TV 360 - A Step Backwards

[Libanese]

I've now had the TV 360 for a week and a half and, although there are a couple of good things, such as voice control, too many things are just a step backwards from Tivo 6 -

1. No quick TV guide available, just the full guide or single channel display at the bottom of the screen
2. Features that used to be one or two button presses away now need 4 or 5 presses. Accessing recordings being a case in point
3. Not being able to specify new recordings only. After 10 days, my hard drive (single, see next point) is 23% full, mainly with repeats I didn't want after setting up series links
4. On that note, my storage space has been reduced by half, thanks to there being no drive in the mini box
5. Not being able to pause live TV on the mini box for more than 2 minutes. Then, once it starts playing, you can't pause again until you've caught up to Live TV. I mean, what is the point of that?
6. No quick access to programme info. Even when you do access it, you get a full screen promo image which completely covers what it is you're watching
7. With Tivo 6, after rewinding it was easy to go straight back to Live TV by pressing the Stop button. With 360, you have to fast forward until it tells you you're watching Live TV
8. Speaking of the remote, the shapes and textures for main buttons are nowhere near pronounced enough. It's almost impossible to use without looking directly at it

Before answering, assuming you are so inclined, please consider this. I do not accept "it's early days" as an excuse. The software is v4.26, which implies it's been through 3 major revisions and dozens of sub-versions. Basically, it should be much better than it is. I don't see Virgin reducing my monthly cost if they are considering me a beta tester. I also don't see them reducing the cost after giving me a botch job of a second box when I had 2 fully functioning Tivo 6 boxes up to last week.

I suppose I should expect Virgin to have made a pig's ear of it, just like they always do, but I thought that, maybe this time, they had it right. I should have known better

[jonathanpye]

@heavyend

You can just type 101 for bbc one takes you to the beginning of the guide. Home button whilst in the guide  takes you to the top command like search etc

[heavyend81]

Nice one, thanks, will give it a go this evening.

[heavyend81]

Couldn't agree with you more. One day in the distant future VM will eventually get there and maybe,just maybe listen to customers views, suggestions and advice on what is best for the customer. I hate it when a large organisation think they know what is best for a customer when they don't even listen to customers in the first place. You would think these days of huge media competition a company would sit down and just take time to look around and plagiarize (in a legal sense) the best bits from everyone, listen to customer reviews and suggestions and just put it all into one nice package.

[jonathanpye]

Eutopia dream. The large organisation will discuss how to market a product that costs less to make, whilst charge more or the same to customer on the pretence it is for the customers benefit rather than maximising profit.

[Libanese]

Quick Update: I'm now 3 months in, so I thought I'd revisit this to see if my opinions have changed. Spoiler alert, I'm still no happier about the whole thing. Here's what I now think -

Voice control, to be fair, is actually excellent, but that's where it stops.

I'll never be happy about losing half of my storage overnight.

The fact I can't pick and choose which parts of a series link to record (New, Reruns, All etc) is incredibly irritating. I'm currently deleting more than I watch, having set up the series links I want but which are currently on reruns. Also, the V6 would automatically look for shows/episodes available on catch up as soon as a series link was set up. That doesn't happen now.

Not having the quick guide available at the bottom of the screen is just nonsensical. I can't see what's on other channels without either loading the full guide (which then covers whatever is playing) or actually changing the channel.

The same goes for the full screen Info page

The amount of button presses needed to do the simplest task is giving me chlamydia

The remote is truly awful. I used to know where every button was on the V6 remote by touch alone. All the buttons on the 360 remote feel the same, so I have to shake it to get the backlight on to see what I'm pressing.

Even after all that, it gets worse. The lack of memory on the second box that results in being able to pause or rewind no further than 2 minutes was obviously dreamed up by someone who doesn't have a telly. Or a life. And if you do restart within the 2 minute window, don't even think about trying to pause or rewind it again until you're back on live TV. It is an appallingly bad feature.

My official complaint lodged with Virgin resulted in them sending me a "manual" for the 360. Of the 6 pages in it, all 6 of them were basically a sales brochure. And a very bad one. It actually said nothing about what the 360 can do. It was all style and no substance, pretty much like the 360 itself.

I am truly approaching the point of binning all but the broadband and going down the IPTV route, using that or other services for catchup to replace the recording function of the 360.

If anybody from Virgin happens to read this (other than the "It's not us, it's you" team who frequent these pages), I pity you. You've been stitched up good and proper by your employer, having to field the inevitable deluge of complaints about 360.

If you don;t already have 360, and came here to see if you should "upgrade", I implore you to hang on to your V6 for as long as you possibly can. If you don't, you'll end up hating yourself for ignoring my advice.

[paul0363]

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@Libanese wrote:

Not having the quick guide available at the bottom of the screen is just nonsensical. I can't see what's on other channels without either loading the full guide (which then covers whatever is playing) or actually changing the channel.

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Quick guide is there (unless you mean something else?). Pressing OK when on a channel will bring it up - you can scroll through the channels and go back and forward in time on each - no need to change channel.

[Libanese]

It's one at a time though, and you can't key in a channel number to see the guide for that channel. Doing so actually changes the channel. That's not a guide, for me

[lennyv]

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@Libanese wrote:

The remote is truly awful. I used to know where every button was on the V6 remote by touch alone. All the buttons on the 360 remote feel the same, so I have to shake it to get the backlight on to see what I'm pressing.

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I was checking out the 360 help pages - a link is pinned in this forum - and I saw they had a section about 'accessibility features', which unfortunately just goes to info about V6 and Tivo. Anyway, they mention in the accessibility features that the (V6) remote has 'buttons of different shapes to make using them easier'. I wonder whether the combination of pressing the mic button and speaking is intended to replace existing accessibility features like that.

I agree that the remote is pretty terrible. There isn't much about it I like at all, and the worst decision imo is shoving the mute button into the bottom left corner. Every single other remote I have that includes volume controls has the mute button placed near to the volume up and down buttons, because they're related so it makes sense to keep them together.

[TiffanyGreen97]

I am sure more Accessibility options will be added on top of the current High Contrast menus and the voice commands 

[roy247]

"I am sure more Accessibility options will be added on top of the current High Contrast menus and the voice commands "

What do we have in mind ?