Gadget Show last night..

Fred_Smith · 08-04-2008, 13:46

Did anyone watch the Gadget show last night... they compared V+ Sky HD and a freeview box.

Sky+ won and V+ was classed as being very clunky and slow... So are Virgin going to respond by improving the EPG?

Callumpy · 08-04-2008, 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred_Smith

Did anyone watch the Gadget show last night... they compared V+ Sky HD and a freeview box.

Sky+ won and V+ was classed as being very clunky and slow... So are Virgin going to respond by improving the EPG?

Well... i suppose if the news gets to Virgin, they might do

Taf · 08-04-2008, 14:20

Clunky and slow... and 2 replacements in 18 months....

NoKnowledge · 08-04-2008, 17:06

For those interested...
http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/5gsmai...scription=PVRS

Cable has always been slow (the time of pressing something on the remote to something happening on screen), the delay the family talked about is absolutely true, nothing's changed since the old analogue days, from what I hear anyways as I got rid of cable TV as that was ONE of my reasons.

Fred_Smith · 09-04-2008, 13:20

It's weird that Sky can make there EPG work quite quickly, perhaps Virgin should poach there programmers...

**Graham M** · 09-04-2008, 13:24

It's not Virgin's fault really, it's the base software at fault on the boxes afaik

Fred_Smith · 09-04-2008, 13:29

Well as it is such a problem, why don't they force there suppliers to supply better software on the boxes instead of leaving it as it is...

When they got the first V+ boxes to test in-house I would have thought they would have noticed the issues right away and got the suppliers to change the software / hardware configuration to work properly!

handyman · 09-04-2008, 13:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred_Smith

It's weird that Sky can make there EPG work quite quickly, perhaps Virgin should poach there programmers...

Various version of the epg have been a bit faster, especially on some of the stb's that had a bit more memory.

As for sky, older box's do not cope well with the newer software and can be as slow and unresponsive as the worst ntl stb.

I have a newer sky+ box and that's very speedy. The new style normal sky box is even faster.

Ntl had the option to use the open software that sky use but chose liberate instead. I think sky then bought open.

**David F** · 09-04-2008, 13:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taf

Clunky and slow... and 2 replacements in 18 months....

Ive had 5 replacement sky+ boxes in a year

The V+ epg may well be slow but both the V+ and V box something none of the others have and thats VOD. IMO VOD wins the day. Skys anytime is just crap in comparison

Fred_Smith · 09-04-2008, 13:50

I agree, but as I'm a programmer I find it hard to understand why either Virgin or the suppliers of the boxes can't sort out the performance. If I wrote an application for a client that was slow, they would expect me to fix it....

**David F** · 09-04-2008, 13:53

probably the all mighty pound stopping it. VM will most likely have given the job to the lowest bidder rather than the better coder

**Stuart C** · 09-04-2008, 14:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeph

It's not Virgin's fault really, it's the base software at fault on the boxes afaik

The boxes themselves come with little or no software. OK, maybe enough firmware to connect to the cable network and download the rest.

But, the rest of the software (the bit we see, such as the EPG) is written by VM (or a contractor) based upon a system called Liberate.

So yes, Theoretically, Virgin are in a position to change the software even if the problem is with the base software. And, TBH, even if the software did come built into the boxes, Virgin probably orders boxes in quantities of tens of thousands. Are you seriously saying that they wouldn't be able to influence the software installed on the box?

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:44 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

probably the all mighty pound stopping it. VM will most likely have given the job to the lowest bidder rather than the better coder

Zing, I suspect you are right, but not necessarily for the reasons you state. It could be that the software that Virgin's is based on, Liberate, requires special hardware at the head end. This would have to be replaced if VM were to switch to another middleware providor.

I suspect it would cost VM Millions to do this..

STONEISLAND · 09-04-2008, 15:13

It drives me potter the slow lag you get with V+ It’s the only thing I miss about my old SKY + box speed of channel surfing.

chickendippers · 09-04-2008, 15:18

One thing that drives me crazy with the Sky miniguide is that you can only view program information for the current program you are watching. Virgin's guide may take a little longer, but you can view information on every program from the miniguide.

andygrif · 09-04-2008, 16:48

Yes, you know what, that's the only thing I still miss about cable boxes. It's logical and obvious - unlike the rest of the system's operation as I remember it!