Horizon TV- Awful?

Gyck

'Upgraded' to Hoizon a few months back - hoping that the new box would be quieter than the old sd recordable box which I hated with a passion. It was but oh dear, that UI is so bad. I'd trade all of the new features that Horizon provides for a decent, responsive UI. I'd even trade it for the old Pace box.

beauf

Horizon - press, nothing, press, nothing, press, nothing,....OMG stop moving..... arrrrgggh not that.......

JohnSmith17

Hi guys would anyone be able to help me with a problem?
when I go into the tv guide I can only see what's on now & next and then the rest is "NO programme information is available" so I can't record anything.

Wabbit Ears

Pull out the HDMI and put in in standby for a half hour and if that doesnt work do a factory reset.

When doing factory reset choose to keep recordings and keep settings, this should force a guide download.

JohnSmith17

Thank you !

I get the feeling UPC may think its just us techies or power users with no patience that has gripes with the box but my father announces the other day that this box is "full of bugs" as the box freezes, looses sound while he's simply trying to watch his recording of the late late.. Not something usually in his vocabulary.

Giruilla

CyCaboose wrote: »

heres the thing though, and this is the very scary point. Horizon is new to Ireland, but Horizon is NOT new. UPC in Netherlands have had this very same Samsung Horizon box with the same user interface for over a year, it came out in September 2012 there. So all UPC Ireland had to do was re-use the same box and build their back-end infrastructure. The issues on this box are not related to their back-end infrastructure... the issues are that the box is SLOW and the software is sloppily put together.

Just found these articles concerning Netherlands UPC release:

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/horizon-set-top-box-still-attracting-complaints--906290

According to consumer organisation, complaints started to come in from the launch date last September. During the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam in October, UPC parent Liberty Global CTO Balan Nair admitted that there had been some mistakes mad during the launch. For example, part of the set-top boxes were equipped with outdated middleware when demand began to exceed supply. The user interface also proved cumbersome on certainpoints and zapping was slow

.. admitting the problems back in 2012.

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/consumer-survey-find-problems-still-with-upc-horizon-box--999755

A large majority (80%) of users of UPC's Horizon set-top box still experience problems with the device, according to a survey by the Dutch consumers union among more than 500 users. The main problem is stability, with the TV picture often freezing or sound dropping out. Other complaints include a slow menu, poor user interface and no app for Android devices.

.. backs up the complaints users have had here. Yet still no changer for Dutch users by 2014.

Then this:

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2013/03/01/troubled-start-for-horizon-in-switzerland/

Cablecom’s launch of its Horizon product in Switzerland has met with the same teething problems as in the Netherlands.

UPC Cablecom has halved the price of new Horizon products, but the company has denied this has anything to do with the issues.

The sets of problems are very much like the ones Dutch UPC customers are experiencing, such as failing series link recordings, slow reaction, freezing set-top box, complicated user interface, difficulty finding past recordings in the list of icons rather than a name list.

The shipping with outdated middleware problem.. have they continued doing that in Ireland too? Wouldn't be surprised.

I think some of the problems happening can be expected.. but should have been addressed by now.
The slow user interface is unforgivable in my opinion.

who_me

My nephew was using my Horizon box over the weekend, and told me it was faster/more responsive that other Horizon boxes he's used. That might be because I use an IR Harmony remote rather than the RF Horizon one. Might be worth trying a cheap universal remote (if you don't want to ditch UPC).

Back home the past few days and the Sky box is just a far superior machine. It really puts horizon to shame. It's sleek, responsives, easy to navigate and just intuitive.

hitbit

True.. The horizon box has to be one of the tech disasters of all time. It is a useless piece of crap armed with the worst WiFi in the universe. Two bean cans and a piece of string will offer better communications. We as customers should not have to buy wireless routers to make a service we are paying for work. It is legally UPC,s responsibility to ensure they provide us with the services we pay for. Therefore they should supply routers free of charge until such time as they resolve the issues with their horizon box. Its named well and brings to mind
"somewhere over the rainbow". I have ordered Sky. If their broadband does not do the business I8 will switch to Eircom's eFibre.

hitbit

mccard

My contract is up next month. Oh how I will enjoy the call to cancel this piece of crap and move to Sky.

iseegirls

Has anyone noticed they've put the word 'Warning!' beside the DELETE EVERYTHING button.

Why couldn't they just delete the whole link instead? Been brought up on this thread numerous times.

Noticed that one of my all time favorite films, Freebie and the Bean was on RTEHD last night so hoping that it was the recently remastered version set it up to record. Around 12pm, when it had been on for 30 minutes I called my girlfriend down so I could make her watch it again. Went into my Planner menu and for 5th time yesterday nothing appeared but an empty page. Ended up not watching the film, even though the DVD case is always close to the TV as I wanted to experience it in HD.

Rang up UPC today and when I explained the issue and how the only way to solve it was to unplug the set and leave it was told "sure if you solved it yourself why are you ring me to cry about it". I tried to point out that if I'm recording something that I can't plug it out and get this gem, "the Horizion doesn't need power in order to operate for short periods of time". I may have told the lad I was on the phon to fuck off as he seemed to think I was making it all up and ringing him up because I was lonely.

patrickmooney

Just noticed a new apps interface. Gone is the single screen of apps and in it's place we have a menu driven one. Apps are now in categories, you also get the ability to add some as favourites.

Giruilla

I posted this in a talk to UPC thread, but thought I might throw it up here.

What are people's experiences with the horizon youtube app?

Heres mine. To find the youtube app, you press 'back'->'left' a few times to apps->press 'ok' on apps->then for some reason you need to press 'ok' again... as maybe horizon doesn't believe you actually wanted to open these apps->then scroll around to youtube app.
So ONLY around 8 or 9 slow key presses every time to open a single app...

Then, when you finally get the app open.. sigh.. information about the tv show you are currently watching is automatically loaded into the search box. Every time. So you press enter to selected search box, then hold the 'back delete' button to clear the text (there is no clear option). You wait for the text to dissapear.. yet it wont. It will only delete a single character. So you have to bash delete 25/30 times to clear the text.

So finally... after just close to 40 key presses (I can't believe thats actually the number but it is)... you are ready to enjoy youtube and use your qwerty keyboard for the first time. You type in what you want to look for and press ENTER. Yet, ENTER won't search for the text.. it will input whatever character the cursor is resting on on the screen. So, move onto the arrow keys.. manually scroll down to ENTER.. and press ENTER on the screen with your ENTER key on your remote... sigh...
You can now sit back and enjoy half the videos either not loading or crashing half way, and having no control over sorting the search results.
And be warned... if at any stage you press MENU to take you back to the youtube menu (what you would intuitively press).. you are instantly brought completely out back to the tv screen. To get back to searching youtube again.. all you have to do is go back through the 50 or so key presses again.

Wabbit Ears

yea, that's pretty much it in a nutshell

Sapele

mccard wrote: »

My contract is up next month. Oh how I will enjoy the call to cancel this piece of crap and move to Sky.

I did the same thing not too long ago and ditched sky within a week. The SD reception is better on UPC than skys HD picture and UPC's HD reception was so much better than skys, I was shocked. I thought sky was going to be an improvement over UPC as this seems to be the prevailing view but boy was I wrong. We have one of those newish Samsung TV's so it shows up a poor signal. Skys HD reception and sound is just hopeless, total dealbreaker for me.

I tried to get sky to boost the signal or improve it in anyway (like you can get UPC to do) but to be honest they are just hopeless, had no interest whatsoever. Then all the problems I had trying to cancel within the cooling off period you would not believe. I cant stand sky now and if it was a choice between them or saorview I would pick saorview and ditch sky sports, and I love sky sports. You have been warned.

Calibos

I've no love for either company but it sounds like you hooked your Sky box up with a SCART cable instead of a HDMI one you used for UPC???

or

You hooked up the Sky Box with a HDMI cable to a different HDMI input on your Samsung TV that had Ultra Bright ultra sharp Dynamic picture mode with various digital shenanigan settings enabled.

Most TV's now have 'Per Input' independent picture settings.

I've made that mistake. For example: Had my XBMC media box hooked up to HDMI 1 say and I've turned off all the DNR, 200HZ type crap (They always seem to make the PQ worse not better) Picked a Picture mode I liked, toned down the sharpness setting a bit, adjusted colour, Contrast to my liking etc.

Then latter hooked up a UPC HD DVR to the second HDMI input on that TV and been disgusted with the picture quality from the UPC box until I remembered that I hadn't tuned the Picture settings for that input. Once adjusted to similar settings as the XBMC HDMI input the Picture from the UPC box was almost as good.

Don't get my started on the 600HZ etc Motion Interpolation type settings on TV's these days. Was reminded how much I hate that tech while in PC World yesterday getting a keyboard replaced. Casino Royale Bond movie playing on the top of the line €4000 curved 60 inch LG TV on Display with 'Coronation Street' Motion interpolation mode switched on.

pippip

I agree with Calibos, something must have been wrong with your setup. My dad has Sky and I'm upc and although the HD channels are equal in my opinion on quality the SKY sd channels are leagues ahead. And I've seen the same with other houses I've been in with UPC and SKY.

I just cannot understand how they have not introduced a "delete series" option yet. I actually have so many peppa pig episodes on the box I'll need to take an afternoon off work to delete them all! I've pretty much given up on deleting anything until the box if full in the hope the option appears before I need to sit down and manually do every episode.

zootroid

Really starting to regret switching to horizon. Wifi works fine, but reception of tv is poor, constantly "jumpy" (especially when browsing the net at the same time on a laptop), and over the last few days the tv just freezes altogether, even when no other devices are being used!!

Not a fan of the UI either, but that's the least of the my problems with horizon.

Friends and family have sky, would have gone with sky myself only for I'm living in an apartment.

Wabbit Ears

Thats weird, most people report that the TV picture is excellent, This sounds a lot like the home mediascanning some people have when they have large librarys shared on their network and media scanning turned on on the box.

Do a factory reset and when it asks you to setup home network, dont, Paul Boland has done some excellent posts on this subject.

eg: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85194352&postcount=2430

Giruilla

Theres been a youtube update... finally!!

And they've made it.... WORSE! How they managed it I have no idea.. but that really is some feat.

I'll sum it up with this... I input my search - about 12 characters - into youtube using the QWERTY keyboard at the speed someone normally would. It took over 30 seconds at least for my key inputs to fully register on the screen, as the app performs an automatic video search after every single character input it receives.

hitbit

Deleted User wrote: »

Noticed that one of my all time favorite films, Freebie and the Bean was on RTEHD last night so hoping that it was the recently remastered version set it up to record. Around 12pm, when it had been on for 30 minutes I called my girlfriend down so I could make her watch it again. Went into my Planner menu and for 5th time yesterday nothing appeared but an empty page. Ended up not watching the film, even though the DVD case is always close to the TV as I wanted to experience it in HD.

Rang up UPC today and when I explained the issue and how the only way to solve it was to unplug the set and leave it was told "sure if you solved it yourself why are you ring me to cry about it". I tried to point out that if I'm recording something that I can't plug it out and get this gem, "the Horizion doesn't need power in order to operate for short periods of time". I may have told the lad I was on the phon to fuck off as he seemed to think I was making it all up and ringing him up because I was lonely.

All customer services get smart arsed and smug when they lose the ability to address and resolve customers issues. The staff become totally demoralized from constantly having to deal with irate unsatisfied callers to whom they can only offer the company spin which will not solve the problems. Many find it extremely difficult to constantly tell lies but have no option as their calls are often monitored by management to ensure they are towing the line.

Hitbit

CyCaboose

who_me wrote: »

My nephew was using my Horizon box over the weekend, and told me it was faster/more responsive that other Horizon boxes he's used. That might be because I use an IR Harmony remote rather than the RF Horizon one. Might be worth trying a cheap universal remote (if you don't want to ditch UPC).

the box supports IR as well as RF? thats interesting if IR really is better...

don't suppose you know a code for an IR remote to work on it? I still have the old old NTL grey remote which I never threw away since it was the best of the bunch out of every box UPC ever gave me. That can let me program in a new code for the box --- but how do I find the code?

Wabbit Ears

Its The NTL one is a completely different remote, you would need a harmony and set it to Samsung SMT-G7400.
I don't know of any other universal remotes that list this.

there is also some remote controls for ios and android out there that work with the box.

CyCaboose

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Its The NTL one is a completely different remote, you would need a harmony and set it to Samsung SMT-G7400.
I don't know of any other universal remotes that list this.

there is also some remote controls for ios and android out there that work with the box.

ah yeh the app that came on my phone seems to work with it... doesn't have all buttons tho, altho this app is a lot better since it shows me on my phone whats on now and can scroll through the guide far quicker and has all UPC channels programmed into it. Remote controls should have a screen on them with the guide etc.. its the way forward!

anyway didn't change the speed that much, scrolling down the guide on Horizon still lags a lot

surf board

Looks like Liberty in Germany are getting the 3G/4G Horizon app with channels on the go. Could we be getting this soon?

http://www.digitaltveurope.net/201252/unitymedia-kabelbw-launches-horizon-on-android/

mfceiling

We got Horizon on friday (not allowed sky).

First impressions after coming from sky. This is rubbish, absolute crap, junk, hopeless.

The user interface is so bad it's not funny...my 6 year old could work the sky within minutes of getting the control...the horizon control has 93 buttons/functions on the remote. The buttons for pause, rewind etc are tiny - the ones you use a lot and they make them tiny.

You press info on a programme and you want to watch it - press select - nothing...you have to press info to go out, then press select, and it asks you to view - select again..hopeless.

No page up or down function, no way of just going up and down channels to see what's on while staying on the channel you are on. The channel details on the left on the tv guide are so small you'd need a telescope to read them...even 6 or 8 feet away on the couch and it's almost impossible to read what the channel is.

I'll be on to the management company as soon as possible because there's no way i'm putting up with this piece of junk.

Zascar

This thread should be printed out and mailed to the desk of every senior person in the whole of UPC.

I discovered a great solution to all the issues with recordings, rather than rely on Horizion to record them in a manner in which they can be enjoyed you instead go out and buy the DVD or Blu-Ray. I had to go out and buy Mammon last week due to the fact that episodes were sans subtitles, audio was out of sync, it seemed to stop and start when it felt like it and it was generally unwatchable. I've tried all the solutions offered by UPC and none of them work.

You would think that after a year of having the boxes in homes that UPC would at the very least have a firmware update that fixes the small issues. The fact that if you hit record series on a show it will record every episode and not just the ones in that series says it all. I was in a friends house on Friday and his UPC box was full with the Big Bang Theory episodes. His brother when up for a few days had hit record series expecting it to record the few that were left in the series that was on but instead it recorded every episode of it aired on all channels.