UPC HD Digibox Guide taking 14 secs to preview

nialler

Hi guys, have UPC in a month, sky cancels in 6 days (watching the sky hd box exclusively) trying to sort out this issue with UPC but they be all confused.

Basically when I hit the guide button it takes 14 secs before I can do anything, all down to waiting on the preview window, any ideas, does anybody else suffer this malaise, normal box previews in 2 secs which is acceptable but 14 secs twiddling thumbs is totally unacceptable.

ollaetta

Same problem and it does my head in. No obvious way to sort it out so it's bye bye UPC from next week. I'm switching to Sky.

nialler

Thing is I have a skyHD box sitting there and it works a treat, have the UPC in less than a month I wonder can I cancel due to it being not what it said on the tin.

hightower1

surely you dont mean the preview window taking 14 seconds to come up as an excuse to not pay a cancellation fee! lol. Its not mentioned on the tin as it were so I doubt that'd fly. Even so any cancellation fee for a system problem with any service provider is subject that they haven't been given reasonable chance to fix it.

nialler

hightower1 wrote: »

surely you dont mean the preview window taking 14 seconds to come up as an excuse to not pay a cancellation fee! lol. Its not mentioned on the tin as it were so I doubt that'd fly. Even so any cancellation fee for a system problem with any service provider is subject that they haven't been given reasonable chance to fix it.

But surely I do mean not paying any cancellation fee after one month installed, numerous phonecalls and opportunities to fix a myriad of problems with the entire system that have not been sorted, endless hours waiting on a customer service system.

So you are telling me that if you purchased a lovely shiney TV and it wasn't working as advertised you'd feel that it was acceptable for them to charge you to replace it or take it back, there is a lemon law, and this service is a big lemon.

But then again, I'm Irish, I should just grin and bear it and accept a unreasonable service that I have an first month and installation bill of €240.00 for, and €100 monthly thereafter. Sky's attitude is terrible but at least they provide a snappy service that works like a charm.

paulm17781

If you have it less than a month you may be able to cancel it. It's certainly worth a try.

hightower1

nialler wrote: »

But surely I do mean not paying any cancellation fee after one month installed, numerous phonecalls and opportunities to fix a myriad of problems with the entire system that have not been sorted, endless hours waiting on a customer service system.

So you are telling me that if you purchased a lovely shiney TV and it wasn't working as advertised you'd feel that it was acceptable for them to charge you to replace it or take it back, there is a lemon law, and this service is a big lemon.

But then again, I'm Irish, I should just grin and bear it and accept a unreasonable service that I have an first month and installation bill of €240.00 for, and €100 monthly thereafter. Sky's attitude is terrible but at least they provide a snappy service that works like a charm.

You never mentioned any other problems other than the preview taking 14 seconds? Please dont take me up wrong for the sake of you expecting me to read your mind somehow?

Also your example of a tv is flawed, if they advertised the tv as x -refresh rate - pixle count - contrast ratio etc and these were incorrect then I would be within my rights under sale of goods and supply of services, however if they did not state in the specs the colour of the remote and now I dont like it I cannot return this. False advertising only covers whats actually ADVERTISED. Not what they dont say.

My LG phone takes about 4 seconds to access the music memory in it but I wont run it back to the store , its not that important to my life tbh.
So I will end in saying please dont get in my face when it was you who didnt supply all the facts. Thanks.

nialler

Don't get in your face, listen troll, please don't post your flawed opinions when I'm looking for a solution, I'm not looking for an opinion, 14 seconds is unacceptable to wait to change a channel, or even check what is on the guide in the first place, would you wait 14 seconds for a reply window to come up on boards.ie, I doubt it, 14 seconds is a very very long time when expecting information to come up (I have worked in design/advertising/media for the past 21 years).

Anyways, if anybody has a solution out there I would really appreciate it, if there is no solution and this is the way this system works, then it's off to the consumer watchdog and my solicitor.

paulm17781

Get onto them and try to cancel it. See where it gets you. Failing that, try the legal route. If it is under 30 days I *think* they have to take it back.

who_me

The guide was slow for me too even on the SD box.

Another issue for me is that if you go straight into the HD channels option when you bring up the guide, you're dumped back to the TV; so you have to wait a few seconds to bring up the guide again.

WizZard

who_me wrote: »

Another issue for me is that if you go straight into the HD channels option when you bring up the guide, you're dumped back to the TV; so you have to wait a few seconds to bring up the guide again.

You have to wait for the top right preview window to load a picture or else you are dumped straight out of the menu. I reported this issues to UPC the day I got the HD box. It's seems only to be a problem with the HD box, not the SD (silver Thompson box).

@OP: have you reported it to them? Have they said anything about it? (It's a software issue so the front line phone support staff won't have a clue about it, you *need* to ensure that it is being seen as an engineering/software issue).
The EPG on UPC is much different than Sky's, and they both have different benefits and drawbacks. As this seems to be just a software issue I would expect it to be gone in the next revision (whenever that is). Until then I have learned to live with it - it's not the end of the world.

zx80

Sorry, but I'm falling around the floor laughing at this. The poster has worked for 21 years in "advertising" and he is threatening to call in the lawyers because a parameter that wasn't advertised or specified in the product doesn't meet his needs. If 14 seconds doesn't work for him I suggest that he slows down his lifestyle a bit. Alternatively, he could contact UPC support and share his concerns with them before he calls in his legal people!

nialler

ZX

The problem has been reported numerous times, while waiting on hold each time for over an hour, I have asked to speak to an engineer 4 times, promised one would call me back, never happened, was told I was lucky one of the people in there, his guide took 30 seconds, they have only got a log of me calling twice whereas in fact I have called over 10 times first call within 24 hours of having the box when the voice was out of sync and image kept pausing, so there has been a myriad of problems with the HD box and I keep reiterating, would you wait 14 seconds for a page to load on the internet, I doubt it.

I'd expect that NTL who are trying to compete with sky would have something that would go toe to toe with the sky HD box, but this is not the case I'm afraid, I have cancelled the account and gone back to sky.

Now that's only part of the problem they were so slow in transferring my phone number (which I've had for 17 years) that's it has now gone back to Eircom wholesale, thus causing me to open an account with eircom to get the number back before reactivating my smart account.

Never ever ever again I swear will I go near them.

zx80

Ok, I can see that you've had your problems with NTL/UPC, and I know that your not alone from the posts in the various forums. My own experience has been reasonably positive. I had analogue TV with them for yonks and did have occasional service problems which were sometimes not cleared up as quickly as I would have liked, but were eventually.

About 14 months ago I went over to their digital service and was impressed with the picture quality compared to analogue (OK, they should have told me that digital was actually cheaper than analogue, but there you go).

Signed up for the HD package as soon as it became available and I'm knocked out by the picture quality everytime I turn to a HD channel (but the content still leaves a bit to be desired!!).

And yes, I have to wait a while when I want to go to the guide, but I find it a small price to pay for the overall service. It can be easy to focus on what is not right, what is not perfect, rather than what works well most of the time.

Maybe it's because I remember when I turned on my black and white television in the early seventies and it took 2 minutes for a picture, any picture, to appear that I am not so concerned about a short delay for a program guide that will deliver me to crystal clear HD pictures.

Perhaps I'm selling myself short in my expectations, but I'm fairly content with what I'm getting. Perfect, no. But pretty good compared to where we've come from? I think so.

ZX

nialler

zx80 wrote: »

Ok, I can see that you've had your problems with NTL/UPC, and I know that your not alone from the posts in the various forums. My own experience has been reasonably positive. I had analogue TV with them for yonks and did have occasional service problems which were sometimes not cleared up as quickly as I would have liked, but were eventually.

About 14 months ago I went over to their digital service and was impressed with the picture quality compared to analogue (OK, they should have told me that digital was actually cheaper than analogue, but there you go).

Signed up for the HD package as soon as it became available and I'm knocked out by the picture quality everytime I turn to a HD channel (but the content still leaves a bit to be desired!!).

And yes, I have to wait a while when I want to go to the guide, but I find it a small price to pay for the overall service. It can be easy to focus on what is not right, what is not perfect, rather than what works well most of the time.

Maybe it's because I remember when I turned on my black and white television in the early seventies and it took 2 minutes for a picture, any picture, to appear that I am not so concerned about a short delay for a program guide that will deliver me to crystal clear HD pictures.

Perhaps I'm selling myself short in my expectations, but I'm fairly content with what I'm getting. Perfect, no. But pretty good compared to where we've come from? I think so.

ZX

I agree with all your saying, but I watch HD content all the time on my Xbox 360 (instantly streamed from my mac upstairs), I've had SkyHD for over a year now, much more channels (although only 1080i) and I agree picture and sound is stunning, equally on both services, but with sky I'm afraid everything is instant (they have been doing it a lot longer and I'm sure NTL will catch up). From what I'm used to and from what I expected from the NTL service they just didn't deliver on what was supposed to be a top notch service, their internet is great though so far, low ping times, fast service but that's not enough I'm afraid.

It's back to sky and smart for me.

Thanks for the opinions boys.

N

10000maniacs

nialler wrote: »

But surely I do mean not paying any cancellation fee after one month installed, numerous phonecalls and opportunities to fix a myriad of problems with the entire system that have not been sorted, endless hours waiting on a customer service system.

So you are telling me that if you purchased a lovely shiney TV and it wasn't working as advertised you'd feel that it was acceptable for them to charge you to replace it or take it back, there is a lemon law, and this service is a big lemon.

But then again, I'm Irish, I should just grin and bear it and accept a unreasonable service that I have an first month and installation bill of €240.00 for, and €100 monthly thereafter. Sky's attitude is terrible but at least they provide a snappy service that works like a charm.

Couldn't agree more. Waiting 14 seconds for the preview is unaccepable.
Also, €240 for the box is also unacceptable. Will they ever learn?:(
Its no surprise that whenever a new dodgybox arrives on the scene, a lot of people have no quams about availing of it.