Impressions of the new UPC Horizon service

gerdalt

I am a migrant from SKY/EIRCOM. Have had the Horizon service now for three weeks. I just LOVE the broadband speed and the phone service facilities. The TV picture quality is first class - especially the HD channels.
However I find the UI vastly inferior to Sky and am at a loss to understand why it is so poor. The lack of ability to skip forward to a specific day and the inability to delete a series of recordings are just two negatives. The response time is really slow and irritating. These issues are raised time and time again in the forums and were also raised during the trials and yet they go unfixed. I see comments from the UPC rep saying the feedback is happening but there are no results.
Friends ask me what I think of UPC/Horizon and I have to tell them the UI is very inferior to Sky. For non-technical people it is bordering on being unusable.
So there. Rant over
Ger.

seanie27

gerdalt wrote: »

I am a migrant from SKY/EIRCOM. Have had the Horizon service now for three weeks. I just LOVE the broadband speed and the phone service facilities. The TV picture quality is first class - especially the HD channels.
However I find the UI vastly inferior to Sky and am at a loss to understand why it is so poor. The lack of ability to skip forward to a specific day and the inability to delete a series of recordings are just two negatives. The response time is really slow and irritating. These issues are raised time and time again in the forums and were also raised during the trials and yet they go unfixed. I see comments from the UPC rep saying the feedback is happening but there are no results.
Friends ask me what I think of UPC/Horizon and I have to tell them the UI is very inferior to Sky. For non-technical people it is bordering on being unusable.
So there. Rant over
Ger.

I know what you're getting at and those things should have been addressed in the rollout. AS it is we'll see fixes for those, alledgedly, in early 2014. I don't get that for non tech people the system is unusable. I've a 4,6 and 8 year old who whizz through it no problem. That's not meant to be a snark at you by the way :-)
I really enjoy the streaming aspect of Horizon and the fact you can record so many programmes. That's something Sky don't have. Also the forthcoming replay function (http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2013/11/18/upc-cablecom-starts-replay-function/) will make the box even tastier... assuming it works of course :-)

Five Lamps

Personally I think the Sky UI is pretty ugly and basic. However, something basic does the job.

A few things that I don't like about the Horizon
- No date selection on the EPG is a real pain.
- No obvious percentage used/free on the DVR (it is there if you dig for it)
- No delete series
- The Delete all recordings should not be available in the options for eacj recordings. It's easily confused with the missing delete series
- It is a bit slow.
- The box is too big!

I'm also experiencing audio drop out which I'm told is a known issue if you have certain devices attached to the LAN ports.

gerdalt

seanie27
4, 6 and 8 year olds ARE tech people!!! I was thinking of 60 and 70 year olds!!! But I do agree with your comments.
However before rolling out any new functions, they should fix the UI.
(P.S. the link above is broken - there's an extra paren on the end)

Five Lamps
Yes, it is not 'pretty' but it is so INTUITIVE and is very clearly laid out. I agree with your additional comments, especially the 'delete all'.
I have experienced lost audio on just one occasion and ignored it.

Ger

yoozername

I wrote a detailed post yesterday on my own (very negative) experiences so far: http://www.boards.ie/ttfpost/87687550

quarryman

It's a complete piece of junk.

It boggles the mind that after 10 years ago the Sky UI is better than what UPC have now. Total garbage.

Vim Fuego

I just wish the response time was faster - clicking around with the remote is an exercise in patience.

It's also not so intuitive to see what's on on other channels whilst viewing a channel (easiest but not at all intuitive way is to hit the "back" button while watching a channel). I've resorted to using the full guide overlay which seems slightly more user friendly.

I like it and UPC but with Apple TV/Netflix/Streaming from Mac to TV - the horizon box is literally my last resort for entertainment (Yep, first world problems).

For balance, I think the picture quality is great and I was happy to have a TV box/modem combined in one unit. It's still an improvement over my old Thompson DVR.

Wabbit Ears

yoozername wrote: »

I wrote a detailed post yesterday on my own (very negative) experiences so far: http://www.boards.ie/ttfpost/87687550

I just read your post and It boggles the mind that you have the same box I do!!! Channel changes on mine are fast, while it take a fair number of clicks to get places the images appear quickly and the transitions are pretty snappy. I'm not saying there is no room for improvement, there certainly is but really, in my personal experience you had a completely dud box, were suffering from the well known and much discussed large media library issue or are connected to an LG smart TV, again, a much discussed topic here.

seanie27

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

I just read your post and It boggles the mind that you have the same box I do!!! Channel changes on mine are fast, while it take a fair number of clicks to get places the images appear quickly and the transitions are pretty snappy. I'm not saying there is no room for improvement, there certainly is but really, in my personal experience you had a completely dud box, were suffering from the well known and much discussed large media library issue or are connected to an LG smart TV, again, a much discussed topic here.

Same here. My experience would be more aligned with Wabbit Ears.

yoozername

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

I just read your post and It boggles the mind that you have the same box I do!!! Channel changes on mine are fast, while it take a fair number of clicks to get places the images appear quickly and the transitions are pretty snappy. I'm not saying there is no room for improvement, there certainly is but really, in my personal experience you had a completely dud box, were suffering from the well known and much discussed large media library issue or are connected to an LG smart TV, again, a much discussed topic here.

Interesting... Maybe not all Horizon boxes are complete junk. Though, from the posts here, there seem to be quite a few. Also, I have nothing in my media library, and I'm connected to a Philips TV.

daphil

yoozername wrote: »

Interesting... Maybe not all Horizon boxes are complete junk. Though, from the posts here, there seem to be quite a few. Also, I have nothing in my media library, and I'm connected to a Philips TV.

Never really had a problem since I got Horizon 2/3 months ago. Had to switch off at the back maybe once in that time.
Have had 3/4 different programs running at the one time on different laptops and dont have any complaints about remote etc. Could be better but not a problem.
BTW my main tv is a Philips.

Wabbit Ears

For those with philips tvs They recently released some software updates that address a lot of hdmi issues. On older models you have to flash using a usb but it's very easy to do.

seanie27

I also don't understand the sluggish remote comments on Horizon as the remote I have is v responsive and much better than the old HD+ box remote. Mileage may vary I guess.

gufnork

I recently cancelled our contract after two different boxes and a technicians visit still failed to fix the numerous problems with it. I'd go into more detail but am stuck posting from my phone while we wait for sky to connect us. Suffice to say the first box only had partial functionalit after the 3rd day, record, on-demand, live pause began to work only when and if they felt like it. The second box had full functionality for 9 days before dying completely and leaving us without tv, phone and internet. Both boxes exhibited the laggy feel when using the remote and attempting to navigate the various menus etc.

All in all, our experience with it really was awful and it felt like a breath of fresh air when sky switched our tv channels back on.

yoozername

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

For those with philips tvs They recently released some software updates that address a lot of hdmi issues. On older models you have to flash using a usb but it's very easy to do.

I flashed mine about a year ago and checked again recently, I'm still on the latest version. When the sound and picture drop, it's still possible to rewind and listen to/watch what was missed, so it's not an incoming signal problem. Just seems to briefly affect the output from the box to the TV.

Pumpkinseeds

What can I say about Horizon? Sadly ohhhh so many bad things. It is an absolute piece of sh*t. With our first box On Demand wouldn't work and it was hit and miss whether or not you had tv channels on any given day. You might have them in the morning but not in the afternoon. Some days we had all the channels, other days only some of them.

Box number 2 was brought by an engineer that UPC sent out. We got home a week later to find that the new box had stopped working and thus we had no tv channels, no internet and no landline. We cancelled our subscription and I will never ever go back to UPC.

Anyone thinking of getting Horizon, should, in my opinion, avoid it at all costs. We hated it from day one, it's not user friendly and frankly the customer service makes it easy to understand why some people go on killing sprees.

who_me

seanie27 wrote: »

I also don't understand the sluggish remote comments on Horizon as the remote I have is v responsive and much better than the old HD+ box remote. Mileage may vary I guess.

It's probably more responsive than the old Cisco HD box, but that box was extremely slow.

I know it's not exactly comparing like-with-like, but if you try using the AppleTV interface and see how quick and smooth the UI is by comparison. No lag when you start scrolling, and it stops almost instantly when you stop.

nick 56

How did you cancel your subscription ?

I have had UPC since March this year and it has been a boring Saga. Internet so so, phone grand and TV diabolical. I am on my second box and last night it was not working.

I would like to go back to SKY for my TV but they say i would be breaking my contract and would have to pay €200!

Thanks

gufnork

nick 56 wrote: »

How did you cancel your subscription ?

I have had UPC since March this year and it has been a boring Saga. Internet so so, phone grand and TV diabolical. I am on my second box and last night it was not working.

I would like to go back to SKY for my TV but they say i would be breaking my contract and would have to pay €200!

Thanks

Sorry for the delay in replying. UPC had records on their system of the numerous calls we'd made to them due to problems with the boxes. She actually said something like 'you've had two replacement boxes and a technician visit and are still having problems so...', before she said this though I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to pay the fee to get out of the contract because they were in breach of their contract by not providing the services I was paying for.

I think what it comes down to is, if you're having real, actual proveable problems that they can look up on their system, such as having to have a replacement box sent out and also a technicians visit etc, then you've a good case for telling them that they're the ones in breach of their contract with you.

If it's more a case of the lag with the UI/remote or stuff like that then you may simply have to resign yourself to being stuck with it until the years up.

I do sympathise with you though, I really do. We went through hell with UPC before I was lucky enough to happen upon a lady that actually wanted to try to help me as opposed to simply trying to fob me off. I only wish I could remember her name. Think it was Linda.

Anyway, I hope you get it sorted, really is wonderful to have sky tv back again, although their is a delay on connecting my broadband, hence the delay replying to you(am on my smartphone).

nick 56

thanks for the information . i learnt from boards to keep notes and dates so i have.

is it not crazy that we have to do stuff like this , like a horrible hobby.

Again thank you gufnork

nick

dohboy

I think it's grand personally. People just like moaning.

L1011

Have a few moans about it but otherwise its been fine:

The font is far too small to read at normal viewing distance when viewing programme info - I know they're making use of the extra resolution on 1080, but they've gone too far. Viewing what's on next on a channel is needlessly complicated. Dailymotion app crashes the entire box pretty much 50/50. Youtube app doesn't support DRM so doesn't have most actually useful content.

Wifi range is less than the EPC3925 but stability is much better.

who_me

The text/UI size is actually pretty weird. The text at the top of the screen is tiny, on a reasonably big (42") HDTV. On a smaller screen it must be miniscule. At the same time, the pop-up menus from the bottom needlessly take up half the screen, when they could be much smaller.

It's a pity the apps haven't been updated. I read The Score a lot, but since it doesn't support embedded pictures or videos many of the articles are pretty useless. Likewise, Dailymotion is very unstable. It's been like that since the trial, and no change. I keep noticing updates, but not noticing any functional differences. If these updates are fixing stability/performance issues though, I'm happy.

dohboy

who_me wrote: »

The text/UI size is actually pretty weird. The text at the top of the screen is tiny, on a reasonably big (42") HDTV. On a smaller screen it must be miniscule. At the same time, the pop-up menus from the bottom needlessly take up half the screen, when they could be much smaller.

It's a pity the apps haven't been updated. I read The Score a lot, but since it doesn't support embedded pictures or videos many of the articles are pretty useless. Likewise, Dailymotion is very unstable. It's been like that since the trial, and no change. I keep noticing updates, but not noticing any functional differences. If these updates are fixing stability/performance issues though, I'm happy.

I would agree it has a few quirks and isn't perfect. I find it funny though the way people get so vexed and take it as a personal affront that the box doesn't cater for their every whim. Reading the reviews beforehand I was convinced that to have Horizon in your home was akin to welcoming in the antichrist.

gufnork

The guy came from UPC collection yesterday to collect the horizon box. He said the problems we had were down to the infrastructure in our area not having been upgraded hence our problems. He said there are loads of people with problems in our area due to this. I'm not sure if I believe that or not really given that when the technician checked the signal quality it was a pretty good signal. He even showed it to me as he was checking it.

If it were just a few quirks in our case there wouldn't have been an issue for us. But to be honest, two failed boxes and one failed technician visit is more than just a quirk.

AstraMonti

I have the horizon box for a bit over two months. First thing I did was to turn off the onboard wifi and use my much better dlink for that. I think that helps stability a lot. Now as a tv unit it's so and so, laggy interface when you scroll up or down, it's like a roulette you never know when it's going to stop. The inability to delete series is very annoying and a badly needed feature. Also it draws way too much power, close to 55w which I find absurd why it needs that much and without the tv on still draws around 33. I never use the on demand so no opinion on that, I refuse to give them a fiver for each movie. The UI has potential to become much better as at the moment is all over the place in terms of where stuff is.

On the positives i like the picture quality and that it can record 4 shows at once.

gufnork

The recording of 4 shows at once was certainly one of the selling points for me too. Unfortunately the record facility only worked when it felt like it and just gave various error codes a lot of the time so I never got any benefit from it.

Would have been a nice feature though!

Wabbit Ears

The recording stability is something that really has improved a LOT since the earier software versions, it used to never work for me and now it next to never misses a recording.

One thing though, set the recording option in the preferences section to record off one chanel and not all channels as its mad confusing when the box decides it prefers to record the same show at a different time on a different chanel. You think its missed a recording but its still scheduled.

dohboy

gufnork wrote: »

If it were just a few quirks in our case there wouldn't have been an issue for us. But to be honest, two failed boxes and one failed technician visit is more than just a quirk.

Technical problems are frustrating alright and I too would be angry. I was just remarking on people who say they are switching back to Sky because of Horizon's oddball UI. Seems a bit extreme to me.

gufnork

dohboy wrote: »

Technical problems are frustrating alright and I too would be angry. I was just remarking on people who say they are switching back to Sky because of Horizon's oddball UI. Seems a bit extreme to me.

It does sound extreme, but I soon found myself getting quite frustrated with the lag. I very quickly found myself 2 or 3 steps ahead of the UI and having to wait for it to catch up. Or another favourite, scrolling through the guide(no page button), taking my finger off because it's reached the channel I want, only for it to sail straight past. I know they're only small niggles but they do become surprisingly annoying very quickly.

...meanwhile, back in the sky UI, it simply does exactly what I want, exactly when I want it to. Ah, bliss!

Noise Annoys

I've had similar problems to many here, especially the laggy remote. When I am deleting programmes from my library I nearly always have to press OK twice when I 'Confirm Delete' and then it still lags a couple of seconds before returning to the Recordings menu.

The On Demand section is a mess. I didn't use it that often when I had UPC Digital Max, but the way the selections are laid out with just pictures (similar to DVD boxes) is really poor. Almost unusable.

And as I have a 28" TV most of the smaller UI text is unreadable. Even from only 5 feet away.

Great that you can record 4 things at once (although I've never needed to record more than 2) but that is the only TV improvement that Horizon offers over the previous Digital Max service.

campo

I was at a friends house recently who recently got the Horizon box as he was showing it off to me one thing struck me...

The layout looks very similar to xbmc it is almost like they copied it

Wabbit Ears

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=144090 and a few others..

campo

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=144090 and a few others..

Well there you go I thought it was too similar to be a coincidence alright

M.J.M.C

campo wrote: »

I was at a friends house recently who recently got the Horizon box as he was showing it off to me one thing struck me...

The layout looks very similar to xbmc it is almost like they copied it

I used to use XBMC (use plex now) and as a horizon owner let me tell you, horizon is nothing like XBMC

XBMC is good! I've had enough of horizon and im cancelling. SKY's UI is far better, I wanted it to work so badly but its very annoying for simple tasks.

campo

M.J.M.C wrote: »

I used to use XBMC (use plex now) and as a horizon owner let me tell you, horizon is nothing like XBMC

XBMC is good! I've had enough of horizon and im cancelling. SKY's UI is far better, I wanted it to work so badly but its very annoying for simple tasks.

I don't have Horizon as I said but from what I saw I don't think I am missing out on much

M.J.M.C

campo wrote: »

I don't have Horizon as I said but from what I saw I don't think I am missing out on much

Trust me mate you're not.
I'm going to fork out €200 euro to break my contract to go back with Sky.
And i'm feeling good about that, so many times I nearly threw the remote through the tv.

loup

I'm already on my 2nd Horizon box, first one died after a month or so, software appeared to go screwy and it couldn't load the TV guide.

2nd one is slightly faster although still laggy enough. I changed the channel for the broadband to channel 11 and this seems to have stopped the wifi dropping every half an hour.

The Guide itself drives me potty. Whats the point in having Favourites when you cant only view favourites on the menu? I've been trying to add all the newer channels to favourites and reorder them but each time i switch the box off it goes back to default ie the channels are not there, not marked as a favourite and not in the order I left them. Its so annoying even when I 'Confirm' settings it still happens.

dam099

M.J.M.C wrote: »

I used to use XBMC (use plex now) and as a horizon owner let me tell you, horizon is nothing like XBMC

XBMC is good! I've had enough of horizon and im cancelling. SKY's UI is far better, I wanted it to work so badly but its very annoying for simple tasks.

Agreed, if XBMC was the base someone managed to badly mangle what is a fairly nice intuitive interface. Can understand that the live TV and associated functions would require new pieces and modification but they should have retained the existing interface for network media browsing etc and I could even see the XMBC media library UI approach working much better for Box Sets than UPC's horrible interface for them.

Five Lamps

I really can't understand the need for on live TV (other than you can do it)
- The 'preview' beside each channel in the EPG.
- The thumbnails that (eventually appear) on the 'now' for each channel.

They should ditch these straight away. Thumbnails are only of use the "my recordings" .

What UPC need to do is stop sending out customer service satisfaction surveys to Horizon customers and put start asking them how customers can feed back on improving the Horizon interface. TBH I was over in a relatives and it's a far better experience using the older interface than the Horizon one.

200motels

I was going to switch to UPC to save a few bob with a bundle package but was over at friends house who have Horizon and I thought it was a disaster and after reading this thread I'm going to stick with Sky until they iron out the problems they seem to be having.

Trantor

Hi all,

I got my box on New Years Eve and these are my experiences so far:
First thing I found surprising - barely any documentation comes with it.
At least not as detailed as on the Swiss "UPC" website (found it there thanks to this board).

Installation was ok, but the tone kept dropping a lot. Found this was only an issue when HDMI connected thru my AV receiver. Switching to another HDMI port on the AV seems to have solved it (need to look at it later).
I had to do a full factory set on day 2 and 3. It looks like UPC did push at least on one occasion a new firmware down, causing the box to lock up.
Otherwise, all function are working great. No recordings missed, broadband always on 200Mbits when tested and the here mentioned lag when going to the menu does not happening to me.

Fingers crossed - so far I'm quite happy

jimmycrackcorm

Trantor wrote: »

Hi all,

I got my box on New Years Eve and these are my experiences so far:
First thing I found surprising - barely any documentation comes with it.
At least not as detailed as on the Swiss "UPC" website (found it there thanks to this board).

Installation was ok, but the tone kept dropping a lot. Found this was only an issue when HDMI connected thru my AV receiver. Switching to another HDMI port on the AV seems to have solved it (need to look at it later).
I had to do a full factory set on day 2 and 3. It looks like UPC did push at least on one occasion a new firmware down, causing the box to lock up.
Otherwise, all function are working great. No recordings missed, broadband always on 200Mbits when tested and the here mentioned lag when going to the menu does not happening to me.

Fingers crossed - so far I'm quite happy

I'm interested in finding out more as UPC have offered upgraded our area. Have 100mb boradband and Sky. I like the Sky but we're paying full whack atm. Only the experiences people mentioned about Horizon lag and UI are putting me off.

Trantor

The sound and picture issue with my AV receiver turn out NOT to be a problem with the horizon box. The HDMI sockets on the AV are faulty/broken :-(
Had to do another firmware reset after UPC pushed yet another firmware down to the box. It's a little bit annoying since you don't know at first why the wireless or something else is gone and after the reset you have to go thru the initial installation process and I have to power off and on the box twice at the end. So it takes about 1 hour to get it up and running again.
Not good, if you need to do something on the web or make a phone call!

But it seems to improve and other than the firmware issue it's behaving nicely.

Eamo71

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I'm interested in finding out more as UPC have offered upgraded our area. Have 100mb boradband and Sky. I like the Sky but we're paying full whack atm. Only the experiences people mentioned about Horizon lag and UI are putting me off.

Not all have these issues. I certainly don't. The UI is easy to use IMO. There are definite things that could improve.