We're looking to upgrade from a very old digibox to a 360 box. First person I spoke to at Virgin said we could just hook up the old box and watch the recorded stuff as needed. Then on a follow up call they said no it wasn't possible, the old box would be de-activated. Anyone know which is correct?
The latter is correct. If you get a 360 box, they wont allow you to use older boxes as multi-room. If you want multi room , they will force you to take a new slim down box that connects to the 360 box.
You can archive contents from your current box with a hauppauge colossus 2 tv card and put them on a usb stick. The quality is perfect, you wont notice a difference.
I originally bought it to backup my recordings from a sky Hd box, before i moved to Virgin. But bare in mind if you want to do it, you would also need a hdcp bypass hdmi splitter, which are very cheap on amazon or ebay. Mine cost 10 euro just a few years ago.
It would be a a very slow process to archive material from an old Virgin/Sky box as it is realtime recording. If the recordings have some sentimental value it may be worth the effort.