Virgin vs Sky User Interface

netsukekoi

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I have been a long time Sky customer and quite happy with it. However, I needed to upgrade my broadband which was with Virgin and my wife decided we ought to save some money and put everything on one contract...

Currently we have both Sky and Virgin up and running.

Is my initial reaction accurate or do I just need to get used to a different service? Current experience:
- Sky remote happily turned TV on/off, Virgin seems to be an arcane set of steps that sometimes work
- Sky is easy to see what you have recorded, Virgin is very clunky and painful to navigate
- Last night I was 20 minutes behind broadcast TV on Virgin and tried to catch up without going through the end of the programme I was watching. If it is possible, I never worked it out (change channels and when you go back, you are still at the paused image you left)
- Sound on Virgin does not appear to be as good (both of my rooms have full surround driven by Denon amps)
- I can't see what is on the other Virgin box when it is in standby so I have to go downstairs to switch it on if I want to see something recorded there
- You can't pause playback on one Virgin device and continue elsewhere...

I could go on, is it 'new user' syndrome or is the user interface on Virgin really this bad?
 
Don't know about the rest of it, but hitting 'My Shows' on the VM remote should take you to the recordings.
I don't have 2 boxes any more, but when I did, we rarely switched on the upstairs box (from standby), but were still able to see the recordings there.
This is what VM says about pausing and picking up in another room:

Watching live TV? Press Record. Once you’re comfy in the new room, press My Shows on your remote and scroll to the bottom of the list – you’ll see the names of the boxes you have connected together. Then, just choose the box you want to watch from, press OK, and select your show. Or, if you’re watching something On Demand, press Stop. Once you’re in front of your other telly and ready to start watching again, select Continue Watching from the Home screen.

I have noticed lately that going from Netflix on the telly to broadcast through the v6, I need to up the volume considerably. The quality is fine once you get it to a listenable level. Might be because I'm using Audissey settings on my Denon, maybe 'Direct' would make things level out...
 
There's also a standby setting on each TiVo and V6 box that sets the state of the box in standby and one of the options stops you accessing the recordings on that box remotely, such as via the app, in standby, so worth checking this. I had to change this on our V6, as the default standby option was set to the most restrictive setting, so I was not able to manage the box remotely until I changed this. Off the top of my head, I can't remember where this setting is or what the options are called.

We've got an old style TiVo and recently a V6, but the TiVo is not on the network since moving it upstairs and placing the V6 downstairs, so I don't have any experience of these two devices being on the same network. I thought the box-to-box streaming only worked on V6 boxes though and not the old style TiVo.

Edit: Kend3591 posted about the standby setting as I was typing.
 
I thought the box-to-box streaming only worked on V6 boxes though and not the old style TiVo.

It's been a few years since we got a v6, and for a time our upstairs box was a Tivo, but I think I remember testing out the box-to-box streaming when we first got them and it worked well. Never really used it in anger though, so I maybe remembering incorrectly.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I guess I will get used to the poor presentation and weak UI compared to Sky - I used to think Sky was in the dark ages compared to the US providers but if they are, Virgin are pre-cambrian!
 
Had a few V6 boxes over the years before getting Sky Q, way better than there old tivo’s and if honest I personally couldnt fault it.

Did what it said on the tin
 
Did what it said on the tin

24175.jpg



:confused:
 
Our old style TiVo box felt slow before we got the V6, but after using the V6 downstairs, the TiVo upstairs feels really slow now.
 
Our old style TiVo box felt slow before we got the V6, but after using the V6 downstairs, the TiVo upstairs feels really slow now.

The V6 is faster because it uses a more recent andd faster CPU. This doesn't however mean it has a better picture.
 
I must be in a minority because I hated the Sky Q interface,the old HD interface was the best.
I prefer Tivo to Sky Q.....unless they've improved it since I left Sky 2 years ago ?
 

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