Customer services unable to handle TiVo upgrade

[Henricus]

On 25 September, I received a letter from Virgin telling me I needed a TV box upgrade otherwise I would lose access to Netflix. I currently have a V6 box, and a TiVo box that we kept when the V6 box was installed, as it still had recordings we wanted to watch.

On 30 September I contacted Customer Services to get the upgrade done, first via the Webchat, and then onto WhatsApp when it asked me to continue on there. After 1 hour and 20 minutes waiting on WhatsApp, I was finally connected to an advisor, who told me that they would send me a new box and 2 TV 360 remotes, and that my V6 box would get a software upgrade. They confirmed that the box and remotes would be sent via Yodel arriving on 07/10/2024 between 8am and 6pm, with tracking information shared 24 hours before. Great. Job done.

Actually, no. I didn't receive any tracking information, and when nothing had arrived by 17:00 on 07/10, I decided to go back on the WhatsApp to check that the order was still expected that day. I was connected to an advisor at 17:50, who took 10 minutes to confirm that they couldn't see any order on my account, and that they would order a TV 360 minim box to be sent out to me. After another 20 minutes, they told me 'there is some issue with the codes and is not letting me order the box' and disconnected the chat (!)

When given the option to 'get reconnected to speak to an agent', I replied Yes Please. At 18:40 (so after I had already been on for 1 hour 40 minutes), I was told 'The current wait time is 53 minutes'. At this point I had other stuff I needed to be doing, so I closed WhatsApp. When I came back to it today, I saw that someone had eventually responded at 19:33. Whether or not they would have been able to sort it out, I will never know.

So....I have no appetite to put myself through the WhatsApp experience again, lest I lose the will to live, and I'm hoping that someone from Virgin will pick this up from here for me, so I don't have to.

[Adduxi · Accepted solution]

Think very carefully about this upgrade to 360.  Have a good read on the Forum re the pro's and con's.  One downside I can foresee is you have two boxes with recording faculties at the moment.  For the 360 you might end up with the V6 upgraded to the 360 software (and it is completely different and will wipe your V6 before install) and the TiVo will be replaced with a 360 mini that has no hard drive for recording.   Personally, I don't have any TV from VM, but if I had, I would just be asking for the TiVo to be replaced by another V6.

[nodrogd]

It is not necessary to migrate to the V360 Horizon platform in order to keep Netflix. It is not being withdrawn from the TiVO V6, only from the older TiVO 500 boxes. You can ask for another V6 to replace the 500 & will only lose what you have on that box.

[japitts]

I'll add to what's already been said. In the scenario of a V6 & TiVo home such as yours, VM shouldn't even be suggesting TV360 - it's overcomplicating the situation.

Swapping the TiVo for a V6 resolves the Netflix issue and doesn't unnecessarily affect your existing V6. I'm not surprised that TV360 is being suggested, but that's a whole other can of worms that doesn't need opening.

You could always software-convert 2 x V6 if you subsequently decide to take that path.

[lozer2108]

I agree you may just want to swap out your Tivo for a V6 and read the comments about the differences between V6 and 360, and take time to decide what you want for the future.

[Henricus]

Thanks very much for this (and also to the other contributors).

Our household is somewhat split in their viewing habits. I very rarely record anything (the occasional football match to watch as live if the time is inconvenient - which it usually is), but stream nearly everything, even the News, so I can watch it from the top. Mrs Henricus on the other hand is quite old-school, and watches mostly live TV, and records copious volumes of it, which is the reason we kept the TiVo box when we were given the V6 (to avoid losing all the hours of unwatched recordings).

I was already thinking it would be better, if possible, to skip the software upgrade to the V6 (if it ain't broke, don't fix it...), while getting the new 360 to take advantage of any new features. But having read, as recommended, some of the posts on this forum, I'm wondering whether that would even be possible, as it sounds like the mini box would need the upgrade to the V6 in order to be able to function - is that correct?

Either way, it's beginning to feel like I'm asking for trouble by effectively taking a non-standard upgrade path, on top of our already unusual two-box setup, with any meaningful support virtually impossible to get hold of. The TiVo box is pretty much unused now, and the removal of Netflix from there won't be an issue, so I'm going to take the 'do nothing' option from here.

Thanks again for all your help. It's good to talk.

[japitts]

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@Henricus wrote:

I was already thinking it would be better, if possible, to skip the software upgrade to the V6 (if it ain't broke, don't fix it...), while getting the new 360 to take advantage of any new features.

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TV360 is a fundamentally different software platform to TiVo/V6 - the two cannot co-exist on the same account. You either convert all the boxes in your home, or you convert none. As regards your approach to streaming "even the news", you could take one of two strategies here..

TV360 ties in with the various apps to offer "live restart" on many channels. However, there's nothing to stop you series-linking each & every programme you might want to watch - the news included - once the recording has started, you can either rewind on the channel, or watch the recording from the start.

[Henricus]

Thanks for confirming that I can't mix and match V6 and 360 as originally intended. This makes the decision easier.

I'm fine with my current approach to getting the news, though - I can (usually - IPlayer can be a bit capricious) get to the top of the hour on News 24 from IPlayer live streaming. News At Ten appears in the 'News' Category on there quite soon after it is shown, and is available from the IPlayer TV Schedule option even sooner.

I also have other options for streaming, apart from the apps on my V6 box. My smart TV is getting dumber every year, and is about 10 years old, but I have a Chromecast that I control from an Android tablet, and can use this for IPlayer, Netflix etc if the V6 apps were to fail or become too clunky over time.