Forum Discussion

davef28's avatar
davef28
On our wavelength
12 months ago

360 Box with Hard Drive v Mini Box

Up until recently I had 3 360 boxes with hard drive, this was changed to 1 with Hard Drive and 2 mini boxes. The functionality is not at all good on the mini box.

 

1) Can only pause live TV for around 3 minutes ?

2) with the Hard Drive Box you were able to rewind to start of programs if already on that channel, has this now changed.

Please can I have my 2 Hard Drive Boxes back, contract renewal due soon which someone else is looking at for me.

  • nodrogd's avatar
    nodrogd
    Very Insightful Person

    davef28 wrote:

    Up until recently I had 3 360 boxes with hard drive, this was changed to 1 with Hard Drive and 2 mini boxes. The functionality is not at all good on the mini box.

     

    1) Can only pause live TV for around 3 minutes ?

    2) with the Hard Drive Box you were able to rewind to start of programs if already on that channel, has this now changed.

    Please can I have my 2 Hard Drive Boxes back, contract renewal due soon which someone else is looking at for me.


    Short answer is no, you can't. Horizon is designed as a cloud platform, & this is (fingers crossed) how it will eventually be used by VM. You can only keep converted V6 boxes as additional storage. Once these are replaced you are down to one central storage location. When VM starts migrating customers to the full fibre XGS-PON network (due to be completed 2028) the hard disk boxes will become obsolete anyway, as you cannot record from an IP network.

    Only the TiVO V6 boxes had running buffers on all 6 tuners. Horizon does not permit this.

    • davef28's avatar
      davef28
      On our wavelength

      So recordings will be a thing of the past.

      • nodrogd's avatar
        nodrogd
        Very Insightful Person

        davef28 wrote:

        So recordings will be a thing of the past.


        If Virgin does not implement cloud recording, then yes. The future is the Stream box, which is now the only option in new fibre areas.

    • Tavis75's avatar
      Tavis75
      Super solver

      Is cloud recording something we really want to be looking forward to?  Seems to me that will just mean catchup services with all the issues that brings, such as limited length of availability and potentially unskippable ads. I'm assuming that the "cloud recording" doesn't actually keep an individual recording of every program for every user. Plus of course there's the issue of not being able to watch recordings if your internet goes down (or is just being slow that night due to congestion, which will likely be worse if everyon'e TV recordings are getting streamed rather than being local)

      The only minor advantage for an end user might be keeping your recordings if your box gets swapped out, but that's a pretty rare occurence and if the "recordings" have a limited availability time then probably no more useful than just watching anything you lost on catchup. Would be also interesting to know if the 360's habit of suddenly wiping all recordings also applies to cloud recordings. 

      • nodrogd's avatar
        nodrogd
        Very Insightful Person

        Tavis75 wrote:

        Is cloud recording something we really want to be looking forward to?  Seems to me that will just mean catchup services with all the issues that brings, such as limited length of availability and potentially unskippable ads. I'm assuming that the "cloud recording" doesn't actually keep an individual recording of every program for every user.

        It’s a hybrid system. This is how it currently works on Sky Stream:

        https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/sky-stream-recording-explained/ 

        Plus of course there's the issue of not being able to watch recordings if your internet goes down (or is just being slow that night due to congestion, which will likely be worse if everyon'e TV recordings are getting streamed rather than being local)

        You have this problem already if you have V360, as the Horizon server controls your hard disk, not your box. If you haven’t started watching a recording already when the internet goes down, the recording is unplayable until it returns.

        The only minor advantage for an end user might be keeping your recordings if your box gets swapped out, but that's a pretty rare occurence and if the "recordings" have a limited availability time then probably no more useful than just watching anything you lost on catchup. Would be also interesting to know if the 360's habit of suddenly wiping all recordings also applies to cloud recordings. 

        Quite possibly a symptom of having to use a hybrid storage system. Horizon was never meant to operate with remote HDD storage. I have not seen any issues like this reported from other Liberty Global owned operations that are already using the cloud functionality of Horizon.


         


  • davef28 wrote:

    Up until recently I had 3 360 boxes with hard drive, this was changed to 1 with Hard Drive and 2 mini boxes. The functionality is not at all good on the mini box.

     

    1) Can only pause live TV for around 3 minutes ?


    To pause for longer than about 3 minutes on a mini box you need to press record so it will record on the 360 main box and you then watch the programme as a recording on the mini box. You also need to have the main 360 set to fast start or active start.

     

    • czure's avatar
      czure
      Tuning in

      Had my main TV360 set to Active Start & connected via ethernet cable from install, BUT I still have to leave it powered on to view & watch recordings or set a new recording via the 360 Mini box upstairs.

      The upstairs 360 MINI is approx' 12 feet directly above the router (just a plaster ceiling & bedroom floorboards with no pipes or cables between them) & shows as having an excellent Wi-Fi signal with zero issues with streaming, catch up, etc, yet I still need to make sure I leave the main 360 box downstairs powered on in order to view, watch, & set recordings via the Mini.

      Assumed that was just the way it was (sad considering how folk are desperate to save as much energy as possible), however having seen these posts I've just switched to 'Fast Start' to see if that works and will test it out later.

      Still a sad & sorry state of affairs when electrical devices not in use have to be powered up & consuming juice just to use something in another part of the home, even if it is a tiny amount of electricity. And of course just another additional item to the long list of bad things regarding the utter junk TV360 boxes, never dreamt that SkyQ would be better than any Virgin box & never should've allowed them to swap my V6 boxes at renewal, even just the loss of the 6 tuners, additional storage, & recording undelete are enough to see me definitely ditching Virgin TV at next renewal, and they're just 3 things from many that are wrong with TV360 boxes.

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person

    davef28 wrote:

    2) with the Hard Drive Box you were able to rewind to start of programs if already on that channel, has this now changed.


    If you have the programme in question recording, then TV360 allows this. The difference, as mentioned already, is that TiVo-firmware keeps all 6 tuners buffering irrespective of scheduled recordings or not - with the ability to jump between them.

    TV360 only "records" on the live channel and for any planned recordings. Any others are idle.

    It sounds like, you had 3 x V6 which you converted to 3 x TV360-masters, and have subsequently had the additional masters replaced with minis. As mentioned by previous replies, this is standard practice.

    • davef28's avatar
      davef28
      On our wavelength

      That now makes completed sense, they were converted V6 boxes, just annoying that prices go up and functionality goes down.

      • roy247's avatar
        roy247
        Superstar

        If you had 3 converted V6 boxes working on 360 software l thought it was only standard practice to swap them for mini boxes when they had a fault.

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person

    Tavis, you do summarise cloud "recording" cf HDD recording as I understand too. "The cloud" is just a fancy name for remote storage, and so it naturally follows you're effectively comparing local recording with user-controlled OnDemand.

  • Cloud recordings as a replacement for hard drive recordings would be fine - except it won't happen as all content owners won't allow it. What we will get will be some cloud recordings (but fewer than most people realise) and directions to go to apps like BBC iPlayer and My5. There will be some channels or programmes which won't be available after live streaming. Have a look at Sky's Stream for what the future holds.

  • My biggest regret is allowing Virgin to swap me to the new 360 box with a mini box for upstairs. They're the biggest pieces of junk I've ever had or used.

    Everything you want to do takes far more button presses & searching even with the voice search (which is the only improvement in my eyes).

    If a recording is accidently deleted or you simply decide you want to watch it again at a later date, forget recovering it as it's not possible to undelete, the option simply doesn't exist.

    Forget about having the option of switching between 6 tuners & rewinding them via the buffers because there is no such thing on the 360 box, that was a feature we used a great deal of the time, especially to avoid the need to record overlapping shows in order to avoid filling the hard drive, and good for avoiding adverts (most likely reason it was removed from 360).

    If I hit record on a show or film that's already started (even if only 1 second ago) it fails to record the last 25 to 40 minutes (depends on length of show/film), and that still happens even if I add extra time on to the recording option when hitting record, even tried adding 1hr on but still fails to record end of show/film.

    Even the TV Guide is horrible to look at no matter what settings you have for it, it just seems awkward due to previous shows being pushed onto the start (left side) of the guide & kind off forces you to scan around the screen more to see what's on, certainly not as tidy as the V6 was. 

    Searching through shows etc for other episodes & streaming content is like pulling teeth, even with the voice search it still involves multiple button presses & trawling all over the place to get to what you want, and don't get me started on the faffing around with waiting for streaming services to load, creating accounts for everything under the sun, then more selections to make & button pressing just to leave the app.

    You get 1 hard drive to record to even if you pay for extra boxes, this limits your capacity unlike with the TIVO & V6, it also means that you have to leave the main box FULLY powered on when you wish to watch recordings via the additional box, otherwise the recordings aren't available.

    These are just some of the downsides of the utter trash 360 boxes, and that's despite recent so called software upgrades. Had I known how rubbish & awkward they were to have & use when renewing I would've point blank refused them & if told I had no option would've very happily gone back to SkyQ even though that has a fair few issues it now wipes the floor with Virgins 360, now that could never be said of the TIVO or V6 which were both spot on.

    I've ranted way more than I should need to & have forced myself to stop because believe me I could go on. The main thing to take from this though is, DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR TIVO or V6 BOXES.

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person

    All the advice on this forum has always been, that TV360 is no more an "upgrade" from TiVo/V6 than Apple is an "upgrade" from Android. The two platforms are fundamentally different.

    Many VM sales agents will have you believe that a conversion to TV360 is often "part and parcel" of a contract renegotiation. If a new package being offered includes elements that are exclusive to TV360 (Paramount+ or Disney+) then the conversion is required. If no such element exists, conversion has always been - and currently remains - voluntary.

    There are many pros & cons each way.