Blog Post
My feedback on 360 over Tivo...
1. Fast Forward on Tivo used to go back a bit when I hit stop as it knew I couldn't react quick enough when skipping through ads. Really miss that.
2. Love the fact I can re-order My Channels so I can finally have BBC 1, 2, ITV 1, Channel 4 HD and Channel 5 in the correct order however I wish I could still enter the standard channel numbers rather than the new dynamic numbers that the 360 generates - e.g. ITV HD under the above is now Channel 3 not 113.
3. Integration with my LG TV is much better, I used to have to keep my old TV remote handy but now the Virgin renders it almost redundant (I still need it when the LG TV decides it wants to shut down to save energy after a few hours but that's not a Virgin issue). As the Box knows I can watch HD I now don't have to step through lots of SD channels when I move forwards though the programme guide - this is a great improvement however I would still like to hide any +1 channels (or sort them so they appear further down) since I rarely need these now with Catchup.
4. Use of the Up/Down key is inconsistent in certain dialogues. It can take you out of a context when you don't expect it to - more user testing required I suspect.
5. I don't have any kids in the house. Please let me disable PIN protection. This was a problem with Tivo and carries on to 360.
6. Pressing the Home button takes me to the top left of the screen where it says 'Today' - it would make more sense to me if it went to the Channel grouping selector - or swap these two around. I rarely want to see what's on next week but do want to quickly filter the channels by subject more frequently.
7. I know Virgin makes money selling video rentals but I don't want to see these on the Home Screen as I've enough TV to watch as I'm on a completely Maxed out package. I'd rather see what's on across BBC, Sky, Netflix and Prime like Amazon's Fire TV stick does.
8. If you could just include a wider range of Apps like Spotify, Plex etc. then I really wouldn't need any other boxes and remotes. Again, Fire TV does this.
9. On the Home Screen please let me make use of the coloured buttons at the bottom of the remote to choose between Guide, Recordings, Apps and Catch-up/Box Sets. Too many key presses to get to Recordings.
On the whole I like the new interface, however my wife who detests change of any sort hates it.