Virgin Media Horizon Box - Video poor quality compared to other providers

RetroEncabulator

I'm just helping a relative of mine select a TV provider. They currently have Virgin Media with on of the Samsung Horizon boxes and it's an awful piece of technology. The menus are painfully slow and the picture quality is significantly worse than what I've seen on both Sky and on Eir TV on Apple TV. Can't comment on Vodafone as I've never tried them.

My query is is there any point in upgrading to their IP steaming box, or is it just as bad? The picture quality is just surprisingly poor on a lot of the channels, far worse than SD on Sky or Eir.

I'm not sure if it's just a STB technology issue or if it's the head end feed is just rubbish?

They're in the middle of Dublin City Centre but there's no FTTH available at present, just Virgin Media or VDSL, which is apparently not worth using according to neighbours, so that rules out Sky, Eir and Vodafone as bundled services.

Is the newer Virgin box OK? Is it complicated to use or simple enough for an older customer? I think she'd be struggling with Apple TV like UIs.

icdg

First things first. Horizon 3 is an awful piece of kit. I can’t actually emphasise that enough. Overspecced and underpowered is how I’d describe it. Never did what it had the potential to do. Multiroom box never came. Built in routers aged too quickly and had to be switched off. Menus are dreadfully slow and full of unnecessary special effects. I could go on.

That said, for all Horizon 3’s faults - and there are many - I’ve never regarded picture quality as one of them. In fact I’ve found VM generally better than Sky for picture quality - possibly the best of all TV services, certainly for SD. (Sky SD picture is terrible except on the likes of BBC One).

The general consensus seems to be TV360 is much, much better than Horizon 3. But I think a poster in the VM streaming thread said they weren’t issuing it to new customers any more. The streaming box is quite new. As with most streaming boxes the initial reaction has been mostly “it can’t record!!!”. So beware, that’s one thing Horizon 3 can do that it can’t.

If you’re determined to get away from Horizon, I would maybe suggest Sky Q, which Sky will still install if you scroll past everything about Glass and Stream but if you’re in Dublin City centre you mightn’t be allowed a dish (presuming you’re in an apartment).

Delta2113

Your relative will need to have Virgin Broadband or get it in to switch from Horizon to Virgin Apollo streaming box and Tv will need a HDMI socket.

A 360 box with hard drive is better (as in able to record every single channel that you are paying for) but they have stopped giving them out.

You can record up to 500 hours in the cloud but yes some channels and programs you won't be able to record.

https://www.virginmedia.ie/virgintv360support/miniwireless/

RetroEncabulator

She has Horizon, Broadband & phone from them already.

RetroEncabulator

Hard factory reset of the box seemed to improve things oddly … picture isn’t as low res. Very weird.