Forum Discussion

djr_uk's avatar
djr_uk
Up to speed
2 years ago

The future of the V6?

Hi all,

seems we're in a weird position. i have 3 v6 boxes. i'm now missing out on channel launches and red button functionality. Yet there seems to be no indication of when we may be moved over to new software which will give us the same functionality and product as those who pay the same as us but get a lot more.

its such a weird set up? like why arent we being urged to upgrade to 360? Yet we see tons of articles

"OMG TONS OF NEW CHANNELS FOR 360!!!"

My friend has the original tivo and has never been advised to change his box....so what did he do?

He just disconnected his box. He's mentally incapacitated and i cant speak on his behalf. He's still paying for tv.

Whilst my mum is loving sky sports tennis and clicks the red button and ....not available. i have to explain to her "we arent on 360 software" and shes like "what the heck is that?"

Virgin media you're doing a horrific job at communicating. Is this some sort of contract you signed with tivo to get out of the contract or something?

"shh dont tell tivo v6 customers we're not renewing"

or is it literally massive incompetence by your entire team? You have people on tivos and v6s and you're just going "Omg new streaming channels lol lol lol"

Its just really mental this. Like its just mental your approach. My friend would have renewed over and over again but you never reached out to him that his box was 15 YEARS OLD AND WAS SLOW AND DEGRADING.

You never bothered to go "ooh hes paying a lot lets give him at least a bit of new kit"

You know there are people out there with tivos from 2008 and you let them continue with it? You dont even bother to say "Hey you may want to get in touch for a new box?"

Its messed up. 

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person

    There's two issues here..

    1: Legacy TiVo users - VM have never had a proactive programme to replace legacy kit, but faulty TiVo's are now replaced with V6 as a matter of course. Does your friend have any service faults with their TiVo? There's a V6 waiting for them if they do.

    2: TiVo/V6 > TV360. Linear channels are exactly the same on both platforms, TiVo/V6 get the new Sky Sports tennis SD/HD channels exactly the same. The difference is in new apps, where the software specifically needs to be developed for both platforms, and that's not now happening for TiVo-platform.

    Newer is not always better - TiVo/V6 has plenty of features that TV360 doesn't, and may not ever - think undelete, muilti-channel series-links, and non-recording buffering on all 6 recording tuners. There are pros & cons of both platforms - if multi-screen football & tennis is important to you, then that needs to be considered alongside the other factors. I'm sure VM would be pleased to convert you across if you wanted.

  • Tavis75's avatar
    Tavis75
    Super solver

    The 360 box is a step backwards compared to the V6 (the change is being done to bring VM in line with other Liberty Global owned companies), as japitts mentioned it's missing a lot of features that the V6 has, many of which are TiVo patents so wont be added in the future and even for the ones that aren't, like undelete, there doesn't seem to be much interest in adding them, or even fixing some of the issues like the auto-skipping to the next program before the current one is finished etc. Multiple boxes don't work together as well, you get less storage and recordings aren't separated between boxes so in a household everyone gets everybody else's recordings showing up on their box.

    Some of the missing features are as follows; Wishlists (where you can set the box to record programs on certain subjects or featuring certain people), undelete, series link+, series link manager, suggestions, setting of series links for programs not in the current TV guide, ethernet control, keyboard support via USB, switching between tuners with constant buffering, skip-back on fast-forward, quickplay, default recording options, cancelling individual recordings from a series link, multi-channel series links, radio channels allowing recording of radio, separation of recordings between boxes, watching recordings when internet is not available and probably a few others I've forgotten.

    It's one of the main reasons I'll be leaving VM when my contract ends in April along with the fact that I'm forced to have Netflix and an expensive O2 sim that I don't want (which is about to get even more expensive). I moved to VM for TV when they made the deal with TiVo so it's a shame to see it go.

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person

    My personal view is there will be little or no updates for both boxes. This is because of the advent of full FTP which these boxes will not work with.

  • nodrogd's avatar
    nodrogd
    Very Insightful Person

    Horizon boxes (V360 & Stream) will continue to get the same updates. After all Stream is just a V360 box without the TV tuners or internal storage. As such a V360 box could convert to all IP operation minus the recording function (unless cloud recording is finally enabled).

  • VM has a contract with TiVo for the use of its software. We don't know when this contract ends but can only be a few years away and is the reason why VM is migrating users to the 360. After all why extend the TiVo contract again when you've got your own software (well, LG's to be exact).