12 months on... Has Horizon got any better?

donal.hunt

Last year when I ditched my Horizon bundle, these were the issues that broke the camal's back...


9 months ago I ditched UPC's Horizon service (after 9 months of issues and 3 months of trying to get the issues resolved).

12 months later, are these issues resolved?

Issues with Philips TVs
This appeared to be an issue with the Horizon box’s implementation of the copyright protection mechanism in the HDMI protocol. The issue has affected a number of TV manufacturers and devices.

Issues with recording TV shows?
One of the key features of the Horizon box is that it can record 4 channels at the same time. Our experience over the 6+ months we has Horizon was that it is can barely cope with recording 1 thing at a time. We reported a number of issues during our time with Horizon but had no confidence that TV shows would record.

EPG display issues
We experienced very poor performance when it came to changing channel. The performance was worse than the previous box that we used for accessing television broadcasts (which we ended up switching back to). When compared to the Sky+ boxes currently on the market is was very clearly inferior.



Horizon TV: “any screen” functionality
None of our devices were supported at the time (Linux, Chromebooks, Android). What is the support like now?

Broadband DNS issues
We had huge issues with UPC's DNS servers timing out. The horizon box allowed you to set alternative DNS servers but then ignored them. Did this get fixed?


Anyone got experience?
Happy to turn this into a sticky if there are other known issues that haven't been resolved.

obriendj

donal.hunt wrote: »

12 months later, are these issues resolved?

Issues with Philips TVs
Don't have a philips TV so can't help

Issues with recording TV shows?
Seems to be ok for us. Can record multiple shows at the same time. Have found that some on-going shows are skipped every now and then. For example recording a mini-series like The Missing works fine but sometimes Match of the Day does not record and does not continue the next week until I schedule to record entire series.

EPG display issues
Definitely better than it was but far from perfect.


Horizon TV: “any screen” functionality
Android has an app now. Havent installed it yet but will this evening.

Broadband issues
Has been ok. Can often get Android devices disconnect from the wireless which is annoying. Nothing particular to DNS that I have seen.

donal.hunt

I contacted UPC live chat and got the following info

Issues with Philips TVs
A fix has been implemented allegedly. They couldn't give me a date for release so if anyone has info, it would be appreciated.

Issues with recording TV shows?
Didn't ask about this but this is a key requirement for me. We watch very very little live TV (usually time-delayed or recorded). I see there are still some issues with live pause / record and being able to access the recording later.

EPG display issues
"Our guide has improved on the Horizon box"

Horizon TV: “any screen” functionality
"We don't have software requirements for devices also" and "Yes, it will work fine with it" (querying a Chromebook device)

Broadband issues
"you also can now set up alternative DNS servers"

total former

Issues with Philips TVs
Don't have a Philips; had a Sharp and now have Panasonic, no problems with either.

Issues with recording TV shows?
No issues. Series linking won't work on the new UTV Ireland but I'm attributing that to the overall crappiness of UTV Ireland...

EPG display issues
Definite improvement here. Even the ability to skip days in the EPG made a big difference.

Horizon TV: “any screen” functionality
Works fine on my Android phone (Galaxy S4) and laptop.

Broadband issues
Never had any, but have a small enough house so maybe wifi range issues not a biggie for me.

L1011

I thought it was LG TVs with the huge issues? Allegedly fixed anyway. Recording works for me bar occasionally deciding to record a repeat of an episode rather than the selected timeslot - it'll be the right episode but it could be a day or two later.

EPG text is still too small to read; never used the Any Screen function, changing DNS worked for me from the day I got it.

mfceiling

Text on screen is tiny.
User Interface looks like it was designed by a kid in junior infants.
Series record drops recordings on me on various channels.
Remote is slow - 4-5 button presses sometimes to get it to work.
Failed recordings - showed up that it was recording but wasn't there in my recordings section.
Wi-fi range is non existant
Went to record a programme on monday night. Box froze on eastenders and wouldn't change channel...got a black screen and the sound from eastenders - had to turn it off an on 3 times - missed 15mins from a 30 min show.
Remote has almost 100 buttons on it - most used ones are tiny.
No function for bbc "red button"
Have recorded shows and have had no sound on playback.

In my honest opinion, if you like a reliable, easy to use tv service then call SKY.

donal.hunt

thanks for the replies.

I'm going to see the changes myself by visiting UPC in the ILAC centre. Seems like there are some changes that may indicate an improvement overall.

One note: UPC flat out lied to me yesterday about Horizon Now (or whatever it's called) being available on all devices. It's not supported on Chrome anymore (since there's no silverlight support via NPAPI plugins anymore) or Chromebooks. Seems like there are some workarounds (use other browsers) but the "there are no software requirements" line is a lie.

obriendj

donal.hunt wrote: »

thanks for the replies.

I'm going to see the changes myself by visiting UPC in the ILAC centre. Seems like there are some changes that may indicate an improvement overall.

One note: UPC flat out lied to me yesterday about Horizon Now (or whatever it's called) being available on all devices. It's not supported on Chrome anymore (since there's no silverlight support via NPAPI plugins anymore) or Chromebooks. Seems like there are some workarounds (use other browsers) but the "there are no software requirements" line is a lie.

The thing about going into the UPC stand or shop in the ILAC is that you will be talking with someone who might not know too much about what you are looking for.

They are sales people and usually students on a part time job. and will say yes to most things even if they are unsure.

That is what i have found anyway

caissa007

UPC customer care have not improved from NTL days. You wouldnt believe the amount of my time they wasted in the last week when ordering Horizon. They finally offered me €80 credit which I told them was only a token. They came back with €120 & I told them to keep it.

They are a terrible organisation to deal with. I was repeatedly promised call backs which never happened & left holding for hours. In addition their support line was completely out of action for long periods as well. They sent me out two dud boxes & had delivery failures etc.

I dunno why I'm still with them .....

donal.hunt

Re: The ILAC centre - do they have the horizon box setup and usable by potential customers? If they do, I'll head in there. If not, I won't waste my time.

thanks!

seamus

I'm considering switching from the old SD Box to Horizon, because it basically works out exactly the same cost to get more channels, and some HD channels.

I have my fair share of gripes with the SD box - freezing, randomly not recording shows.

Anyone have any recent experience switching from the older box to Horizon? The vast majority of complaints I've heard are from people who've switched from Sky.

Heisenberg1

OP I was one of the testers before Horizon was mass released. In the first few months there was some lag when using the remote and scrolling through channels, also you could not delete a complete series in one go. The above issues were fixed over 6 months ago when UPC updated with new software. The range on the wifi I found fine I recently changed to the 5Ghz on Horizon and the range has got even better and so has the speed I'm on 200mb pack. Overall I think Horizon is great I haven't had any of issues that some have had thankfully I like the UI and the remote App and Horizon Go is a nice addition and record 4 programmes at the same time is really handy saves on arguments in the house:)

grimm2005

No would be my answer. Recording is still very buggy, sometimes it'll just decide to not record something in a series link, series link sometimes not working at all despite having the option, delete options are better but also brought in a new bug that adds 15/20mins to the end of every recording and even when the setting is manually changed it does nothing. Interface is still as "busy" as ever. The guide has improved, more responsive and easy to skip days but this is little consolation for a box that is just extremely buggy and unreliable.

So yeah, don't bother with it! If it wasn't for the brilliant broadband, we'd have dumped them long ago!

gandalf

Whilst the box has more features added it is still very buggy and can still lag badly. The wifi reception from it has improved a bit but I would still class it as poor.

The recording side of things is extremely unreliable and recently we have had issues with the box phantom recording stuff with no descriptions. We have a look and can't see how we can stop this and given I have told them I am cancelling I am not really pushed about contacting their Tech about it. Unless they hit a price point that I have set for BB and TV services I will be dropping them. If you are considering UPC I wouldn't count their TV box as a plus point for the service. Beyond good broadband they have nothing positive to recommend them as a service organisation.

total former

seamus wrote: »

Anyone have any recent experience switching from the older box to Horizon? The vast majority of complaints I've heard are from people who've switched from Sky.

Yeah, I did. It's like going from black and white to colour. Do it.

bk

donal.hunt wrote: »

One note: UPC flat out lied to me yesterday about Horizon Now (or whatever it's called) being available on all devices. It's not supported on Chrome anymore (since there's no silverlight support via NPAPI plugins anymore) or Chromebooks. Seems like there are some workarounds (use other browsers) but the "there are no software requirements" line is a lie.

I doubt it was a lie, the person probably just didn't know that it is no longer supported on Chromebooks due to software changes by Google!

In fairness Chromebooks are an extremely niche device. I doubt there are many available in Ireland. I've never actually seen one in the wild here!

I'm sure UPC consider it working on PC, Mac, iOS and Android, as being available on all devices, as these represent probably 99% of devices.

I'm sure it doesn't work on Blackberry or Tzien devices either. In fairness they do cover the majority of devices.

gandalf wrote: »

Beyond good broadband they have nothing positive to recommend them as a service organisation.

What, UPC investing 500 million in the NTL network to bring it into the 21st century, bringing us 240mb/s broadband for just €45, one of the very fastest broadband speeds in Europe isn't positive!!

Seriously UPC are pretty much the only reason we have reasonably priced high speed broadband in Ireland. Certainly Eircom wouldn't have been bothered spending 500 million rolling out VDSL if it wasn't for the competition from UPC and them losing customers in massive numbers!

UPC is pretty much the best thing to ever happen to the Irish Brodband and Phnoe business.

They have the best broadband product in Ireland 240mbs/24mbs for €45

They have the best landline deal in Ireland, unlimited anytime national and mobile calls and 300 minutes international calls included in the €45 above, amazing value!!!

There one and only weakness is that there are number 2 in the TV market, instead of number 1

But their TV product has definitely come on leaps and bounds, while Horizon still isn't quiet as good as Sky+ in some ways, it has definitely improved significantly over the last year and works fine for most people.

Yes, UPC could do even better with their DVR, but they really aren't that far off. It is way over the top to say they

have nothing positive to recommend them as a service organisation

, that is total BS IMO.

gandalf

bk if you have received good service from UPC I am delighted for you. But a lot of others myself included are not so "star struck" by their dreadful service. Yes they are better than Eircom but let's be honest here that is a very low benchmark to attain to.

The TV Service is no where near as good as Sky's with a STB that from my experience is is consistently being updated to fix bugs creating new issues as it goes along. The performance of the box is sluggish at best.

With regard to Broadband yes they are the leading provider in Ireland but the whole package that they wrap around it is sub standard for the prices that they are charging, especially the bundle prices and they do not cater for those of us who don't get moist over the download speeds of our broadband connection

Zxclnic

seamus wrote: »

I'm considering switching from the old SD Box to Horizon, because it basically works out exactly the same cost to get more channels, and some HD channels.

I have my fair share of gripes with the SD box - freezing, randomly not recording shows.

Anyone have any recent experience switching from the older box to Horizon? The vast majority of complaints I've heard are from people who've switched from Sky.

Hi Seamus,
My horizon box came on Tuesday, so far so good. The HD channels look great, in fact I'm finding it a bit of a let down now when I switch to an SD channel. Having read this forum regarding the Horizon box Wi-Fi, I told them that I wanted to keep my existing router - 'deconsolidation' they call it - they didn't have a problem with this, then a few hours after I set it up my internet went down,they had disabled my old router presuming that I would be using the Horizon box for my Broadband, this after telling them three times (three separate phone calls) that I would be keeping my old modem. Anyway, all sorted now, but definite word of warning, if you're going to 'deconsolidate', tell them at least 4 times.

bk

gandalf wrote: »

bk if you have received good service from UPC I am delighted for you. But a lot of others myself included are not so "star struck" by their dreadful service. Yes they are better than Eircom but let's be honest here that is a very low benchmark to attain to.

Not just Eircom, but they are currently offering one of the best broadband packages I've seen anyway in Ireland.

In their home country in the Netherlands they only offer a max of 200mb/s and in the UK only 150mb/s

€45 for 240/24 + unlimited anytime calls is mind blowingly good value for money, great value for almost anywhere in Europe. Honestly Ireland's quality of broadband has leapt forwards massively thanks to UPC.

In the last two years, Irelands average download speed has more then doubled and we have leapt forward by 10 countries!!! All thanks almost exclusively to UPC!!!

At this rate of improvement we are likely to jump into the top 20 in the next two years!!

If you don't like their TV service so much, then why do you continue to use it? Why not just switch to Sky TV and keep UPC for their unarguably superb Broadband?

Captain Chaos

bk wrote: »

If you don't like their TV service so much, then why do you continue to use it? Why not just switch to Sky TV and keep UPC for their unarguably superb Broadband?

What I don't like about their price bundles is that it's impossible to get BB only. I signed up last July for just BB. I had to get either a landline or TV package with it at no extra cost. I went for TV and got the phone too for free. That was their cheapest option at the time.

Why can I not just get BB only at a cheaper price and not paying more for "free" services that I don't want but have to take.

bk

Captain Chaos wrote: »

What I don't like about their price bundles is that it's impossible to get BB only. I signed up last July for just BB. I had to get either a landline or TV package with it at no extra cost. I went for TV and got the phone too for free. That was their cheapest option at the time.

Why can I not just get BB only at a cheaper price and not paying more for "free" services that I don't want but have to take.

Basically it costs them almost nothing to operate the phone service, so they are pretty much giving you the phone service for free when bundled with broadband.

Really the broadband on it's own wouldn't be any cheaper.

Think about it, their cheapest bundle is:
- €35 for 60mb/s and phone (no free calls)

Their most expensive bundle is:
- €45 for 240mb/s + unlimited national and mobile calls.

Basically €35 is pretty much the cheapest you could get broadband from them, that is pretty damn cheap historically.

For just €10 extra you get 4 times faster broadband and unlimited calls! This is unbelievably good value for money compared to what Eircom or anyone else use to charge.

scanlanavia

the horizon hasnt streamed anything for me in 5 days... press now on tv button --> no program data available....

and that's on android. and IOS 5.
desktop horizon tv no joy either.

phone: I unplugged it... it was ok but surplus to need

tv recent probs with tv player popping up unexpectedly. remote vontro slow sluggish
channel switching slow
tv guide v slow

scanlanavia

furthermore... theyre customer care is generally appaling. unresponsive impossible to get thru to. useless on follow up

I'm supposed to be contacted about a non working horizon app. ... never happened.... typical

as someone mentioned above. UPC are a dysfunctional organisation. if its thaf bad from outsideb perspective Id hate to think what they're like inside... Yes. NTL were dreadful and the rot had already set in...

mfceiling

If you believe that Horizon offers a decent tv servive then read the "talk to UPC" forum here on boards. Every day is a complaint from someone about it with the same reply "please pm your account number and we'll look into this" or "our engineers are currently working on this" or "we hope to resolve this problem asap" or "thank you for pointing this out, we will pass on your feedback"

Their broadband is good - no doubt about that.

Horizon is rubbish when compared to Sky. We had Sky for something like 3 years and never had 1 missed recording or any problem with no sound etc.
We had Horizon less than 3 weeks and it was missing recordings, doubling up on recordings over a few days (copying same program on a monday then the repeat on a wednesday) and when you pressed down on the remote it kept going down and wouldn't stop (had to turn it off at the wall to get it to stop).

I was recommended to do a "factory reset" - on their flagship piece of technology less than 3 weeks after it came out of the box for the first time.

I'm tired of saying it at this point but if you want reliable tv then get Sky. If you want something that might work sometimes and will take a crazy fit every week or every few days then pay for Horizon.

smurf22

Horizon is an absolute failure

Only just got rid of it in the last month or two for the old box which even with its own problems is still twice as good as the Horizon box

Even well before the box was released here i read comments from Dutch users of the box complaining of the same problems which shows UPC knew of the problems but still put it out on the market

Companies like UPC only start listening when their product is dumped and they're profits start disappearing, which is why im having the house wired up for Saorview and Freesat and dumping their tv service, am done with paying for tv when you have basic Saorview/Freesat boxes that work with no problems

seamus

bk wrote: »

Basically €35 is pretty much the cheapest you could get broadband from them, that is pretty damn cheap historically.

Especially when you consider that this time ten years ago in Dublin, the fastest connection I could get was 56Kbps dial-up. The line rental alone before any charges was €26/month.

gandalf

It's a bit telling that here in the forum about Cable TV that the best we can say about UPC's telly service is that the Broadband is good

total former

Once again, what should have been a reasonably informative and constructive thread is overrun by people who just want to bitch and bitch about a service for which there are many alternatives.

A guy comes on to ask a question about Horizon, the answer is not "their customer care is awful".

If you don't like it, the current round of price increases gives you the opportunity to cancel at no cost. You should all do so.

seamus

Zxclnic wrote: »

Having read this forum regarding the Horizon box Wi-Fi, I told them that I wanted to keep my existing router

Probably more for the broadband forum, but what's the issue with Horizon in this regard? I have the Cisco router in bridging mode and serve my devices using my own router. Presumably you're going to tell me that Horizon won't do this?

gandalf wrote: »

It's a bit telling that here in the forum about Cable TV that the best we can say about UPC's telly service is that the Broadband is good

True, true, but TV is TV. Ten years ago our biggest gripe was that our analogue signal might be a little fuzzy. Now people are whinging that their EPG is a little sluggish or their DVR doesn't work properly.
It's become a complicated service in a short space of time. I personally have no qualms about the actual TV service offered by UPC, ignoring the peripheral stuff like EPGs and DVRs.

Personally I don't like Sky boxes at all. But then I'm not used to them. When I'm sat in front of a Sky box, all the buttons are in the wrong place, and nothing is user-friendly. Hence why when I hear someone complaining that "Sky is better than UPC", I take it with a pinch of salt. Because they may just be lamenting the loss of what they're used to.

gandalf

seamus wrote: »

True, true, but TV is TV. Ten years ago our biggest gripe was that our analogue signal might be a little fuzzy. Now people are whinging that their EPG is a little sluggish or their DVR doesn't work properly.
It's become a complicated service in a short space of time. I personally have no qualms about the actual TV service offered by UPC, ignoring the peripheral stuff like EPGs and DVRs.

Personally I don't like Sky boxes at all. But then I'm not used to them. When I'm sat in front of a Sky box, all the buttons are in the wrong place, and nothing is user-friendly. Hence why when I hear someone complaining that "Sky is better than UPC", I take it with a pinch of salt. Because they may just be lamenting the loss of what they're used to.

Oh I remember those days but UPC is the one who is hyping up this Horizon service as something that it isn't and they in reality are a fault because of this hype. The one basic thing I expect is that I can quickly browse through channels on my set top box and that is something you can't rely on with the Horizon box.

I don't like Sky as a company at all and the fact that UPC are even making me consider them as an alternative is abhorrent to me. The probability is that I will go with a Saorview option initially.

MonkstownHoop

L1011 wrote: »

I thought it was LG TVs with the huge issues? Allegedly fixed anyway. Recording works for me bar occasionally deciding to record a repeat of an episode rather than the selected timeslot - it'll be the right episode but it could be a day or two later.

EPG text is still too small to read; never used the Any Screen function, changing DNS worked for me from the day I got it.

Never had an issue with my LG from day one and I had one of the first boxes, I've never had any issues overall tbh