All new hardware has bugs or, as one of my engineers once claimed, ‘undocumented features’, and the V6 appears to be no different. Overall I am very pleased with the new boxes and wouldn’t for a moment consider swapping them back for my old Samsung and Cisco TiVo relics, but over the weekend a couple of problems occurred that I’ve posted on the VM Community Boards in threads that suggest the difficulties I have had are not unique.
Power Save
Lots of reports on the Community Forum about this here: http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-V6/V6-Wake-from-Standby-Issues/td-p/3291846
The automatic power save function is the default setting but I strongly recommend that you disable it as it seems to have a life of its own and waking the box from Stand By is often a long and sometimes fraught process, requiring a full shut down and start up if the box locks. I didn’t want my boxes on though all night so I have tried manually putting them into Stand By overnight. Seemed to work but this morning I found that this had led to a failed recording from BBC1 HD reported in Recording Hiccups as “Power Lost”. There was no power cut and the only difference I can see between the successful recording made at 9pm and the failed one at 10.30 was that the box was in Stand By.
According to the V6 User Guide (you don’t get one but it’s online here: https://assets.virginmedia.com/help/assets/documents/Virgin_TV_V6_user_guide.pdf) you can’t view recordings remotely on either another box or device if the V6 is in Stand By either.
I can’t find any details of the difference in power consumption between On and Stand By, so I’ve set both my boxes now as Always On until Virgin Media fix it. Of course, there’s no longer a need to worry about any impact on Climate Change now that has been finally exposed as an evil Chinese plot... ;-(
Netflix
There appears to be DNS issue if you are using a VM SuperHub in Modem Mode with an external router rather than relying on the SuperHub’s own Wi-Fi. I’ve found my SH2 Wi-Fi to be unreliable so have an Apple Time Capsule as my router. I have one V6 connected directly into the router via Ethernet, a second connected by Wi-Fi.
iPlayer and YouTube worked fine but Netflix failed initially on both boxes, showing an error that said “Application is loading. Netflix is loading onto the TiVo box. Please wait a moment and try starting Netflix again. (V312)”. Turns out I’m not alone and there’s a thread on the Community Board forum on this that suggests it’s a DNS problem. I resolved it for my V6 with the Ethernet connection by turning Modem Mode off on my SuperHub, rebooting the V6 and then Netflix worked. I then switched back to Modem Mode and it still works so that box is fine now.
However I was unable to do that successfully with the Wi-Fi connected box, despite wasting several hours on Sunday running up and down the stairs (not literally - I’m still recovering from a broken leg) and rebooting and re-rebooting anything and everything. Still no Netflix on that box, which is annoying as that ain’t connected to a Smart TV and so there’s no Netflix or similar downstairs at the moment.
Neither of these are showstoppers with the V6 but they are annoying and if I continue to get Failed Recordings that will be a serious problem.
Anyone else experiencing similar?
UPDATE: Virgin Media engineering have acknowledged that there are bugs with the Stand By functionality and I’ve been recommended to disable it for now.
21 comments:
I have a V6 box and using my SuperHub2 in modem mode with 3rd party router. I haven't had any problems with Netflix. I am using the Tivo V6 with a Powerline adaptor to connect rather than with wifi connection.
Just generally using mine for however long it's been since launch, I've noticed a lot of little annoying bugs during general use that never happened on the original TiVo. That model, despite being slow was very solid and the software worked great.
I wouldn't go back to the old one, but they need to iron out all these small issues.
Just got my V6 today and impressed with speed and that it seems to be outputting an upscaled 4K picture of the 1080p HD channels to my 4K TV - is that correct?
One thing I was hoping to do was to stream 'My Shows' from my old Tivo box (by having both of them connected to my network) - but after having a go this doesn't seem possible. My old Tivo can see the new box but says it's not registered. My new V6 isn't even displaying "Other Tivo Boxes" on the My Shows page
Any help appreciated
I was getting the failed recordings bug, but a fault test via the VM website and a reboot seems to have resolved this. I hope.
I have the v6 but my remote won't sync with my TV and the find remote buzzer doesn't work either
V6 boxes connected yesterday. Impressed with the ability to log into virgin media and copy series links from old boxes even though they had taken them away!
got one remote to work with the 'lost remote' test. it only seems to work if the box is in standby as when it is on, pressing and holding the + button only changes channel. Need to check the other box.
2 boxes connect fine over the network.
they seem very quick.
quick question and apologies if this has been answered elsewhere. My superb is connect to my apple network. Has anyone been able to get the boxes to talk to each other if they connect to the apple network rather than the virgin network? I don't want to have to swap wifi networks to stream.
Thanks and enjoy the new boxes.
Julius: I'm not sure what you mean by 'apple network'?
I have a Superhub 2 but use it in Modem Mode and have an Apple Time Capsule as my Wi-Fi router (it's proven far more reliable than the Superhub's). I've two V6s and they communicate fine - one's connected directly to a port on the Time Capsule, the other is over my router's Wi-Fi. Recordings play fine from either box with no noticeable lag - it's pretty impressive. There's an "Other TiVo boxes" option on My Shows that automatically appeared when I logged my second V6 onto the Wi-Fi.
Hi Niall. Sorry, I was being lazy when I wrote apple network. I meant my network created by my airport extreme. Thanks for the advice. It having been only set up yesterday, the technician has the tivo box plugged into the super hub. I will change that when I get home.
Appreciate the quick response
Julius
if you are trying to stream from one box to another do both boxes need to be plugged into the cable as well as your local network?
All V6s needed to be plugged into the VM coax cable and well as on the web (either through ethernet or wifi). If you want to watch recordings in a room that's not got the VM cabling you can do so using the TV Anywhere site/app on a computer or tablet, although not all channels are available that way.
On the stand by issue, glad to hear that the problem has been acknowledged as a bug. Hopefully Virgin will address it very soon. At the moment the only way that we have found to avoid frequent rebooting is to leave the box in Always On mode. Even then, when the TV is turned back on we have noticed that initially neither picture nor sound is available from the box. It is necessary to use the TV controls to select the box as a source at which point the service is resumed. All very odd.
Thanks Nialli - when you says "All V6s needed to be plugged into the VM coax cable and well as on the web" does that include a box that I only want to stream recorded programs from and not watch live tv from? I can't see technical the need for this, although obviously virgin may require it for some monitoring purposes.
Sounds obvious but set a different dns server in the router and don't use virgins dns server.
I do this anyway but not got new box to test against.
Richard - that apparently is the problem: I usually use Google's DNS, but to access Netflix on the TiVo you have to use Virgin Media's. I'm not a DNS expert by any means and hate farting around with router settings, so I'm hoping VM fix it soon.
Got my V6 installed today, can't believe the speed of this thing. very very pleased.
I'm getting that Netflix error you mention but i am connected to the SH2 only. I don't use it in modem mode and i am sure i am using a VM DNS. any help would be great.
I find that the picture isn't as good as my old TiVo box. It's hard to explain but seems slightly blurred
I haven't found that and think the HD on the V6 superb. Which channels are you seeing this or is it all?
All tbh. I have clicked 1080i option in settings and seems to of sorted it. Think the v6 upscaling is t as good as my TVs.
V6 box connected to HDMI2, when TV is switched off then on again I have to select AV input on the TV control to get onto Virgin. Is this normal.
I have a Hub 3.0, two TV6 boxes and an Apple Time Capsule. My VM contract is for 350Mbps.
Downstairs, the TV and the first TV6 are connected by ethernet cable to the Apple Time Capsule.
Upstairs, the TV and the second TV6 box are connected wirelessly on 5 GHz to the Apple Time Capsule.
I am getting phenomenal performance all over the house. Although nothing is connected to the hub apart from the ethernet WAN connection to the Time Capsule PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE IS NO NEED TO PUT THE HUB 3.0 INTO MODEM/GATEWAY MODE - this is absolutely unnecessary - why create problems that you don't need? Just make sure that the Time Capsule is in bridge mode so that the DNS settings are coming exclusively from the hub 3.0.
On my Mac Pro (upstairs) connected to the Time Capsule on 5 GHz, I am getting speeds of up to 385 Mbps. I am delighted with the setup.
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