Has Horizon Improved?

Hi,
Have finally reached the end of the line with Eircom's broadband, patience has snapped and so off to UPC.

I am already on the basic Digital Value TV pack and so I need to decide how far up the a ladder to go on bundles - Fibre Bundle or Horizon Essential both with unlimited broadband download.

The Horizon looks handy but am aware it has had some bad press with glitches and wonder are they sorted. The UPC technician was out today as it happens trying to sort out an issue with recordings suddenly reverting back to an earlier place and I asked him were the glitches in Horizon sorted and he said most of them were with just a few minor ones left. Is this true I wonder?

If anyone who has it could offer an opinion or their experiences on how it's performing now I'd appreciate it.

We got UPC Horizon a couple of weeks ago & haven't had any problems. It did take me a bit of time to set it up, but I rang the help line & they sorted me out in a few minutes. I've actually found the help line lives up to it's name - without making me feel a total idiot! I haven't gone through all the functions it can do but I'll maybe have a go this weekend. I think I'll have to print off the instructions, which is a bit of a pain, but otherwise we're happy with it

Thanks Harry. Made the move. Good luck Eircom

larbar said:

Thanks Harry.Made the move.Good luck Eircom

Click to expand...

Larbar, there are still coverage issues in larger houses. My house is slightly larger than an average detached 4 bed and UPC have turned off Horizon broadband and re-installed my broadband router. I still have all of the Horizon functionality but the broadband is separate, which may not be a bad thing anyway.

I have to say that the customer service from UPC has improved immeasurably over the years, in contrast to Eircom where the technical support is non-existent. We're looking at replacing Eircom with UPC in the office now.

Good Luck.

Big thread over on boards listing issues with the horizon box. I've just got it installed a week or so ago, and have had some issues. Not a big TV watcher so still testing it. Its a very slow box in general. So far its missed some recordings and cut one off short. Not good considering I've only had it a short time. The user interface is poorly designed. It also lags and then catches up with key presses.

They put delete everything off the box right under the delete option for a single recording. With the lag people are going to into that by accident, or not realise its for everything not just that series and delete all their recordings by accident. Truly awful interface decision there.

I only went for it because of the 4 channel recording (nothing on all week then everything on the same time and evening etc) and more HD channels. I'm totally convinced all the HD are worth it. Some of them are dire. I didn't have anything before so I'm not missing a better system like Sky, or Free to Air. If I had those I wouldn't switch to the horizon box. I think the old UPC box was better. In fact we had our parents cancel the horizon and go back to the old box and they are much happier.

I also got a seperate modem/router TC7200 and I find this a bit limiting as you can't use you're own wifi router with it, (easily) and the wifi range on the TC7200 isn't as good as my old €35 router.

On the plus side I'm enjoying the HD that is worth watching, and having 4 channel recording has already proved handy. Especially with the kids.

Got the Horizon box in November. There are a couple of annoying issues. Had some recording glitches (but not many). Main thing was it was dropping the ends of some recordings, so just used a setting to record some extra time at the end of each programme. On the very odd occasion the sound drops out during playback, but is fixed just by stopping and starting. Apart from the bugs, the disappointing thing is the user interface could have been so much better. It's not awful by any means, just irritating -- things that spring to mind are:

• slow response to some keys, especially deleting a program (which takes up to 13 seconds) with no feedback that you've even pressed the button,
• the famous "Delete Everything" fiasco
• lots of "confirm" buttons so having to press two keys to do one thing (like switch channel from the guide),
• an entire third of the screen obscured by the on-screen feedback when forward/rewinding/slowmo,
• tortuous menu driven access to some basic functions like checking your remaining recording space.

I also had wireless problems reaching one bedroom in the house, but when I analysed the wireless signal myself I found that the number of neighbour-operated devices had exploded in the last few years and I was seeing no less than 14 other devices from that room. So I can't really blame the Wifi interference on UPC. As confirmation of that, when I set up my own Wifi router as a bridge (which had been working for years with Eircom) I still got the same problems. So I ended buying one of those bridges that runs Ethernet over your in-house power cables and has a Wifi access point that's a simple plug in an upstairs socket. I'm "only" able to get 60 Mbps over Wifi in the bedroom now, but hey, who's complaining!

Which reminds me -- I love UPC for quite a few things too: stupendous 120 Mbps broadband, HD TV, ability to watch TV in another room on the laptop, phone with tiny line rental and free calls. I have to say that to myself every now and again to remind me never to touch Eircom again with a 40 foot barge pole.