360 Update - What Has Changed

[Dave_DW]

For the eagle-eyed amongst us, you may have noticed a few changes to the look and feel of some of the screens for your 360 box.

That is because we have released an exciting and fresh update straight to your box. Some of the changes are big and some are more subtle, but all are aimed at making it easier for you to get the most out of your 360 experience. So, what has changed?

A new home screen

The home screen has been given a makeover to provide easier access to more content all in one place. This is the screen to locate all your personalised content, and what you see will vary depending on which profile you are logged into. You can now continue watching where you left off, access your recordings, or scroll through your personal recommendations all from the home screen.

*Top tip* - You can also continue to access your recordings via the 360 remote's voice control. Simply press the microphone and tell your TV what recording you want to watch.

Improved catch up screen

It’s not just the Home screen that has had a revamp. We’ve made some improvements to the Catch up screen too in order to make catch up content more accessible.

If you’ve previously used the Box Sets and Movies area, you will be familiar with this layout. Your favourite shows from channels such as ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 can be found on the Channels section. If you are unsure what to watch or want to find something new, then the Discover section is the one for you. This is also where you can route through to BBC iPlayer. Catch up content remains available for 30 days after initial broadcast.

Improved On Demand Subtitles

We have improved the subtitles for on demand content to make them easier to read. This means the subtitles will now show in a larger, clearer font with a fully black background. You can see the difference between the new look and the old look subtitles below.

New look subtitles

Old look subtitles

Seamlessly record films interrupted by other programmes

Previously, films that were split into two programmes by a short programme (usually the news) were recorded as two separate episodes. With this update, they will now be recorded seamlessly as a single recording meaning you will no longer have to switch to a different recording part way through.

[LenG]

Well, I have been trying to use this interface but it offers me more or less nothing I want and several things I really would like to get rid of.

About the only two things I select on the front page are "continue watching" and "prime video app".  Meanwhile the preview panel in the bottom corner continues to witter away with some random programme I have not been watching because I never watch live TV.  For some reason it turns itself up when I turn the volume down so the only way to keep it quiet is to mute my sound bar which requires I keep yet another remote to hand.  I actually managed to make my live TV default to BBC 4, which does not broadcast until 8pm.  This kept it quiet most of the time but then when I was watching something on on the Prime App I crossed the 8pm boundary and the stupid preview screen burst into life and pulled me out of the Prime App.  Not sure where to report this as a bug and also several other behaviour issues which I am sure cannot be intentional.

I think I have about 6 months left to run on my Virgin contract.  I chose Virgin primarily for the high speed connection and the bundling of internet/TV/Phone etc.  At the time no-one else locally could offer anything faster than about 30 down.  With newer servides coming online I will hopefully have more choice when the renewal comes due.

[holmestm]

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. 

[LenG]

Plus 1 for disabling pin protection.  This is a really irritating feature of many systems (not just Virgin).  No children live in my house or have access to my equipment.

[Jimmyswanston22]

Anything update 4.42 brings still no catch up for iplayer via the catch up have to do it via the info button on the guide that needs addressing

[davep1628]

There is still no way of selecting a Radio channel by number, as there was on the Tivo - this is one of the most annoying "features" of TV360, especially as you cannot guarantee that the key presses that work today will work tomorrow as Virgin keep on changing the Home Screen (or it's dynamic and rows get added and removed randomly).

Please give us back Radio station channel numbers! It cannot be that difficult.

[newapollo]

Hi @davep1628 

I actually find it easier and faster now by holding the speech icon and saying the name of the radio station eg 'radio2'  or  'smooth radio'

[LenG]

I generally don't watch live broadcast TV but the "what's playing" preview screen insists on displaying a picture with sound which I find irritating.  So I managed to convince the system to come up pointing at BBC3, which does not broadcast during the day.  Unfortunately when the channel starts (8pm?) the preview screen immediately snatches the focus.  This is irritating whenever it happens but if you happen to be using the Prime Time app when it occurs you end up with a mess of app controls over a full screen BBC3 session.  Getting back to something usable takes a significant amount of time.

[Yokomoko]

Just the simple fact that when you're Scrolling through the tabs, you have to then press the OK button to open it is really frustrating. Hire some better UX developers please as your current ones know nothing of good design. 

[BenMcr]

To the comments about disabling PIN protection. This is an OFCOM requirement for channels which show age rated content outside the watershed hours for that content's age rating. Virgin Media can't disable it.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/section-one-protectin...

"Meaning of "mandatory daytime protection"

Mandatory daytime protection means there is a PIN protection system in place pre-2100 and post-0530 which cannot be removed by the user and restricts access solely to those authorised to view. This does not apply to ‘adult sex material’ which under Rule 1.18 can only be shown between 2200 and 0530 and must be behind mandatory restricted access (see Rule 1.18)."

[LenG]

Trying to figure out why "continue watching" takes me to something not in my recorded list and not currently being broadcast.

[Jimmyswanston22]

@dave_dw why no bbc iplayer via new catch up to get it up I have to push the three dots go down to iplayer and comes up why change it if it wasn’t broken sort it

[LenG]

"For the eagle-eyed amongst us, you may have noticed a few changes to the look and feel of some of the screens for your 360 box.

That is because we have released an exciting and fresh update straight to your box. Some of the changes are big and some are more subtle, but all are aimed at making it easier for you to get the most out of your 360 experience. So, what has changed?"

"New and exciting"  always worries me.  Basically it just means I have to relearn how to do the few things I actually want.  There are precisely two things on the home screen I find useful - one is the bar at the top where I can  go to recordings etc and the other is the "continue watching" box.  I find the text list of recorded material much more informative than the thumbnails. particularly for TV series, as I can instantly get info on the contents and the date of broadcast.

I would love to see a settings page which allowed me to choose which of the horizontal bars actually displayed.  With the stuff I don't want suppressed I could reduce the home page to a single screen with no obtrusive live content showing all the time.

[Meldrew-V]

How can I turn off notifications for this post? I am not interested in the 360 update.

[LenG]

You could try Edit profile->notifications.  There are lots of checkboxes there ... some arcane combination of which will probably do what you want (at the expense of other things you don't want).

Or possibly the checkbox at the bottom of the page "Email me when someone replies"

[newapollo]

Hi @Meldrew-V 

You can either untick the "Email me when someone replies" checkbox at the bottom of the thread, or at the top of the thread in the right hand corner click on Topic Options, and in the dropbox click on "Unsubscribe"

[newapollo]

Hi @Jimmyswanston22 

You can use the speech button on your 360 remote from any screen and say "iPlayer"

[Jimmyswanston22]

I do but takes me to the app not the catch up as I said the way I can only do it is three dots button then scroll down to iplayer why can’t this be added to catch up is beyond me not liking the catch up section at all 

[CaraWBA]

Doesn’t remember iplayer log in, ever,

play back not available cs2318 whenever we try. Don’t install this upgrade. 

[LenG]

Is there a good place to report bugs in the UI?

I ask because for the second time having an App running when the channel previewed in the bottom right preview pane came alive resulted in the App (Prime Video) crashing.  On this occasion it crashed so hard that it completely forgot which show I was watching and how far I had got.

[Jimmyswanston22]

They adding new apps but still no Pluto tv or mtv play app for the 360 they keep advertising on tv Pluto tv but yet only V6 get it come on virgin sort it out