Virgin Media Community

[GNS1]

I am hugely disappointed with the Virgin TV 360 service compared to V6, and it feels like a huge downgrade than an upgrade. The customer services representative did not make it clear what the differences were with 360 before the upgrade and did not give us a choice and now we're left with a significantly worse product. 360 loses invaluable features from V6 which I have outlined below, and I hope Virgin take account of this feedback for future software upgrades:

• Two remote controls cannot be used with one 360 box. We used to rely heavily on using two remotes for the V6 box in the living room.
• We have two boxes and they were treated independently with V6, and it was clear which programmes were saved on which box. However with 360 the two boxes are synchronised and you can no longer tell which programmes are saved to which box. We much preferred the boxes to be treated independently, as we don’t need to see or interfere with what someone else has watched or recorded on another box.
• I thought the new profiles feature might solve the above problem, hoping that we could allocate recordings to different profiles and make them private if necessary. You can't, making the profiles feature totally useless.
• Font size is too small in the guide. There is an option to increase the font size, but it then makes it too big, there's no middle ground.
• 'Info' button from V6 is not available on the 360 remote control, and neither is the 'My Shows' button. Yes you can still access programme information and recordings, how these involve multiple steps and not just a push of a button, making it more cumbersome. More graphics doesn’t make it better, and the old remote and text interface of Tivo was much more intuitive and what you read was what you got.
• Pressing the 'ok' button no longer brings up the mini guide as it did with V6.
• Deleted recordings can no longer retrieved as you could with V6.
• Still no Disney Plus app available.
• V6 Wishlist feature is not available in 360.
• We don’t have a 360 mini box, but from what I understand they still require connection using a coax cable, unlike Sky Q mini boxes that use wifi. I thought 360 boxes were meant to resolve this.
• All our programmes were wiped from our V6 box when upgrading to 360. Surely technology in 2022 should allow programmes to be transferred, or backed up somewhere?

[japitts]

360 is not TiVo, and there are substantial differences between the two platforms - some of which you've highlighted. There's 3 particular ones that seem worthy of comment..

---

@GNS1 wrote:

The customer services representative did not make it clear what the differences were with 360 before the upgrade and did not give us a choice and now we're left with a significantly worse product.

---

You were potentially mis-led. All conversions from TiVo/V6 > 360 are completely voluntary. New customers don't get a choice, and many people who move from old bundles to new ones, are offered it... but it's not compulsory, and all those bundles can be used with existing equipment, TiVo/V6 included.

Arguably, it's incumbent on the user to do research before accepting a conversion, in the same way as a conversion between Android/iOS or Windows 10/11 should be undertaken. It's too late for you now, but there's plenty of threads on here that have discussed this - one of the more pertinent is here 

---

---

@GNS1 wrote:
We don’t have a 360 mini box, but from what I understand they still require connection using a coax cable, unlike Sky Q mini boxes that use wifi. I thought 360 boxes were meant to resolve this.

---

All VM TV boxes require a co-ax cable, it is how Virgin Media delivery live broadcast TV channels. That holds true, regardless of whether you have TiVo, V6, 360-master or 360-mini.

The only difference between a 360-multiroom (in other words, 360-mini) & TiVo/V6 multiroom is that 360-minis don't have hard drives.

---

@GNS1 wrote:
All our programmes were wiped from our V6 box when upgrading to 360. Surely technology in 2022 should allow programmes to be transferred, or backed up somewhere?

---

No - VM TV boxes are intended for short-term timeshift, not long-term archiving. It's standard practice that in a box-swap, your recordings are lost. The coversion from TiVo/V6 > 360 includes a reformat of the HDD for the new software. Although not documented anywhere to my knowledge, it's also quite possible that the file format is different between the two platforms.

Regardless of that, there is warning on the "upgrade now" banner, that recordings are lost and to watch them before converting.

[nodrogd]

---

@GNS1 wrote:

• We don’t have a 360 mini box, but from what I understand they still require connection using a coax cable, unlike Sky Q mini boxes that use wifi. I thought 360 boxes were meant to resolve this.
• All our programmes were wiped from our V6 box when upgrading to 360. Surely technology in 2022 should allow programmes to be transferred, or backed up somewhere?

---

SkyQ mini boxes don’t allow you to watch in UHD, so only VM has true multiroom capability ATM. V360 is still built around broadcast technology, not IPTV, so this is also the simplist way to distribute.

Also under current broadcaster agreements “transferring” programmes is not allowed. The technology is there. The permission to use it is not. V360 was built to exclusively use mini boxes without hard drives & record content to the cloud. Neither VM nor Sky (whose Q box is also cloud record capable) are therefore unable to use it currently due to the same agreements.

[thrice]

I too had difficulty switching from my V6 boxes to the 360 software. That is until I started using the 360 voice control. This actually makes it easier, not more difficult, to access features such as recordings and fast-forwarding simply by saying what is wanted. At first, I resisted this as a gimmick but soon became a convert. It is not perfect but is still a powerful way to navigate around the 360 interface and I soon adjusted my mindset. Now, thinking back, I find the V6 way of doing things clunky. True, there are some important features missing especially the inability to undelete recordings. I realize there are patent issues with some V6/TiVo features but I hope something similar will arrive with future software updates. These arrive frequently compared to the V6.

[newapollo]

---

@GNS1 wrote:

• Two remote controls cannot be used with one 360 box. We used to rely heavily on using two remotes for the V6 box in the living room.

  You can use some third party remotes such as the OneForAll URC7125 - use the SimpleSet setup process and choose Ziggo manufacturer. Also the Logitech Harmony remote.  You need to set them up as a "Ziggo Mediabox Next" You can also control the 360 by using the Virgin TV Go app. I've set up my LG TV Smart remote to control the 360. Others on the forum have also managed to set up Samsung smart remotes, Sony's etc to work with the 360.

• We have two boxes and they were treated independently with V6, and it was clear which programmes were saved on which box. However with 360 the two boxes are synchronised and you can no longer tell which programmes are saved to which box. We much preferred the boxes to be treated independently, as we don’t need to see or interfere with what someone else has watched or recorded on another box.
• When setting up a series link go to advanced and select which box you want the recording to be made on. It will then be recorded on that box going forward, even if the default recording box is the other one. So all you need to do is reset your series links to record on the box you want them to. Unfortunately to reset the links, you'll need to delete and reset. You can also use the same method to record individual programs rather than series.
• I thought the new profiles feature might solve the above problem, hoping that we could allocate recordings to different profiles and make them private if necessary. You can't, making the profiles feature totally useless.
• Font size is too small in the guide. There is an option to increase the font size, but it then makes it too big, there's no middle ground.
• 'Info' button from V6 is not available on the 360 remote control, and neither is the 'My Shows' button. Yes you can still access programme information and recordings, how these involve multiple steps and not just a push of a button, making it more cumbersome. More graphics doesn’t make it better, and the old remote and text interface of Tivo was much more intuitive and what you read was what you got.
• You can use voice control and say "Infomation" to bring up info about the current program, or use the contextal button on the remote(three dots above the program up button) to access info
• Pressing the 'ok' button no longer brings up the mini guide as it did with V6.
• Deleted recordings can no longer retrieved as you could with V6.
• Still no Disney Plus app available.
• V6 Wishlist feature is not available in 360.
• The 360 does not have a wish list however you can search for something using voice (e.g. ‘Movies with John Wayne’) and then manually save the result to your Watch list.
• We don’t have a 360 mini box, but from what I understand they still require connection using a coax cable, unlike Sky Q mini boxes that use wifi. I thought 360 boxes were meant to resolve this.
• All our programmes were wiped from our V6 box when upgrading to 360. Surely technology in 2022 should allow programmes to be transferred, or backed up somewhere?

---

[Roger_Gooner]

---

@GNS1 wrote:

• Still no Disney Plus app available.

---

This would only be a valid complaint if this app were available on the V6 but not the 360.

[GNS1]

I'm aware it's not on V6 however one of the early indications from Virgin was that Disney Plus would be available on 360

[GNS1]

On your second point, I'm aware you can select which box to save programmes however that isn't what I was querying. If recordings could be allocated to profiles that might help resolve my concern - I've seen others make the same point and I hope Virgin can implement it.

[deans6571]

---

@GNS1 wrote:

I am hugely disappointed with the Virgin TV 360 service compared to V6, and it feels like a huge downgrade than an upgrade. The customer services representative did not make it clear what the differences were with 360 before the upgrade and did not give us a choice and now we're left with a significantly worse product. 360 loses invaluable features from V6 which I have outlined below, and I hope Virgin take account of this feedback for future software upgrades:

• Two remote controls cannot be used with one 360 box. We used to rely heavily on using two remotes for the V6 box in the living room.

Why would anyone want to use 2 remotes with the same box - it makes zero sense?? Two people do not need their own remote......

• I thought the new profiles feature might solve the above problem, hoping that we could allocate recordings to different profiles and make them private if necessary. You can't, making the profiles feature totally useless.

I'm sure you can save specific programs to profiles.

• Font size is too small in the guide. There is an option to increase the font size, but it then makes it too big, there's no middle ground.

Seems fine to me. Its about the same size font as Sky...

• 'Info' button from V6 is not available on the 360 remote control, and neither is the 'My Shows' button. Yes you can still access programme information and recordings, how these involve multiple steps and not just a push of a button,

So you're complaining because its 2 button presses instead of 1 ???!! 

• the 'ok' button no longer brings up the mini guide as it did with V6.

Yes it does - it gives the mini guide at the bottom of the screen.

• Deleted recordings can no longer retrieved as you could with V6.

Hopefully this will be in a future firmware update.

• Still no Disney Plus app available.

Most, if not all, Smart TV's would have this app anyway so its a non issue (the 360 was never advertised as having Disney Plus).

• V6 Wishlist feature is not available in 360.

No but the 360 has a similar option - Watchlists.

• We don’t have a 360 mini box, but from what I understand they still require connection using a coax cable, unlike Sky Q mini boxes that use wifi. I thought 360 boxes were meant to resolve this.

What difference does it make if its coax vs wifi?? This is also a non issue.......

• All our programmes were wiped from our V6 box when upgrading to 360. Surely technology in 2022 should allow programmes to be transferred, or backed up somewhere?

This is because the box gets overwritten with new software. Its well documented that nothing is saved when you make the switch.

---

..see above in red!

[Tavis75 · Accepted solution]

---

@deans6571 wrote:

---

No but the 360 has a similar option - Watchlists.

---

Watchlists are nowhere close to a replacement for Wishlists as I understand it. I believe they just let you pick a program from the guide (or on demand) and stick it in a list to watch\record later. So no use if the program isn't currently in the guide. A Wishlist can be set up to record any program on a certain subject, with a certain actor, or title, or director etc. and once one is set up it is then in place indefinitely. 

I believe the only similarity is that you could use the search feature to find a program and then add it to the list, but this process would have to be repeated every week or two, and I'm not sure the search options are as powerful.