'Upgrade' to Virgin TV 360 loses essential features from V6

[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?

[GNS1]

Nothing in your reply resolves anything I've said. If you're happy with 360 that's fine, but I stand by everything I've said

[Gillthomas]

I agree that the 360 'upgrade' which I was told I have to have as my Tivo box was being retired is not an improvement.  I don't need or want my 3 boxes to be connected. My dad watches sport, my mum soaps and I watch other things. Now all of us can see everything the others have recorded. We used to have 3 separate boxes, now we have one box with 2 extras. It doesn't work for my family 

[Roger_Gooner]

Let's deal with this word 'upgrade'. It isn't an upgrade, it's a migration from the V6 to the 360 and, like many migrations, there are plusses and minuses. Although some will hate it (but some will love it) for the vast majority it will work out fine.

It also has to be said that the V6 is coming to the end of its product life cycle and is no longer being developed, so expect no more new apps, whilst the Horizon 4-based 360 is only a few years old and will continue to get upgrades for several years.

[Gillthomas]

OK, fair  enough. It was sold to me as an upgrade. Had I done more research and joined this community earlier I would have realised I had the option to keep my Tivo boxes, which work for my family set up.  I was told my Tivo box was being retired and I took this to mean that the 360 box was obligatory. I realise now this is not the case and I should have been more careful in what I ordered. 

[Roger_Gooner]

VM is getting people to voluntarily migrate but the TiVo and V6 boxes will be retired within a few years and there will therefore be a compulsory migration to the 360. For the moment I'm hanging onto my V6 as I have no compelling need to migrate.

[japitts]

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@Roger_Gooner wrote:

VM is getting people to voluntarily migrate but the TiVo and V6 boxes will be retired within a few years and there will therefore be a compulsory migration to the 360. For the moment I'm hanging onto my V6 as I have no compelling need to migrate.

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The bit in bold is correct here, the bit I've underlined is currently unclear - entirely possible but speculative and not certain at this time.

The final sentence is the position many people (who use specific TiVo/V6 features) are adopting until such time as TV360 adds those features.

[Roger_Gooner]

My views are not wholly speculative as I spent decades in IT and I know a thing or two about migration. VM has already closed the door on new TiVo-only customers, meaning that if they want just TV* they must have a 360 plus a hub which is solely for the 360. No new apps have been developed for the TiVo, so this is why Prime Video and Britbox are missing. The V6 is also on its way out and I predict that when the Disney+ app becomes available on a set-top box, probably next year, it will be on the 360 and not the V6. It's quite simple: why waste money on a TiVo platform which is on its way out.

Liberty Global has a Horizon 4 development team which has produced a product that has been successfully rolled out in multiple European countries. The only reason for the continued support for the TiVo and V6 boxes is because there is a contractual agreement with TiVo, but once that contract ends then LG will have no business case to extend the contract and thus continue paying for the software licences. If that contract ends in, say, 2025, then VM will have to push on with migrating users onto the 360. Contrary to what some people think VM isn't wholly incompetent and there will be a migration plan in place to get everything done in time. At the moment migration is being done voluntarily but a forced migration will be necessary as there are millions of TV subscribers. This won't be a surprise as I've seen it done many times.

* TV without broadband is not even advertised on the website and you must call to get it.

[jamesredfern]

The differences are obvious. If you can get out of your contract do it now. Things haven't improved in 15 months for me using a 360 box. Just 3 months to go for me and the tv goes back to SKY