January 20, 2017

Nialli's initial experience of the V6

I had my two TiVo boxes swapped yesterday for a pair of V6s. Here are my initial observations:

The Installation:
  1. It’s a pretty straightforward hardware swap – the most time-consuming part is when the engineer has to call VM to activate the boxes. Our man was on hold for around 15 minutes. As always, the hold music emanating from his mobile was dire…
  2. Total time to install both boxes was under half an hour
  3. The speed of the V6 makes the configuration a doddle. My boxes did three software downloads, each faster than the previous
  4. The EPG was fully populated within the hour – I seem to recall this could take several hours with the TiVos and even longer with the V+
  5.  I’ve got one V6 wired to my router using Ethernet. (My router is a SuperHub 2 in modem mode, connected to an Apple Time Capsule for reliable Wi-Fi coverage.) Our second V6 is just on the Wi-Fi, which meant it took a little longer to do the downloads as my Wi-Fi speed drop in the evenings (it was around 75mbps during the install). I didn’t have to hardwire the second box before the Wi-Fi option appeared – it just worked
  6. Overall, I was impressed. Our engineer didn’t know much about the new box and it was the end of his shift and my dinner was ready so I ushered him out of the door rather than have him attempt instruction. Besides, it's always more fun to play...
The V6:
  1. My two TiVos weren’t as sluggish as some people’s but even after a few hours I couldn’t go back. Has anyone else noticed how unbelievably nippy and snappy the V6 is?? I’m seriously impressed, and TiVo software running at this speed suddenly feels lively and modern
  2. If the V6 was the same size as the old TiVo then the design of the new hardware would feel like a throwback to the old cable boxes of the nineties, but it ain’t – it’s about half the width and it almost disappears in my TV stand. In fact the second box I’ve put on its side and tucked away behind the TV, so you can’t even see it
  3. Connecting the two boxes so they can share recordings works faultlessly
  4. Streaming to my iPad works fine too
  5. The TV Anywhere iOS applications no longer seem to have the connectivity issues I was experiencing with the TiVos
  6. The engineer left both of my original remotes as well as the new, which work fine with the V6s so I have spares now which is useful. The new remotes automatically control my Sony TVs, which saved me having to do that remote code fun and games to get the volume and on/off buttons working
Overall, I’m impressed and delighted with the new boxes. Well done Virgin Media!

10 comments:

halcyondays said...

All sounds great bud...I have my V6 being installed this coming Thursday. Cant wait :)

Kevin Lloyd said...

I'm generally also very positive about the box in operational terms. But we have had a major issue about waking from standby. In short, sometimes it doesn't and requires a reboot to start up. There is a discussion thread on the Virgin Community about this and the issue seems to be related to the interface with UHD televisions. There's no response from Virgin about whether this is a firmware issue or whether it is a hardware problem for some boxes. Either way it needs sorting out because the effect is that to avoid constant rebooting it is necessary to keep the box in Always On mode which is clearly neither ideal nor how the box should function. I've also noticed some other buggy issues such as the cursor sometimes jumping ahead (speeding things up even further but not in the most helpful manner!). We may have a rogue box.

Nialli said...

Kevin: I had a similar problem with Stand By after one of my boxes went into Power Saving mode after four hours untouched. Two hard reboots (there's a tiny on/off switch on the back) before life returned. As we listen to quite a lot of radio I've now changed my settings and disabled Power Saving, manually putting them to sleep overnight or if we're out. Not ideal but works fine for me as we haven't (yet) had the problem again.
Not sure about it being UHD interface issue as neither of my TVs are 4K or UHD.
The cursor thing could be remote related: have you a second one you could try it with?

Kevin Lloyd said...

Thanks. Have gone for disabling the box altogether for 10 minutes and then reconnecting power and rebooting. Now going to put the settings back to Standby with suggestions off and see how that works. It seems to have worked for some people on the basis of their comments on the Virgin Community thread. If the problem recurs I think Virgin will be receiving a call.

Cursor thing was remote related and in effect rebooting the remote by taking the batteries out and then a reboot of the box sorted that one out (or at least it has not recurred yet). But again, it really shouldn't be happening at all. I do wonder whether we have a box which has more problems than just the slightly more widespread one about power saving.

Sibby said...

Glad to read that you can see your recordings on your other V6 box ok.

I've failed to get the V6 to see the other two Tivo's I currently have.

Irishmanc said...

If you are having problems with your wifi you should ask for a superhub 3 they are brilliant

Unknown said...

Question: how easy was it to get the nex v6 box as an existing customer?

Nialli said...

Franz - Really easy. I called 150 and picked the "Thing of leaving us?" option. Ten minutes later I had my monthly bill reduced and two V6s scheduled tor replace my TiVos within a week.

Unknown said...

Currently leaving Sky Q for virgin next week. Doubted my decision but really hard to find bad comments about the v6 whereas they are everywhere for Q. Have you used both?

Nialli said...

@Chris. I don't have a dish so have no personal experience of Q to compare the V6 with.
In my experience the V6 has a few bugs, no show stoppers but irritants certainly. Using the Power Save setting often leads to a full reboot being required to get it out of Stand By, which takes a few minutes so I advise turned Power Save off. The Netflix problem is affecting some but not all - I have it working fine on one box but not on my second. I've also had connection to my second V6 lost when playing recordings from that box remotely, but I suspect that was a problem with my local network as it has only happened once and I can't replicate the fault.