cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Gotta acknowledge, TV 360 is distinctly improving

DuncanCorps
Dialled in

Well, just to prove that I've not been railing against TV 360 merely because it's different, I've got to admit that with each version (mine's at 4.37 now) the experience has improved, felt distinctly less rough around the edges.

For example, I'm not sure when Profiles got separate records of how much of recording had been watched but it's handy when more than one person are watching the same series at different speeds. It's a nice feature (though only the start of how I'd like to see Profiles used).

It's still short of the polished quality of TiVo (to remind, V6 is TiVo). Of all the changes which could close that gap, the ones I'd be most pleased to see are;

  • On dialogues the default/preselected option should be the least "destructive" one.
    • e.g. on Delete this recording from storage? it should be Keep, not Delete; pressing OK without pausing to double check shouldn't result in an irrevocable loss of anything.
  • When scanning forwards or backwards through a recording;
    • Opposite direction button initially slows, rather than immediately changes direction.
    • Able to skip by some number of minutes.
  • Ability to restore recently deleted recordings (well, mark recordings as "deleted" and then remove that mark before they have to be really deleted).
  • Consider which recordings have been watched by which profiles when choosing which ones to delete automatically.
  • List scheduled recordings (not just what's upcoming in the EPG - the things it's waiting to appear in the EPG).

I dunno if there's any avenue for customers to upvote features when versions are being scoped?

22 REPLIES 22

newapollo
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@jimboy56 wrote:

A small gripe is it is too many button presses to get to 'Recordings' - it should be where TV guide is (there is a button on the remote for TV guide, so the menu option should be further away)


The quick way to access recordings is

Press MIC and say "Recordings" - you then get two lists - one is recorded programmes and one is schedule recordings.

You can also use voice control and say 'Saved' to go straight to the available recordings.

You get one line per series/channel - so 5 recordings of one series will all appear as a single entry. You select that entry to see the episodes.

 

Dave
I don't work for Virgin Media.
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge.
Problem solved? Click to mark as a Helpful Answer, or use Kudos to say thanks
The do's and don'ts.
Keep the community welcoming for all. Please read the FAQ's
The Service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth - Muhammad Ali

@sgrey22 Is it possible to have more like this I'm getting 1 V360 box and two minis on the 3rd of May coming over from Sky Q having read the forums this is the only good thing I can see about 360 only coming over because Sky upped my bill by £54 and that was the only deal i could get.

can anyone please tell me where 360 is improving because to me it just seems as terrible as it's always been and virgin are asking for more money because they want to improve things....mmmm I'll not hold my breath

SamoanJoe
Tuning in

@duncan

You have always been able to jump forward forward by minutes - just use voice.  e,g. "jump forward 10 minutes" while content is playing.

The continue watching position is indeed distinct per profile. 

 

 


@sgrey22 wrote:
@sgrey22 Is it possible to have more like this I'm getting 1 V360 box and two minis on the 3rd of May coming over from Sky Q having read the forums this is the only good thing I can see about 360 only coming over because Sky upped my bill by £54 and that was the only deal i could get.

In my experience just about all of the functions requiring multiple button presses can be accessed with a simple voice command. Once you get used to it this is by far the easiest and best way of navigating around the 360 and skipping past ads in recordings. It will even tell you a joke if asked, although these are definitely of the Christmas cracker variety.


@thrice wrote:

@sgrey22 wrote:
@sgrey22 Is it possible to have more like this I'm getting 1 V360 box and two minis on the 3rd of May coming over from Sky Q having read the forums this is the only good thing I can see about 360 only coming over because Sky upped my bill by £54 and that was the only deal i could get.

In my experience just about all of the functions requiring multiple button presses can be accessed with a simple voice command. Once you get used to it this is by far the easiest and best way of navigating around the 360 and skipping past ads in recordings. It will even tell you a joke if asked, although these are definitely of the Christmas cracker variety.


For me having to talk to a remote is a reason not to get a 360, apart from all the other functionality issues.

Flying_Kiwi
Fibre optic

Although TV360 is getting a little better (at a snails pace), it's still missing the most important feature that I relied on my V6 for when I was previously a customer (and when with Sky, on their gear/software), the ability to download recordings from the boxes hard drive to my compatible tablet for watching off-line.

I relied on this feature while commuting on busses or trains in Scotland. Many of the locations offer no cellular data connectivity so, aside from any data costs involved, streaming is not an option.

I understand Virgin Media wanting to not be dependant on TiVo if it's costing them big bucks but they need to get back this important feature that the TiVo setup had (and which 'the competition' still have). Anything else is simply a major step backwards for me. I realise that not everyone will use this feature but for those of us that do, it's a deal-breaker which makes Sky's offerings all the more attractive!

Hmm, nah, despite its recent steady improvement, TV 360/Horizon is still markedly and demonstrably inferior in a number of ways to TiVo. The latter was clearly carefully designed by smart people - smart enough to patent their best ideas to keep them as USPs to TiVo. The fact that I could cherry pick a few favourites from my wish list seems to confirm that.


@DuncanCorps wrote:
The latter was clearly carefully designed by smart people - smart enough to patent their best ideas to keep them as USPs to TiVo. The fact that I could cherry pick a few favourites from my wish list seems to confirm that.

Presumably you meant to say the former ... ie the original in the form of the V6 box? It does seem that the way of encoding recorded content on the boxes hard disk drive was too clever for the developers of the Horizon system to crack so they've just given up on bringing downloadable content from the box to portable devices back as well. Yes the TiVo system was far superior in terms of its features and implementation. I'd much rather have its feature set controlled through a cleverly designed GUI and remote button presses than the current limited abilities even with a listening remote control. It's as if they've tried to compensate for this poor design by introducing a 'flashy' listening remote control but before you start to add 'bells and whistles' you have to have sound basics underneath.

Even talking nicely to the remote won't bring my downloadable recorded content for offline playback on portable devices back (or your preferred more advanced search and filter capabilities) and I'm not going to beg it!

jimboy56
Dialled in

Another feature I'd like is for the ability to zoom out off the TV guide so you can get the prime 8-10pm prime time listings on one page rather than scrolling left/right - if you have a big TV you can reduce the size of the font - would be also nice if you could go full screen on the TV guide so you don't need to scroll up/down so much.