has been redesigned so that it's a lot nicer to use (including gestures and scrubber bars for adjusting your playback position). Due to the size of the iPhone screen the iPhone remote is essentially a photo of the Virgin Tivo peanut remote so not so nice - but still good as a spare.

From TQS Magazine:

Stream available channels (about 30 remotely, and 60 in the home on launch) wherever you are. Kind of like TV Catch Up, but better. If you’re in the house, your streaming won’t affect what’s on the TV either. You can stream a film in your room while your family/flatmates watch X Factor in the living room. Lovely....Ok, it’s really good. As well as turning your iPad into the world’s most expensive (and coolest) remote, Virgin TV Anywhere let’s you manage, explore and discover TV the way it should be – easily.

From BitchBuzz:

My only complaint about Virgin TV Anywhere is that you can’t watch shows or films you’ve recorded to your TiVo box, which seems like an obvious want from most customers. I’m told this will eventually be something Virgin will look at introducing – but in the meantime, just being able to hack into your box from, well, anywhere is pretty exciting.

From James Anderson (via Jameseh at Cable Forum):

In my opinion, the best feature by far of the Virgin TV Anywhere iPad app is the ability to switch between watching something on your iPad and watching it on your television. If you are browsing the guide on your iPad and see a programme that you wish to watch on your widescreen television, you can just do a flick gesture and in less than a second your television programme will start playing on the TV rather than your iPad. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is!

There's still no release date for Virgin TV Anywhere, with TQS Magazine mentioning that it could be available within the next 3 to 6 weeks. The iPad version of the app will be released first, with an Android version to follow next year.