Forum Discussion

jenfamily1's avatar
jenfamily1
Dialled in
4 months ago
Solved

Virgin 360 from V6

Hi everyone.

Our Lounge V6 box / TV has been playing up recently in that a programme recorded on my son's box upstairs was wanting to be watched on our Lounge TV downstairs. After about 10 mins the picture began to freeze and the video stopped and the message said 'unable to play video - try again or cancel' We selected 'try again' and it worked for a while but stopped again and so we gave up! My wife alerted me a little while later that when she switched back on the TV, we noticed the normal Virgin interface but it was blue / white fuzzy appearance ( as if the box was struggling to receive the signal ) I turned off the box from the power socket, turned back on and waited for the 'start up' to finish and hey presto! everything came back on as it should BUT later that evening my wife said the TV ( still connected to Virgin ) went blank, the picture reappeared but went blank again! At this point she switched over to our normal TV setting which wasn't using the HDMI 1 connected to virgin.

I called Virgin about the problems and they say to rectify these issues I need a software upgrade which is having their 360 system with new remotes. I'm unable to do this myself so a technician is coming on Friday. I just wanted to know if using this 360 system will be as easy as my V6 system? We don't have 4K ultra TV's and doubt we'll use the voice activation much but Virgin assure me I need the software update and this is the only way to remedy the issues. I have two other V6 boxes upstairs which I haven't had any problems with. Am I doing the right thing allowing this to go ahead? Is the 360 an improved system? Having three V6 boxes in the house may be difficult for the 'splitter' to send enough signal?

What do you think

Steve

 

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    4 months ago

    they cannot replace the V6 box with another as they are old and have been migrating from 'Tivo' to '360' free for customers

    ...is complete & utter nonsense. One of two things is happening here.

    1: VM have adopted a policy of not supporting TiVo/V6 for fault replacements, but have not communicated this via official (i.e. VIP-group closed section of the forum) channels.

    2:There are increasing numbers of staff going rogue, and potentially being incentivised to convert customers to TV360, by using whatever means necessary.

    I strongly suspect option 2. I'd be minded to ask any field tech saying this, for any details enough to lodge a formal compaint about their conduct.

    If you want to avoid a "sledgehammer & nut" approach, there is absolutely no valid reason you should not just have your V6 swapped out for another V6.

5 Replies

Sort By
  • newapollo's avatar
    newapollo
    Very Insightful Person
    4 months ago

    Hi Steve,

    I've moved your post from the natter/chatter forums as they aren't often frequented by forum staff.

    You currently have three V6 boxes and one is faulty. This should be swapped out for another V6 box and not a TV360 box.

    TV360 and V6 boxes can't be run together, so if the faulty V6 was swapped for a 360 box then your other two V6 boxes would also need migrating to the 360 platform.

    Any faulty boxes that are swapped out for another box loose their recordings.  Also any boxes that are migrated from V6 to 360 lose their recordings.

    Which room is the box in that they say they are going to swap for a 360?  If the recording is on your sons box in the bedroom then it's possible that that particular boxes hard drive is failing.  What happens if you pause a live program on that box and then rewind it and play it back?  If there  are any issues playing back from there then it looks like that box has a hard drive issue.

    Re the lounge V6 box haing a blue / white fuzzy appearance, and also later on going blank.  This might be due to a faulty HDMI cable or the 360 HDMI port,  or the cable may have worked loose and needs pushing in again.  It may also be due to a faulty HDMI port on the TV so try a different port on the TV.

    Have you tried swapping your lounge box over for one of your other V6 boxes to see if that makes any difference?

    • jenfamily1's avatar
      jenfamily1
      Dialled in
      4 months ago

      Hi NewApollo

      Spoken again with Virgin technical who say ask technician on Friday to see if he can find any faults on the V6 box in the lounge / son's bedroom but if he can't they cannot replace the V6 box with another as they are old and have been migrating from 'Tivo' to '360' free for customers. I don't think any of the cables have worked loose as 99.9 % of the time all three Tvs work fine. I haven't tried swapping over any boxes as I'm scared stiff of upsetting anything & given this doesn't happen frequently. They tell me the boxes aren't changed but software is updated in the current box. Thanks for your help. This new format for the community is more confusing so where should I have  written my discussion?

      • japitts's avatar
        japitts
        Very Insightful Person
        4 months ago

        they cannot replace the V6 box with another as they are old and have been migrating from 'Tivo' to '360' free for customers

        ...is complete & utter nonsense. One of two things is happening here.

        1: VM have adopted a policy of not supporting TiVo/V6 for fault replacements, but have not communicated this via official (i.e. VIP-group closed section of the forum) channels.

        2:There are increasing numbers of staff going rogue, and potentially being incentivised to convert customers to TV360, by using whatever means necessary.

        I strongly suspect option 2. I'd be minded to ask any field tech saying this, for any details enough to lodge a formal compaint about their conduct.

        If you want to avoid a "sledgehammer & nut" approach, there is absolutely no valid reason you should not just have your V6 swapped out for another V6.

  • nodrogd's avatar
    nodrogd
    Very Insightful Person
    4 months ago

    If the box is faulty all you need a replacement box V6 TiVO, not migration to a different TV platform. It’s like going to a computer repairer with a faulty Windows PC & being told the only way to fix it is replace it with an Apple Macintosh!!

    Yet another “stealth” migration ploy.

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person
    4 months ago

    Whether TV360 is improved over the V6 is very much dependent how you use your boxes. They are very much designed for the recording-world with a very good streaming option added on. TV360 is the opposite, it's an "online-first" setup with recording retrofitted.

    Opinions vary wildly because the two software platforms are substantially different, but I concur with nodrogd who makes an excellent point. If, as per your description, one of your V6 is faulty, the fix is to replace it with another V6. Not to change your entire home from V6 > TV360.

    It may also be a faulty HDMI connection, in which case you'd be swapping 3 x Windows 10 laptops for 3 x Apple Macs, all because 1 laptop had a broken USB socket.