Horizon TV- Awful?

lucast2007us

[Deleted User] wrote: »

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.

Then it prob took all night to delete them

lucast2007us

lucast2007us wrote: »

Then it prob took all night to delete them

He spent two hours go through them and deleting them and in the end just deleted all, meant that he had to lose all his other recordings but he figured that it would take him another three hours to delete each individual recording.

I forgot to mention, but when I last rang UPC to complain about recordings messing up I was told that I could just download them using UPC's lightning fast broadband. You really couldn't make it up.

Just sat down to watch a film I had recorded only to find that due to the world cup running late there was only an hour and 20 minutes of the 2 hour film there. It's ridiculous to think that UPC don't have something in place to stop this occurring, a friend with SKy recorded the same film and amazingly enough but the Sky+ box had all the film recorded.

SteM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

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.

Surely it doesn't record every episode of that TV show across all channels? I've never noticed that. I have stuff set to record on e4, should it record the same show from e4+1 too?

SteM

SteM wrote: »

Surely it doesn't record every episode of that TV show across all channels? I've never noticed that. I have stuff set to record on e4, should it record the same show from e4+1 too?

It shouldn't but it happens. I had 40 episode if New Tricks a fee weeks back after setting it up to record a series. On sky if you hit record series it records all the episodes in that series both UPC have a habit of getting them all.

paulboland

Series Recording

You need to check in the settings
Settings
Recordings & Reminders
Recordings
Series Recordings
From Single Channel
From All Channels

Make sure you have it set to
From Single Channel

If you have it set from all channels that's exactly what it will do so make sure its not set to this

Make sure your setting is
From Single Channel

paulboland

paulboland wrote: »

Series Recording

You need to check in the settings
Settings
Recordings & Reminders
Recordings
Series Recordings
From Single Channel
From All Channels

Make sure you have it set to
From Single Channel

As I mentioned earlier all settings are correct on my box. And I set it up on my friends to. UPC told me that it was a known issue.

Sapele

Calibos wrote: »

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???.

I certainly did not do that! I'm very particular with my sound/picture setup and tried several different HDMI cables and all ports on my D7000 Samsung. The Sky engineer confirmed the setup was fine and this was the best that Sky can offer. I have UPC back and would never switch to Sky because of the inferior picture/sound no matter what the Red button says!

Maybe im just in a good area for UPC but when I look at the HD reception now I am very pleased, the detail is superb which you would expect on a 1500 euro TV. With Sky it was hopeless in comparison. Don't even get me started on the Sky SD channels.

eoinola

i just got this box today (promptly i might add) but after reading this thread i might not even open it!! Should i just send back!!

I had sky but the Apt block i am in now doesn't allow for dishes which is a absolute nuisance. What are my options if i send the Horizon box back?

minotour

eoinola wrote: »

i just got this box today (promptly i might add) but after reading this thread i might not even open it!! Should i just send back!!

I had sky but the Apt block i am in now doesn't allow for dishes which is a absolute nuisance. What are my options if i send the Horizon box back?

For jaysus sake try it our for yourself, given the thread title of course its gonna be negative. there are plenty of happy content users out there, myself included.

eoinola

content users wouldn't inspire confidence but will try it out and repost then and see what its like

eoinola

eoinola wrote: »

content users wouldn't inspire confidence but will try it out and repost then and see what its like

Just make sure not to search for servers or anything when setting up the box, if you do it will never work.

satguy

I have Horizon TV from UPC,, and really like it. The box works well for the TV stuff.

But I do use a modem for my WIFI , the tv box did not work well for the PC side of things.

mfceiling

eoinola wrote: »

i just got this box today (promptly i might add) but after reading this thread i might not even open it!! Should i just send back!!

I had sky but the Apt block i am in now doesn't allow for dishes which is a absolute nuisance. What are my options if i send the Horizon box back?

If you've come from Sky then i feel sorry for you. Horizon is rubbish...so user unfriendly it's unfunny.

I'm not allowed Sky dishes either but i'll be taking it up with the management company as soon as i can get a meeting with them. I can't use this technology after using Sky - it's like getting rid of your car and then using a skateboard to get around.

Kurn

I think Sky is great, had it for years, recently moved to horizon and expected it to be awful, was surprised by the tv part- snappy at changing channels (for me at least) and all channels are close together you don't get 100s of crappy ones like with sky, however the interface is very strange in design, it looks like it was done by someone on some sort of drug induced "trip" but if you just like to watch TV without the on demand stuff (on demand seems to have nothing - for me anyway) its just fine, great picture quality (lots of standard HD channels included) and fast to change channel - no more blue screen for 4 seconds between changing over.

mfceiling

johnmryan wrote: »

I think Sky is great, had it for years, recently moved to horizon and expected it to be awful, was surprised by the tv part- snappy at changing channels (for me at least) and all channels are close together you don't get 100s of crappy ones like with sky, however the interface is very strange in design, it looks like it was done by someone on some sort of drug induced "trip" but if you just like to watch TV without the on demand stuff (on demand seems to have nothing - for me anyway) its just fine, great picture quality (lots of standard HD channels included) and fast to change channel - no more blue screen for 4 seconds between changing over.

Ah jesus you can't compare Sky tv and UPC tv. The remote has 93 buttons/functions on both sides and the buttons are tiny.

You can read the channels on the left hand side with Sky...you can barely see the channels on UPC. You can't go page up or page down on UPC. You can't check the info on each program on UPC without having to go out of the existing program then selecting the new program. You can't series delete on UPC. When you go to the tv guide on UPC it never goes from the start...always from the channel you are on.

I went back to SKY on the father in law's tele the past few days and it was so easy and intuitive to use again. There is no comparison between SKY tv and UPC in my opinion and i presume most others on here.

Kurn

mfceiling wrote: »

Ah jesus you can't compare Sky tv and UPC tv. The remote has 93 buttons/functions on both sides and the buttons are tiny.

You can read the channels on the left hand side with Sky...you can barely see the channels on UPC. You can't go page up or page down on UPC. You can't check the info on each program on UPC without having to go out of the existing program then selecting the new program. You can't series delete on UPC. When you go to the tv guide on UPC it never goes from the start...always from the channel you are on.

I went back to SKY on the father in law's tele the past few days and it was so easy and intuitive to use again. There is no comparison between SKY tv and UPC in my opinion and i presume most others on here.

I was more giving my experience than comparing them, but to compare them - SKy TV is easy to use and works very well. However I'm happy to use horizon because of the HD and simple channel layout, but the features Horizon(UPC) have marked are awful - apps, on demand, and the interface is very strange. I've not used series link yet, so cant comment on that.

I thought i'd be handing this box back and going straight back to SKy, but as long as there is no crashes and it continues to work ok, its grand for watching telly in HD.

Max Headroom

Zascar wrote: »

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

Agreed....but i'm sure the response would be "we apologise for your problems, but we're waiting on a software upgrade"....at least thats the crap i got the 3 times i've rang with problems.......
I'm currently having to reset the box at least 3 times a week now....utter crap...:mad:

Zascar

Tell them you want the old box back, that's what I did. At least it does what it says on the tin!

pippip

Noticed one or two of my recorded programs had vanished. Checked disk mgt settings and noticed it was set to automatically delete once full. Didn't even realise disk space was full as its so well hidden. Changed the setting so it won't happen again.

Took my ages to get through deleting loads of things. Had been hoping a series delete function would have appeared before I needed to do this.

Others may want to alter this setting before the same happens.

wally79

I am moving apartment and I called UPC to transfer. The girl asked did I want to upgrade to horizon and I laughed out loud. I thought she might find that weird but she laughed too and moved on so I take they know how terrible it really is

JoeyJJ

Bit the bullet today, had enough, moved my TV services to sky.

mfceiling

JoeyJJ wrote: »

Bit the bullet today, had enough, moved my TV services to sky.

A proper way to view TV...lucky you

Max Headroom

Zascar wrote: »

Tell them you want the old box back, that's what I did. At least it does what it says on the tin!

Thats my next step........its gas, we're paying for a crap service with a crap product and no-one (self inc) seems to be doing anything about it...if it was something shop bought we'd have had our money back ages ago...

mfceiling

Zascar wrote: »

Tell them you want the old box back, that's what I did. At least it does what it says on the tin!

Here's the thing...they are offering a product that despite all the rubbish from craig doyle, isn't fit for purpose.

Why should you have to "downgrade" from a so called superior product to get one that works.

As i stated before on another thread - if you bought a new car and it kept breaking down, would you be happy for the salesman to tell you "listen i can give you the older, last model, it's way more reliable"...

lucast2007us

I fear for UPC when the ESB fibre rolls out!

Zascar

johnmryan wrote: »

and all channels are close together you don't get 100s of crappy ones like with sky

This is something that would drive me bananas. Any time I'm in my parents who have sky it just seems like its jammed full of sh1tty channels with total garbage. I prefer the way upc handles favourites (the old one not Horizon)

Zascar

Zascar wrote: »

This is something that would drive me bananas. Any time I'm in my parents who have sky it just seems like its jammed full of sh1tty channels with total garbage. I prefer the way upc handles favourites (the old one not Horizon)

On Sky you can add channels to favorites and that way you can skip all the crap.

breeno

Hey guys, bit of advice needed if possible. I'm with sky at the moment for TV(Inc sports) and broadband. They've jacked up my price from 80 a month to 130. Eventually offered half price on the TV but that still left it at 105 a month altogether. The internet is approx 12mb a sec but for the last month or two the connection has been really bad and struggling to stream video etc. I'm thinking about moving to upc as they would be half the price and super Internet speeds. My question is, am I mad to move to upc and horizon from sky. I never record so that aspect/bug shouldn't affect me! I had horizon briefly during the beta trial and it was okay,buggy but usable. I know sky is a different league for TV but would anybody else change if they were in the same situation?

Any advice is appreciated!