Horizon TV- Awful?

tigger123

Seems crazy that so long after its testing and launch these issues aren't sorted out.

bronn

beauf wrote: »

Basically it deletes the schedule you set. I had this for a while. It was also putting things back on the schedule/Planner I had deleted.

What I did was deleted all my recordings and all my schedule. I don't think I did an actually reset.

Then I re-input my schedule again. Seems ok now.

Its like the box has a restore point that it keeps going back to.

I thought that it was just our box that was acting all schizophrenic. This has happened twice and I only discovered the third time by accident. For no apparent reason, it dumps everything out of the planner. Then you have to go and set it all up again. I discovered it by chance recently when I checked the planner only to see everything was gone apart from Wolf Hall. So, I put everything back that I could remember. I then checked it the next day - everything was back in the planner, including random series linked stuff we'd watched and deleted ages ago. Way back when we first got Horizon (as soon as it launched actually) Mythbusters was series linked and it was one of the things that popped back up. Very strange.

I've also discovered that the only way to stop it recording series linked programmes is to do it from the TV Guide. Stopping it from the planner doesn't work. You have to go to the TV Guide and select "stop the series link" option. The exact wording escapes me but it's something like that. If you don't stop it through the TV Guide, it will record the programme again the next time it's repeated, even if it's months later.

beauf

Needing to do it from the TV Guide is a new one on me.

But I did have problems clearing series I no longer wanted, they kept recording. I must try doing it from the guide.

I dunno how non techies manage with the Horizon box at all.

bronn

I just checked it. You go to:
TV Guide --> find the programme that series linked --> press 'OK' --> select 'Cancel Booking' --> select 'Entire Series'

In the Planner you have the so-called option of 'Cancel This Booking' or 'Cancel This Series Booking'. As we know, if you cancel the series booking, it will resurrect the series at a later date when it's on repeat. This is yet another feature of the Horizon box that drove us spare, as I helpfully set it one fateful day to record Judge Judy for my mum. Six gazillion recordings of Judge bleedin' Judy later (thank you, ITV3) we were fit to be tied and Your Honnor kept coming back. I only found the option via the TV Guide by accident. Bye, bye Judy!

zig

I left them 2 months ago, so so bad the whole experience.

We started more than a year ago with a regular UPC account and were having issues with the broadband cutting on and off. They said it was the fault of the router which they were no longer responsible for, we would have to buy a new router.

I then got duped into "upgrading" to horizon, to be fair I was going to be paying less than I was at the time due to a promised reduction so it was a win win, so it seemed.


After months of battles and phonecalls and confused operators not knowing the status of the situation we eventually got Horizon in.

Holy crap it was terrible,

Their TV service: slow, confusing to use and unresponsive at times as has been talked about here.

Their apps are pretty awful

The service which allows you to watch your tv on any device was NOT what i was expecting. Logging in only worked half the time, the selection was limited, and the picture quality awful. I felt like a fool watching some programmes on the phone knowing it would be easier wait till theyre on youtube, or better still , watch them on their channel players, like rte player.

Then the broadband issues, first the wifi from the broadband box was terrible, extremely unreliable and inconsistent with a very weak signal, with certain rooms not picking up anything. When we tried to complain they claimed that it was the house and that is something we have to accept even though we never had trouble before.

They eventually got a guy out who installed a separate router/wifi box, so we were no longer using the horizon box for internet, and this was unfortunately just as bad if not worse. At times sitting in the room it was perfect on the laptop but no connection on the phone, and at times vice versa, totally unpredictable.

Another guy came out and pretty much blamed my laptop as he was able to prove that it was fine on his laptop. I was stuck as I couldn't prove him wrong, that's the issue with unpredictable intermittent faults. (This wasnt just me btw, all of us in the house were having this problem with it)

Finally after all this, this supposed reduction wasnt being applied after several calls and online chat help promises that they would start to apply the reduction.

I went to cancel and they told me I couldn't as I had to wait out for the contract, when I told them they broke the contract by not applying the reduction they conceded and said I can give 30 days notice. I just stopped the direct debit there and then, got a free month of service out of it and let them cut me off instead.

One positive note I have to say, when you plugged a cable directly into the router, it sure was very nice fast broadband but thats about it.

sky88

Switched to horizon in the house few months ago but have found the internet has been terrible since then especaaly when upstairs it just switches off and doesnt work at random times.

one of the reasons my family have stuck with upc was the braodband and if it still bad i think i will switch

beauf

Some of use have the internet de-consolidated from the horizon box. Basically the Horizon just does TV.

We have a seperate UPC router/modem for internet. Sometimes connected to our own WiFi Router as we find it more reliable.

I still get a lot of PMs asking how I sorted out my issues with Horizon. It was very simple in the end, I unplugged the box, boxed it up and told UPC to take it back.

Virgin Media: Brian

Hi Folks,

We just wanted to post up some useful links for anyone seeing issues with their service :-)

If you're seeing any issues with WiFi range or speed we'd always recommend testing your connection on a different wireless channel. Ideally channels 1, 6 and 11, to see which one of these works best for you.

You'll find info on how to do this here: http://support.upc.ie/app/answers/detail/a_id/625/~/check-wireless-settings
You can also find some helpful tips on wireless in general in our WiFi hub here: http://www.upc.ie/wifi/

If you're seeing any issues with this or other aspects of your Horizon service please feel free to PM UPC: Reps with your account details and we can look into this with you, or why not pop over to our Talk To and we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have: http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1546 :-)

Thanks.

irishguy1983

I wonder how much damage a thread does like this??!

I for one based on this thread am not signing up to Horizon.

zig

sky88 wrote: »

Switched to horizon in the house few months ago but have found the internet has been terrible since then especaaly when upstairs it just switches off and doesnt work at random times.

one of the reasons my family have stuck with upc was the braodband and if it still bad i think i will switch

the broadband coming into the house is absolutely fine, its their wifi boxes that seem to be tragic.

zig

irishguy1983 wrote: »

I wonder how much damage a thread does like this??!

I for one based on this thread am not signing up to Horizon.

Was thinking the same myself, the sad part is people without complaints wont be as inclined to post anything. Still though, tbh, the service I got was so frustrating that I couldnt help myself.

total former

zig wrote: »

Was thinking the same myself, the sad part is people without complaints wont be as inclined to post anything.

Or that a significant number of posts are from people just repeating the same points over and over again. It makes things look worse than they are. That's the Internet for you though.

Giruilla

total former wrote: »

Or that a significant number of posts are from people just repeating the same points over and over again. It makes things look worse than they are. That's the Internet for you though.

Or that the problems haven't been fixed from day one hence why they're being repeated?

Horrendous user interface that misses button presses. Can't even nearly keep up with normal user speed. If you were to flick through channels using the NOW/NEXT screens, it would literally take you minutes to go from rte up to mtv. You end up having to constantly use the tiny number buttons at the top of the remote to select a high channel... which the remote was clearly designed in a way to say to you 'you won't need to use these buttons because the UI is so going to be so good'. Total fail.

I just find it infuriating to use the box when theres so many obvious problem with it.
Anyone tried the youtube app recently? It wouldn't even let me delete characters I'd typed (mistakenly due to the unresponsiveness of the receiver). Even selecting the 'back delete arrow' on the screen and pressing 'ok' on the remote wouldn't work.

Theres really nothing I'd recommend about it except that it shows stuff on the screen when you select a channel. Even then theres random freezes, sound disappearing, resets needed.

Wabbit Ears

Giruilla wrote: »

If you were to flick through channels using the NOW/NEXT screens, it would literally take you minutes to go from rte up to mtv. You end up having to constantly use the tiny number buttons at the top of the remote to select a high channel... which the remote was clearly designed in a way to say to you 'you won't need to use these buttons because the UI is so going to be so good'. Total fail.

.

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to browse this way???? Seriously, Ive never, ever experienced this issue and Ive had the box since the original trials!!

zig

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to browse this way????

Because going in to their guide to browse is another stress in itself.

Giruilla

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to browse this way???? Seriously, Ive never, ever experienced this issue and Ive had the box since the original trials!!

Exactly.. so why are the NOW/NEXT screens there?

Because theres no other way to channel surf whilst viewing the channel you're currently watching.. except for opening the guide menu which covers the entire screen.

total former

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to browse this way???? Seriously, Ive never, ever experienced this issue and Ive had the box since the original trials!!

Because that's how you do it on the Sky box and on the old UPC box.

Like, this isn't an actual problem, it's just different to what people are used to.

Giruilla

total former wrote: »

Because that's how you do it on the Sky box and on the old UPC box.

Like, this isn't an actual problem, it's just different to what people are used to.

Not just the old box, the two previous UPC set top boxes. Why lose functionality with a next gen box and gain nothing..

.. do people actually prefer NOT being able to channel surf quickly and having a slower response time to key presses?

Wabbit Ears

If I press 'Back' this brings up now/next I can go through the channels really quick up and down and I can also Long press the up and down key to fast scroll through the stations to get to different sections pressing ok brings me to that station and pressing back brings me to that stations now/next
If I wait for the screen in screen to appear for each channel this would take ages but since you don't have to wait for this I don't!!

Giruilla

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

If I press 'Back' this brings up now/next I can go through the channels really quick up and down and I can also Long press the up and down key to fast scroll through the stations to get to different sections pressing ok brings me to that station and pressing back brings me to that stations now/next
If I wait for the screen in screen to appear for each channel this would take ages but since you don't have to wait for this I don't!!

OK I realise now you're simply talking about scrolling through channels without knowing whats on them - NOT actual channel surfing.. seeing whats on other stations.

You don't need to wait for the screen in screen to pop up (which takes several seconds), but for even the text of what is on a different channel to appear - it takes well over a second. Hence to scroll from RTE to MTV whilst being able to read whats on each channel, takes literally minutes.

When you Long press up/down like you say - you are not seeing whats on each channel. Simply a giant scroll wheel comes up showing what channel is on each number and you can spin through them there. This is NOT channel surfing.
In fact - you'd be quicker simply typing in the 3 digit channel number you want to get to considering you have to Long press in the first place.
Infuriatingly bad UI design.

ps200306

I'm used to the Horizon box crashing every now and again, but until today I hadn't seen the remote control crashing! It wasn't a battery problem because the TV controls still worked fine. It wasn't a loss of pairing problem because it worked to the extent that I could go through the remote pairing procedure and get a "Pairing successful" message up on the screen. It wasn't a crashed box problem because I rebooted several times. But none of the non-TV buttons on the remote would do anything. Eventually I thought of removing the remote's batteries for a few seconds, and rebooting it. Problem solved.

I'm adding it to my list of "most bizarre" Horizon problems, beyond the run-of-the-mill level of crashing boxes and crappy wifi coverage. Also on that list is the recording of a radio channel which freeze-crashes the box every time you attempt to go into it from "My Recordings". So not only does accidentally selecting it crash the box but it can never be deleted either (unless anyone has any bright ideas?).

risteardo

Just got a call from UPC offering a reasonably tempting upgrade to 240mb BB and Horizon TV service. Currently have 120mb BB and no TV package, just use Saor/Freeview & Netflix. I had the impression from visiting various friends/family members that the TV UI was awkward and slow. Totally confirmed by this thread, this has saved me from making a bad decision. Will stick with what I have. Much appreciated.

odckdo

I have UPC broadband and got Horizon Max installed last Monday. Using it a few days and have started to get the hang of it. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. Sky's programme guide/interface is better. Even my Humax freesat is aswell.

Prior to this I had a saorview/freesat/netflix setup. Horizon Max is working out at €8.33 extra per month for 18 months on top of my BB. I was paying €8.99 for Netflix. (I was surprised at the amount of content on My Prime/On Demand.)

I had a Triax saorview box which was a pain: switching to the box, hassle to record and no series link and there is a bug which Triax aren't going to fix whereby the sound and picture go out of synch. Already with Horizon I am watching and recording more Irish channels.

I never saw the need for the recording of 4 channels (while watching a 5th) on Horizon but I have already needed it to record 2 or more in a segment.

Aside from the obvious hassle of having to change between boxes, one thing I have noticed with Horizon is that the picture and sound (surround) is great for SD channels. On my Humax it was a nuisance having to re-adjust the sound on both the TV and surround sound anytime I viewed a SD channel.

OK the Horizon Max TV guide is clunky moving through the channels. The remote is small. A slightly better way is to flick through the channels by opening the TV guide in genres mode which gives you a smaller number of channels to deal with e.g. sports. Also there is a favourites list - I added 33 channels last night and I find this the easiest way of channel surfing. Also the remote has 2 sides - the other side has a keyboard which is handy for Apps like YouTube and Deezer for entering text or search terms. Also handy for My Prime/On Demand.

If you are paying top dollar and had a choice, Sky will win hands down. But the deals from UPC are pretty good at the moment. I think its worth the additional 8 euro for the extra content compared to saorview/freesat. Its nice only having to deal with one box again.