General : TV360 - pro and cons

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by andrewilley

Anyway, that's quite enough for now! Hopefully someone can comment on at least some of the above. Thanks.

Andre

Why downgrade to 360 till you have to, which may or may not happen ?

[andrewilley]

Thanks for everyone's help, at least there seem to be partial workarounds for some of the issues I'm anticipating.

One other quicky has just come to mind. I know you can't create Series Links for programmes that are not currently in the Guide, and you can only assign a Series Link for one specific channel not for any channel. But can you change that defined channel later?

For example, when I try to set everything up again, if I find a 2010 "Doctor Who" repeat on BBC4, can I create a Series Link using that broadcast and then adjust it so in future it only looks for New Episodes on BBC1? Or switch a "Midsomer Murders" Series Link created on ITV3 over to fetch only New Episodes that are broadcast on ITV1. That would make restoring some of our historical Series Links a bit less painful than Virgin want to make it.

Originally Posted by Mr K

Why downgrade to 360 till you have to, which may or may not happen ?

At the moment, our V6 has almost no recordings on it, so if an enforced switchover is coming relatively soon due to expiring licences, it would make sense to bite the bullet and do it when it's convenient for us rather than for Virgin.

Andre

[MrP]

Originally Posted by andrewilley

At the moment, our V6 has almost no recordings on it, so if an enforced switchover is coming relatively soon due to expiring licences, it would make sense to bite the bullet and do it when it's convenient for us rather than for Virgin.

Andre

To be honest that was the reason I decided to change recently. Nothing to do with Apps or channels. It was simply just a convenient time for me to do it.

Do I regret it - no. I can still watch - live or on demand - and record. Took a bit of getting used to the remote - probably would have helped if I read all the info that came with it as it took a while before I noticed the go back 10 seconds / fast forward 30 seconds buttons

[japitts]

Originally Posted by andrewilley

At the moment, our V6 has almost no recordings on it, so if an enforced switchover is coming relatively soon due to expiring licences
Andre

Who's said that it is?

How SL are prioritised when more than 6 programmes are scheduled to record at the same time, is something I've never seen an answer to.

One obvious point from your list is that one-touch-key-access between recordings & live TV, is not available on TV360. You can voice-control it, but if memory serves me correctly, it's about 6 or 7 keypresses.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by andrewilley

Thanks for everyone's help, at least there seem to be partial workarounds for some of the issues I'm anticipating.

One other quicky has just come to mind. I know you can't create Series Links for programmes that are not currently in the Guide, and you can only assign a Series Link for one specific channel not for any channel. But can you change that defined channel later?

For example, when I try to set everything up again, if I find a 2010 "Doctor Who" repeat on BBC4, can I create a Series Link using that broadcast and then adjust it so in future it only looks for New Episodes on BBC1? Or switch a "Midsomer Murders" Series Link created on ITV3 over to fetch only New Episodes that are broadcast on ITV1. That would make restoring some of our historical Series Links a bit less painful than Virgin want to make it.



At the moment, our V6 has almost no recordings on it, so if an enforced switchover is coming relatively soon due to expiring licences, it would make sense to bite the bullet and do it when it's convenient for us rather than for Virgin.

Andre

Just be sure that you're happy to lose the extra functionality of tivo, as there's no way back.

I'm not so sure there will be an 'enforced switchover'. More likely they'll do what they have already, withdrawing certain channels. Currently Sky Atlantic and fast channels, neither of which bother me. The risk for VM is that they lose customers, thats why they are treading gently, and desperately to get the punters to 'opt in'. Anything 'enforced' might mean customers opt out of VM entirely.

[andrewilley]

Originally Posted by japitts

One obvious point from your list is that one-touch-key-access between recordings & live TV, is not available on TV360. You can voice-control it, but if memory serves me correctly, it's about 6 or 7 keypresses.

I took my temporarily reprogrammed Universal Remote round to our friend's house for testing, and can confirm that the "Ziggo" codeset does work perfectly on the 360 - including some extra hidden/extended IR codes which provide one-press access to Recordings, Help/Settings, and a few other things that the Virgin-supplied RF remote does not. That'll work fine for me.

I also tested the Series Link editing, and it's even more basic than I was expecting. Once you've set up a Series Link for a programme from the current Guide you cannot even edit the channel that it is assigned to (e.g. change it from a BBC4 repeat to the main BBC1 broadcast). Nor (as far as I can tell) can you even see that a Series Link exists at all, or what channel it will record from, once that programme is no longer showing in the active upcoming list.

While I was at it, I tried to find the radio stations in the Guide (the ones normally in channels 900-960) and noticed they've completely screwed that up too. You can only see generic icons to listen live to any given radio station, with no programme information or schedule details, and no way to record, rewind, series link, etc. Another mess that I hadn't even considered would have been broken.

Our V6 currently has zero recorded shows (it's not been that way since it was first installed!) so it would be the perfect time to switch, but I think holding out to the bitter end would be a better option. I simply cannot see one single practical "feature" that is better on the 360 - unless you count a voice-command button or more convenient access to streaming services with non-skippable adverts (all of which I have on my TV anyway). Are there actually any pros to the thing at all, apart from it costing Virgin less in licencing fees?

Andre