I'm always a little nervous when Virgin embark upon something as fundamental as upgrading their boxes but the cautious rollout of the new 360 platform appears to be asking customers to take a blind leap of faith and test an entirely new system in the run up to Christmas seems commercially suicidal if you ask me.
Take this feedback from WhatHifi forums:
As one of the unfortunate early users of the Virgin 360 TV box I'd strongly recommend people avoid it. The hardware of the box itself is a mild improvement, more energy efficient, faster start-up, but the remote is a poor replacement for the old V6 one, far fewer dedicated buttons, it didn't even have a stop button, which means you are much more reliant on navigating on-screen. The software however is the real travesty. It has Minimal Viable Product and Public Beta written all over it. Compared to the mature Tivo-style interface of the V6, the new UI has much less functionality, and appalling navigation. If I could revert to the old V6 I would. This box is is so bad I'm considering moving my TV to Sky, even with the higher cost of breaking the bundle.
That was posted about a month ago, but when I ventured onto VM's own Community pages it was just as bad if not worse, with the most frequent questions being asked along the line of 'can I go back to my V6 software'? Have a look at these posts https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/bd-p/Virgin_TV_360
Having worked in IT for over 30 years I know full well of the pitfalls of trying to put new software on older hardware in a live environment, but the general public has less understanding and shouldn't be used a beta testers and certainly shouldn't be paying for the privilege. I'll be interested to hear if any of this blog's readers have undertaken the 360 upgrade and what their experience has been and will happily post comments here good or bad, but me? I won't be pushing my way to the front of the upgrade queue just yet...
9 comments:
Having the 360 box installed in January bit dispointed had to pay install fee whats the 360 box like
Hi, I have had the software upgrade for my two V6 boxes, and though initially found it difficult to navigate using the new remote, I think the UI is really good the update was smooth and the remote pairs to the tv (panasonic), don't need two remotes now (TV + V6).
I haven't used the profiles as don't really need it in our household. Well done Virgin
I think the virgin v360 set top box is brilliant i have had it since
Last week.
Just need all4 and demand 5 and disney+ and that will be all I need
Absolutely great i like the pictures instead of writing
Just for clarity sake, did you have the V6 box and get a software update or did you order/upgrade and get the 360 box? I didn’t think the software was being rolled out on current boxes?
Hi Matty, It was a software upgrade, I got sent two remotes. The original email stated:
"Hello Derek,
You’re all set to upgrade to Virgin TV 360 – our fastest, slickest way to watch and stream on all your screens. Get it at no extra cost today to enjoy the telly you love, the way you want to – now with super-powerful Voice Control and personalised Profiles.
It’s super easy to upgrade your Virgin TV V6 box, and you can do it sitting on your sofa, in a matter of minutes. All you need is our genius new remote, which we’ll pop in the post for you."
All the best
Derek
ah okay, thank you for sharing that info. :) hopefully I may hear from virgin to see if I'm able to get it too. Cheers Derek :)
I have had the new 360 box installed on the 5th of January biggest mistake i ever made personally I wish I stuck to the v6 box
Had an upgrade to my V6 box a few weeks ago and was the worst mistake I have made. AVOID!!! Can not recover deleted programs and is so easy to accidentally delete programs. Can only use one remote per box (ordered a second remote and it worked for about a week but then just stopped and have now been informed only one can pair per box, but how did it work for a week???) Had two V6 remotes before (one upstairs and one downstairs) and both controlled one box with no issue. The menu system looks great but functions like it's stuck in 1999. Recorded programs are very difficult to find and seem to overwrite each other. Recorded a live sports event which disappeared and was replaced by highlights aired a few days later. Have also used the virtual remote on the app which is a joke. Has button that don't do anything and is missing the buttons that do all the work, what's the point!!! The old V6 Tivo system was amazing and this so called upgrade has put them back years. So many other small things which they had over sky which have been lost...used to be a telly addict but now I just watch Freeview. Waiting for contract to end so can move to sky.
The V360 box is awful to easy to delete programmes which then cannot be recovered Always having to change hdmi ports because of flickering picture even with a brand new tv is this why they are offering fantastic ultimate oomph bundles because they know this 360 box set up is a disaster also one very poor step was to not put a hard drive in the mini boxes so no point in multi room anymore as all you can do is watch tv. Big disappointment is the fact that if you have 2 v6 boxes you get 2Tb of disc space whereas 2 360 boxes gets you 1Tb of disc space very poor customer satisfaction from virgin media
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