Virgin Media UK’s Next Generation TV 360 Platform Goes LIVE
Cable broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (Liberty Global) has today made their new next generation TV 360 platform available to take by all new TV customers as standard, as well as to existing customers who already take, or choose to upgrade to, the top Ultimate Oomph bundle.
The platform includes new features such as Voice Search and Control, as well as profiles, a more intuitive User Interface (UI) and a “new” mini set-top-box (STB) among other things. The system actually comes with two STBs, although the main box is fundamentally the same hardware as the existing V6 boxes, except the Virgin TV 360 boxes are built by different suppliers and the user experience is very different under their Horizon software.
Likewise, the Virgin TV 360 Mini box is the same hardware as the 360 box, but without the hard disk (smaller) and a third can be added to boost the availability of content into additional rooms. Virgin Media also informed us during the soft launch (here) that, from early 2021, existing TV customers with a V6 box who choose to upgrade will be able to get the 360 software update over the air (at present this isn’t yet possible).
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Summary of New Virgin TV 360 Features:
Voice Search & Control – a new remote allows customers to use their voice to find the telly they love, open apps, pause, skip forward or back and breeze around content quickly.
Profiles – families can now create their own profiles so that they can control their own pause points, select their favourite channels and receive personalised recommendations.
Startover – lets customers skip back to the beginning of live programmes, even if they’ve already started.
New Mini box – recordings only need to be made once and can be shared across multiple set top boxes which allows for seamless Ultra-HD multi-room viewing throughout the home.
Upgraded Virgin TV Go app – offers a boosted on the go experience that allows customers to pause a programme on one set top box and carry on watching it on their tablet in another room or on the move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SwYSfKZmFU
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Had this installed Friday, still getting to grips with it, quite surprised to see that my box is manufactured by Humax.
How come?
Based on costs of Humax boxes previously and the fact that LG seem to favour Arris kit.
I wouldn’t be in any rush to move away from my TiVo V6 system to this. They should have just upgraded to the latest TiVo software, but I assume my moving over to their own software system it saves them a lot of money.
I’m not sure you get to choose. it’ll be rolled out to each v6 box soon enough!
I got this last week and I’m surprised to say it’s so much nicer looking than the dated TiVo and so far seems good to me rare for virgin I must say
Shame to see it still requires their internet service… Quite happy with my current FTTP service…
Guess I’m stuck with Sky Q, which doesn’t have this restriction
Agreed, the price of there solus TV service is eye watering. £55 a month for TV service without premium add on services.
Currently I pay £49.99 for the same TV service and that’s bundled with Phone line, 40GB Sim and 350mb broadband.
Virgin’s bundles are a bit restrictive when comes to changes however, I enquired about upgrading Broadband to 500MB/1Gig and despite this being a £6 upgrade I would lose all discounts, so reality would be an extra £47 per month to upgrade to Gig1.
Gig1 comes with a 24 month price freeze on the broadband & 18 months contract. The discount is the fact you’re not going to see it increase.
Your Article Is incorrect!!
I have upgraded Both my V6 Boxes to 360 Horizon
Does this mean with the extra box, you can stream live TV from the main box to the additional box without extra cables?
No.
Getting ultimate oomph bundle tomorrow, wonder if get 2 x v6 boxes or this 360 system?
Hi there, just to know, is there a satellite dish cable input to this 360 box for free to air channels? Thanks
No, but more or all of them will be available if you have any TV service. Check the channels provided by “Mixit TV”, as this is their current base package.
One major disappointment I have found with the V360 box is it’s inability to fully integrate with BBC iPlayer and Netflix when conducting the voice searches for your favourite programmes. There also appears to be a flaw with series link recording that only allows you to record all or nothing and not specifiy new espisodes like you could do with the V6.
Just hope that Virgin see sense and apply a software upgrade to fix these issues soon.
I have just switched over to 360 from V6 and I have to say the V6 has better functionality that the 360 and I am switching straight back. Yes the 360 has some great features on it that surasses the V6 and SkyQ however there are a lot of things that I do on the V6 box that I cannot do on the 360.
Today I am recording two live programs and am switching between the two. With the V6 box I had the capability of being able to rewind the said programs to any point that i want to however with the 360 box it goes to live TV without the capability of rewinding them unless I want to watch the program from the start. This is so frustrating and a feature I use all of the time especially if my wife goes out of the room for 5 minutes I then dont want to see a paused tv so I go and look at other programs however I am unable to easily go back to the program and rewind to where I left off as I have been able to with the V6.
I also do not like the fact that I am unable to go back or forward by say 15 minutes as i could with the V6. So an example is that when I record a program the first 30 minutes is not wanted and I want to skip to 30 minutes forward. On the 360 I have to use the fast forward button and be clever enough to stop it in the correct place. With the V6 box I could fast forward it with the click of 2 buttons. Also on the fast forward or rewind when you stop on the 360 it stops where you stop it however on the V6 box you could go past the point of stop and it would go back or forward 5 seconds which is great and much missed on the 360 box.
I am also annoyed that when using a series link it does not give me the option to only record new content and it just records everything and all catch ups as well.. not great as this will fill up the hard drive… not sure what happens once full though as I have not got there however I am worried that id I go away on holiday in the future the hard drive will fill up and I miss a lot of my recordings.
I do like the option of being able to watch various programs from the start if it has the capability of doing but if I am watching in HD I have seen it go to catch up in SD mode which is so frustrating with a 4k tv.
I also do not like the thought of not being able retrieve deleted recordings if I have deleted them by mistake as I could with the V6 box.
The remote control takes a lot of getting used to as well as the buttons are not profiled as much as they are on the V6 box… not a major problem .
360 box is OK but when you pause live TV it will only pause for approximately 8/9 minutes then starts playing, not good when you teas ready.
I have virgin Mini 360 what do I need to record programs