Virgin 360

[Sean_Curtis1]

Not really a question, just a little insight on my recent Downgrade to Virgin 360, for information purposes. So i didnt opt to change my 2 current V6 boxes, as i wanted to keep the both boxes able to record (which is what i paid for and subscribed to originally so for Virgin to take one of these options away for the same price is obviously a downgrade) option that you dont get if you upgrade to the 360 + mini 360 box. so i opted for the convert the tivo software on my V6's. the new remotes arrived and the message to convert (ill say convert or downgrade as upgrade is not true) message apperead on screen and i followed the instructions. The conversion was quick and seemless on both boxes to be fair, and i was presented with the new Virgin 360 UI. Initially it seemed ok but after a week of using it (trying to give it a chance) i have to say that at best i find it frustrating and irritating and not at all as user friendly as the tivo system (which is to be fair due and upgrade but at least is user friendly) lets start with the remote, yes it is nice and shinny and different but after a week of using it, it certainly is not as user friendy as the old V6 remote as to flick around the UI you have to keep shifting it around in your hand to get to the buttons you want, it has a handy little feature that is when you pick it up it is backlit and everything light up, so great in the dark but it stays on for a spilt second and by the time you get to the button you want (like the 2nd number of your pin) it goes off and you find yourself shaking it again to come back on (so pretty pointless but would be fine if it stayed on for 5 seconds say). It does have the voice function button that actually works quick and well but is only any good if you know what channel you want to go directly to. which brings me to my next point, Navigating Channels and Categories, if you want to browse the various Channels or Categories in the guide you will find this frustrating as hell, as it is now much more difficult and now where near as easy as it used to be, and have to press far to many buttons to navigate to movies or sports or documentries for instance, you would have thought you might be able to voice search the catagory you wanted, but no im affraid not, it really is not user friendly at all, and is still far behind the Sky front end UI. The record series facility is now hit and miss at best with the option to record new episodes only, gone, and it repeatedly records repeat episodes (Virgin Get this sorted properly), the fast forward and rewind function that when you stopped it would go forward or back a few seconds has also disappeared, and you find your self frustratingly going past where you need to be so have to go back a bit and then forward a bit and so on and on, and when you do FF or RW the software is slow to respond from the press. (you might think this is nothing, but believe me you will find it annoying) there is a new function in the settings that is supposed to change the screens aspect ratio of a 4.3 transmission which i thought was a really neat idea, you can set it to change a 4.3 transmission (the old aspect ratio before wide screen was invented, where you will see the image with two black lines down the side) to either stay as it is or shove it out to full screen or zoom, guess what, it doesnt work ever!!! (and before you say it maybe a setting on your TV, it isnt) and most annoyingly of all on my 2nd TV with the 2nd Box since converting to the new 360 software, There is some magic in the software that automatically will pair you new remote to your TV, that does work, but on this TV it has stopped my TV's proper remote from working and as a result i cannot access the TVs smart functionalilty or the settings menues, unless i completely discconect the V6 box from the TV (it then works as it should and as it did on the old Tivo software) go figure, i have told Virgin of this problem who after not seeing any issues their end, sent out an engineer who had no idea what was causing it and went away saying he would try to investigate the issue with the tech department at Virgin and get back to me, guess what? at the time of writting this review some 6 days have passed and i have heard nothing back, i strongly suspect that i wont hear anything and Virgin will have left me with a crrippled TV that i can no longer use correctly whilst thier box and sevice are connected to it. I could go on with other minor issues but i wont there seems no point really but i will mention this one last thing. now i dont know about you put the PIN THING now i understand that to some households with children, this would be extremely useful, but for those like mine with just two adults and NO KIDS it fair to say that there should be an option to either switch this on for those that need it, and OFF FOR THOSE THAT DONT, i thought that the New Software would give me this option, but alass NO i am still having to input my pin to watch films before the watershed along with anything i recorded before the watershed, on a remote i can no longer use with one hand and that doesn't light up for any longer tham the time it takes me to enter on number (i have changed it to 1111, but the point is I WANT TO SWITCH IT OFF IN MY HOUSEHOLD AS WE HAVE NO USE FOR IT) The set up of user profiles to arrange your own favorites is good and there is a better image quality (i stiil think virgin are purposely sending poor signal quality in an attempt to get people to swap over) but thats it. To sumerize in my opinion Virgin have COMPLETEY MISSED the oportunity TO DO SOMETHING GOOD HERE, Still that drab purple colour scheme that im sure prople are sick of seeing on a New UI that offers very little in the way of an apparent UPGRADE, Clunky Buggy, poor to navigate and not user friendly at best. shame on you virgin where is your creativity.

[Ernie_C]

Carriage Return.

[deans6571]

---

@Sean_Curtis1 wrote:

Navigating Channels and Categories, if you want to browse the various Channels or Categories in the guide you will find this frustrating as hell, as it is now much more difficult and now where near as easy as it used to be, and have to press far to many buttons to navigate to movies or sports or documentries for instance, you would have thought you might be able to voice search the catagory you wanted, but no im affraid not,

Voice search works fine - press the button and say where you want to go.

it really is not user friendly at all, and is still far behind the Sky front end UI. The record series facility is now hit and miss at best with the option to record new episodes only, gone, and it repeatedly records repeat episodes

Completely incorrect - you can record new, you just tell the box to record from Episode/Series X and onwards.

the fast forward and rewind function that when you stopped it would go forward or back a few seconds has also disappeared,

This is a TiVo feature so unlikely to ever come to the Horizon software.

 There is some magic in the software that automatically will pair you new remote to your TV, that does work, but on this TV it has stopped my TV's proper remote from working and as a result i cannot access the TVs smart functionalilty or the settings menues, unless i completely discconect the V6 box from the TV (it then works as it should and as it did on the old Tivo software) go figure,

You clearly have no idea how to use your equipment - my 360 remote  controls the TV volume and turns it on and off. My Smart remote works as it should - you clearly have it configured incorrectly.

now i dont know about you put the PIN THING now i understand that to some households with children, this would be extremely useful, but for those like mine with just two adults and NO KIDS it fair to say that there should be an option to either switch this on for those that need it, and OFF FOR THOSE THAT DONT, i thought that the New Software would give me this option, but alass NO i am still having to input my pin to watch films before the watershed along with anything i recorded before the watershed,

This is down to Sky as you'll notice it only asks for a PIN on the Sky channels. Again - user error.

Still that drab purple colour scheme

...well that's Virgin Media's colour and is the same on this site - what do you want them to do, change the colour for you???!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

Firstly - have you never heard of paragraphs, full stops or capital letters??! Your post is incredibly difficult to read as its literally just a big block of text (2 out of 10 for grammar and punctuation).

And lastly - see above in red......

[newapollo · Accepted solution]

---

@Sean_Curtis1 wrote:

lets start with the remote, yes it is nice and shinny and different but after a week of using it, it certainly is not as user friendy as the old V6 remote as to flick around the UI you have to keep shifting it around in your hand to get to the buttons you want, it has a handy little feature that is when you pick it up it is backlit and everything light up, so great in the dark but it stays on for a spilt second and by the time you get to the button you want (like the 2nd number of your pin) it goes off and you find yourself shaking it again to come back on (so pretty pointless but would be fine if it stayed on for 5 seconds say).

If it stayed on too long people would complain that their battery was draining, You can buy a ONE FOR ALL Evolve 2 URC7125 Universal Remote Control , or a Logitech Harmony remote to use with the 360

It does have the voice function button that actually works quick and well but is only any good if you know what channel you want to go directly to. which brings me to my next point, Navigating Channels and Categories, if you want to browse the various Channels or Categories in the guide you will find this frustrating as hell, as it is now much more difficult and now where near as easy as it used to be, and have to press far to many buttons to navigate to movies or sports or documentries for instance, you would have thought you might be able to voice search the catagory you wanted, but no im affraid not, it really is not user friendly at all,

Using voice control you can say "back to the top" or "top" and it goes to 100, or you can say "101", "501" , or "BBC1" "Channel 4" etc

When searching on the EPG press the Home button, then right and it takes you to the top of the guide with All Channels highlighted.

If you then click on All Channels it brings up a category list Documentaries, Entertainment, International, Kids etc so you can go straight to that section.

You can also use the Profiles function to set up categories eg Sport, Movies and populate the profile yourself, then press the profile button on the right hand side of the remote and go to your selected category.

The record series facility is now hit and miss at best with the option to record new episodes only, gone,

The series link starts from the season you set it too ie if there are 8 seasons and you set the 1st recording at season 4 it will record seasons 4 to 8.

self frustratingly going past where you need to be so have to go back a bit and then forward a bit and so on and on, and when you do FF or RW the software is slow to respond from the press. (you might think this is nothing, but believe me you will find it annoying)

The left and right arrow buttons either side of the OK button skip forward 30 seconds and back 10 seconds to help  you with fine tuning.

there is a new function in the settings that is supposed to change the screens aspect ratio of a 4.3 transmission which i thought was a really neat idea, you can set it to change a 4.3 transmission (the old aspect ratio before wide screen was invented, where you will see the image with two black lines down the side) to either stay as it is or shove it out to full screen or zoom, guess what, it doesnt work ever!!! (and before you say it maybe a setting on your TV, it isnt) and most annoyingly of all on my 2nd TV with the 2nd Box since converting to the new 360 software,

The 4:3 function allows you to switch to full screen, pillar box (which should display in the middle of the screen with black lines) and zoom mode, however this function depends upon the actual broadcaster and in what format they send the program to VM. For example the UK Gold HD 4:3 is usually received correctly, but not the UK Gold +1 channel as it's transmitted in a different format to VM. You may also need to select the next option in the Audio & Video Settings menu > Match frame rate to ON for smoother playback.

There is some magic in the software that automatically will pair you new remote to your TV, that does work, but on this TV it has stopped my TV's proper remote from working and as a result i cannot access the TVs smart functionalilty or the settings menues, unless i completely discconect the V6 box from the TV

Have you tried to re-pair the 360 remote to see if this allows your TV remote to start working again. Enter the 4 digits from your TV model as per the following examples, eg I have an LG NANO796NE so I would enter 796N to pair my remote... if you had an Hisense 32H5590F model then you would enter H559 in the 360 settings. You can also use the key presses function - don't just accept the first option that works as there are often a few that will work. You could also factory reset your TV or re-pair your TV remote from within the TV settings. Or contact your TV provider

now i dont know about you put the PIN THING now i understand that to some households with children, this would be extremely useful, but for those like mine with just two adults and NO KIDS it fair to say that there should be an option to either switch this on for those that need it, and OFF FOR THOSE THAT DONT, i thought that the New Software would give me this option, but alass NO i am still having to input my pin to watch films before the watershed along with anything i recorded before the watershed..... but the point is I WANT TO SWITCH IT OFF IN MY HOUSEHOLD AS WE HAVE NO USE FOR IT)

The following thread explains about the PIN protection.  /Pin-ALWAYS-needed-for-12  

---

[Sean_Curtis1]

Hi Dean
Thank you for your response, from which i can only persume your are the kind of individual that looks to find people whom they can pick on and bully online, if their opinions differ from your own, as your comments are really unessessay and do not make any sense in their response to the particular points you have addressed them too.

It does have the voice function button that actually works quick and well but is only any good if you know what channel you want to go directly to. which brings me to my next point, Navigating Channels and Categories, if you want to browse the various Channels or Categories in the guide you will find this frustrating as hell, as it is now much more difficult and now where near as easy as it used to be, and have to press far to many buttons to navigate to movies or sports or documentries for instance, you would have thought you might be able to voice search the catagory you wanted, but no im affraid not,

Voice search works fine - press the button and say where you want to go.
I did say the voice command works well, you missed my point as i was saying it would be good if the voice command would take you to the particular CATEGORY, but it doesnt.

it really is not user friendly at all, and is still far behind the Sky front end UI. The record series facility is now hit and miss at best with the option to record new episodes only, gone, and it repeatedly records repeat episodes

Completely incorrect - you can record new, you just tell the box to record from Episode/Series X and onwards.
Yes you can tell it to record from a certain Series. as i said this is HIT AND MISS. It workd on some series and others i have the same episode recorded 4 times that has been aired 4 different times on the same channel.

the fast forward and rewind function that when you stopped it would go forward or back a few seconds has also disappeared,

This is a TiVo feature so unlikely to ever come to the Horizon software
Very true, but it is not hard for any software team to replicate this feature if they were creative enough.

There is some magic in the software that automatically will pair you new remote to your TV, that does work, but on this TV it has stopped my TV's proper remote from working and as a result i cannot access the TVs smart functionalilty or the settings menues, unless i completely discconect the V6 box from the TV (it then works as it should and as it did on the old Tivo software) go figure,

You clearly have no idea how to use your equipment - my 360 remote  controls the TV volume and turns it on and off. My Smart remote works as it should - you clearly have it configured incorrectly.
Actually, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about, both my 360 remotes work and control both my TV's and my Orginal Smart remote on TV 1 works as it should, but the Smart remote on TV 2 (which operated as it should on the V6 Tivo software) now does not work on the V6 Horizon software when the TV is on the HDMI port of the Virgin Box, when i swap it out to another HDMI port conected to another device it operates as it should. Clearly there is some software conflict. You should know that i have a BSc (Honours) Computing and Electronic Engineering (despite my condition which i will come to in a momment) and have worked for the Government and British Nuclearr Fuels. so pretty much know my way way around any piece of electronic equipment and software, and within the limitations of the settings on this 2018 sony Bravia TV there is no configuration setting that rectifies the issue. the Virgin engineer that came out could not understand the issue and neither could Sony UK. Just because yours is working fine doesnt mean to say that everybodys else's should.

now i dont know about you put the PIN THING now i understand that to some households with children, this would be extremely useful, but for those like mine with just two adults and NO KIDS it fair to say that there should be an option to either switch this on for those that need it, and OFF FOR THOSE THAT DONT, i thought that the New Software would give me this option, but alass NO i am still having to input my pin to watch films before the watershed along with anything i recorded before the watershed,

This is down to Sky as you'll notice it only asks for a PIN on the Sky channels. Again - user error.
This comment makes me bawl, and you have completley missed my point, there is no user error here my point and complaint is, THERE SHOULD BE AN OPTION TO EITHER HAVE THE PIN REQUIREMENT TURNED ON OR OFF

Still that drab purple colour scheme

...well that's Virgin Media's colour and is the same on this site - what do you want them to do, change the colour for you???!
Again a completely pointless comment. you have grabbed just a section of my comment to facititate your own useless comment, so ill just reiterate what i said again for you below and explain the point which again you have missed.

To sumerize in my opinion Virgin have COMPLETEY MISSED the oportunity TO DO SOMETHING GOOD HERE, Still that drab purple colour scheme that im sure prople are sick of seeing on a New UI that offers very little in the way of an apparent UPGRADE, Clunky Buggy, poor to navigate and not user friendly at best. shame on you virgin where is your creativity.
POINT BEING, why? on launching a brand new TV system did they not take the opportunity to fully refresh the whole outdated look, with something more vibrant and NEW, instead of making it look same but different. a missed opportunity for every Virgin customer NOT JUST ME, and uncreative to say the least.


Firstly - have you never heard of paragraphs, full stops or capital letters??! Your post is incredibly difficult to read as its literally just a big block of text (2 out of 10 for grammar and punctuation).
You should know that i suffer from Dyslexia. for your information Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling. However, intelligence isn't affected.
I apologise if my grammer and punctuation offends you. I have done my best.

• Tags:
• 360
• issues
• problems
• Review
• Upgrade
• VIRGIN

Add tag...

[Sean_Curtis1]

To sumerize in my opinion Virgin have COMPLETEY MISSED the oportunity TO DO SOMETHING GOOD HERE, Still that drab purple colour scheme that im sure prople are sick of seeing on a New UI that offers very little in the way of an apparent UPGRADE, Clunky Buggy, poor to navigate and not user friendly at best. shame on you virgin where is your creativity.
POINT BEING, why? on launching a brand new TV system did they not take the opportunity to fully refresh the whole outdated look, with something more vibrant and NEW, instead of making it look same but different. a missed opportunity for every Virgin customer NOT JUST ME, and uncreative to say the least.


Firstly - have you never heard of paragraphs, full stops or capital letters??! Your post is incredibly difficult to read as its literally just a big block of text (2 out of 10 for grammar and punctuation).
You should know that i suffer from Dyslexia. for your information Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling. However, intelligence isn't affected.
I apologise if my grammer and punctuation offends you. I have done my best.

[deans6571]

---

@Sean_Curtis1 wrote:

Hi Dean
Thank you for your response, from which i can only persume your are the kind of individual that looks to find people whom they can pick on and bully online, if their opinions differ from your own, as your comments are really unessessay and do not make any sense in their response to the particular points you have addressed them too.

It does have the voice function button that actually works quick and well but is only any good if you know what channel you want to go directly to. which brings me to my next point, Navigating Channels and Categories, if you want to browse the various Channels or Categories in the guide you will find this frustrating as hell, as it is now much more difficult and now where near as easy as it used to be, and have to press far to many buttons to navigate to movies or sports or documentries for instance, you would have thought you might be able to voice search the catagory you wanted, but no im affraid not,

Voice search works fine - press the button and say where you want to go.
I did say the voice command works well, you missed my point as i was saying it would be good if the voice command would take you to the particular CATEGORY, but it doesnt.

it really is not user friendly at all, and is still far behind the Sky front end UI. The record series facility is now hit and miss at best with the option to record new episodes only, gone, and it repeatedly records repeat episodes

Completely incorrect - you can record new, you just tell the box to record from Episode/Series X and onwards.
Yes you can tell it to record from a certain Series. as i said this is HIT AND MISS. It workd on some series and others i have the same episode recorded 4 times that has been aired 4 different times on the same channel.

the fast forward and rewind function that when you stopped it would go forward or back a few seconds has also disappeared,

This is a TiVo feature so unlikely to ever come to the Horizon software
Very true, but it is not hard for any software team to replicate this feature if they were creative enough.

There is some magic in the software that automatically will pair you new remote to your TV, that does work, but on this TV it has stopped my TV's proper remote from working and as a result i cannot access the TVs smart functionalilty or the settings menues, unless i completely discconect the V6 box from the TV (it then works as it should and as it did on the old Tivo software) go figure,

You clearly have no idea how to use your equipment - my 360 remote  controls the TV volume and turns it on and off. My Smart remote works as it should - you clearly have it configured incorrectly.
Actually, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about, both my 360 remotes work and control both my TV's and my Orginal Smart remote on TV 1 works as it should, but the Smart remote on TV 2 (which operated as it should on the V6 Tivo software) now does not work on the V6 Horizon software when the TV is on the HDMI port of the Virgin Box, when i swap it out to another HDMI port conected to another device it operates as it should. Clearly there is some software conflict. You should know that i have a BSc (Honours) Computing and Electronic Engineering (despite my condition which i will come to in a momment) and have worked for the Government and British Nuclearr Fuels. so pretty much know my way way around any piece of electronic equipment and software, and within the limitations of the settings on this 2018 sony Bravia TV there is no configuration setting that rectifies the issue. the Virgin engineer that came out could not understand the issue and neither could Sony UK. Just because yours is working fine doesnt mean to say that everybodys else's should.

now i dont know about you put the PIN THING now i understand that to some households with children, this would be extremely useful, but for those like mine with just two adults and NO KIDS it fair to say that there should be an option to either switch this on for those that need it, and OFF FOR THOSE THAT DONT, i thought that the New Software would give me this option, but alass NO i am still having to input my pin to watch films before the watershed along with anything i recorded before the watershed,

This is down to Sky as you'll notice it only asks for a PIN on the Sky channels. Again - user error.
This comment makes me bawl, and you have completley missed my point, there is no user error here my point and complaint is, THERE SHOULD BE AN OPTION TO EITHER HAVE THE PIN REQUIREMENT TURNED ON OR OFF

Still that drab purple colour scheme

...well that's Virgin Media's colour and is the same on this site - what do you want them to do, change the colour for you???!
Again a completely pointless comment. you have grabbed just a section of my comment to facititate your own useless comment, so ill just reiterate what i said again for you below and explain the point which again you have missed.

To sumerize in my opinion Virgin have COMPLETEY MISSED the oportunity TO DO SOMETHING GOOD HERE, Still that drab purple colour scheme that im sure prople are sick of seeing on a New UI that offers very little in the way of an apparent UPGRADE, Clunky Buggy, poor to navigate and not user friendly at best. shame on you virgin where is your creativity.
POINT BEING, why? on launching a brand new TV system did they not take the opportunity to fully refresh the whole outdated look, with something more vibrant and NEW, instead of making it look same but different. a missed opportunity for every Virgin customer NOT JUST ME, and uncreative to say the least.


Firstly - have you never heard of paragraphs, full stops or capital letters??! Your post is incredibly difficult to read as its literally just a big block of text (2 out of 10 for grammar and punctuation).
You should know that i suffer from Dyslexia. for your information Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling. However, intelligence isn't affected.
I apologise if my grammer and punctuation offends you. I have done my best.

• Tags:
• 360
• issues
• problems
• Review
• Upgrade
• VIRGIN

Add tag...

---

I will just say one thing and will leave it at that - nobody forced you to update from TiVo to 360. You really should have researched the product before moving over to 360 to see what it could and could not do (there is a ton of info on here about it).

One final note - not once have I ever bullied anybody (you included). I merely made a point of stating to use paragraphs, sentences and full stops in order to space out your text to make it easy to read.

Over and out....

[deans6571]

To sumerize in my opinion Virgin have COMPLETEY MISSED the oportunity TO DO SOMETHING GOOD HERE, Still that drab purple colour scheme that im sure prople are sick of seeing on a New UI that offers very little in the way of an apparent UPGRADE, Clunky Buggy, poor to navigate and not user friendly at best. shame on you virgin where is your creativity.
POINT BEING, why? on launching a brand new TV system did they not take the opportunity to fully refresh the whole outdated look, with something more vibrant and NEW, instead of making it look same but different. a missed opportunity for every Virgin customer NOT JUST ME, and uncreative to say the least.


Firstly - have you never heard of paragraphs, full stops or capital letters??! Your post is incredibly difficult to read as its literally just a big block of text (2 out of 10 for grammar and punctuation).
You should know that i suffer from Dyslexia. for your information Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling. However, intelligence isn't affected.
I apologise if my grammer and punctuation offends you. I have done my best.