YouView next gen: first impressions
Well following the speculation and teasers/leaks from various sources, today is the day the YouView next generation UI official starts to roll out (rolling out to TalkTalk supplied boxes first, with BT/Plusnet and retail looking likely to follow in the early new year).
Having been lucky enough to get my hands on this I've taken it out for a spin, so here are my first observations, thoughts and impressions
the good
I look forward to seeing further feedback from some of the other 2.5 million active/connected box owners as they too begin to experience this next generation UI
EDIT 12/3/2017: It is now almost 4 months since next gen began rolling out to TalkTalk users, and more recently to retail users, and then to BT (non-recording) zapper boxes. If TalkTalk (on average) maintained their fairly slow initial rollout rate they would be at about 650k boxes updated now, add in some retail and zapper boxes and one might guestimate this rollout is fast approaching 1m boxes.
This major update has produced almost unprecedented interest in this forum. A rough estimate based on all the emails I get from the forum (I am subscribed for all posts) would suggest that, compared to the traffic levels over the 6 months preceding the release, the traffic rose by over 50% from late November. The traffic levels took another step up in February to about 100% more than pre-November. As we now move in to March this has risen further and is now about 400% higher than pre-November. As is the nature of a forum, it mostly attracts people with questions, problems and complaints. Quite a lot of these recent posts fall into the latter category of complaints about an unexpected significant change to the system for which there appear to remain a number of rough edges and missing features.
When I posted the first impressions above, one of the good points I noted was the apparent ability for faster updates to the next gen software. Given some of the short comings listed above I had hoped, that based on wider feedback, YouView would have by now addressed some points and thus demonstrated steady improvement, which in turn would most likely temper the level of feeling in the complaints such that people are more just lodging their agreement about issues in the expectation it will assist in prioritising development and the confidence that development will come through soon.
In my assessment above, posted on the first day next gen was released, the lists captured pretty much everything that has since been raised, or re-raised by others. As one might expect some give more weight to some issues than I did, in particular I have placed a 'list view for recordings' as a missed opportunity whereas for some people this is seen as a key issue.
Overall, based on my own views combined with my interpretation of the feedback from others on the forum, I would very much like to see the priorities being:
EDIT 8/4/2017: As for what we seem to know about things that will return, my understanding is:
Having been lucky enough to get my hands on this I've taken it out for a spin, so here are my first observations, thoughts and impressions
the good
- visually more modern and eye catching
- faster interface (which will be particularly welcome for the slowest systems such as the TalkTalk Huawei boxes and the Humax/BT T1xxx boxes)
- system can apparent be updated more easily so may see small improvements more often
- major rewrite should provide a better foundation on which to actually improve and add new features, apps and players
- expecting further developments for the youview app (such as immediate transmission of recording requests, two way sync of recording list)
- there is no longer a limit to the number of devices that can be linked to one box via the YouView app
- series record is now the default
- smart standby start/stop times more flexible
- extended parental controls including hiding all adult channels and categories, restricting (via pin) access to age rated content (PG+, 12+, 15+), restrict access (via pin) to programmes recorded after the watershed or rated as guidance
- improved progress bar on live TV that also shows what portion is in the buffer
- current channel is highlighted in the EPG
- titles of short programmes (under 30 minutes long?), when highlighted in the EPG, expand to a maximum of a 30 minute block to show more of the title
- each page in the recordings list and scheduled recordings list shows 12 entries now compared to 8 before
- players and apps are more obvious and accessible, both via the main menu and the fact they can all be displayed on a single screen (with what appears to be room for 5 more before it will overflow to a second page)
- channel hiding has been temporarily removed (channels hidden pre update will remain so unless you use the unhide option in the settings) but should return in the future - note there are new parental controls as per the point above so one can still make sure adult content is not visible when not wanted [also see original channel list management topic] - feature partially restored (only hides the channels in the EPG view), along with easy channel unhiding, in 9/8/2017 release
- setting a recording on some/an SD channel which has an equivalent HD channel used to prompt to offer instead recording it on the HD channel, this is now missing [also see original offer HD recording topic]
- when setting a recording, if there is a double clash the system no longer appears to suggest alternative showings to set instead
- on exiting a recording that is part of a series roll up you are only returned to the rolled up tile rather than the specific recording [see new idea topic] - fixed in 6/6/2017 release so you are returned to exactly the episode tile you entered from!
- entering a series rollup puts you on the newest recording tile not the oldest, or better yet the next unwatched item [see new idea topic] - improvement in 20/4/2017 retail release now drops you on the oldest rather than newest tile, this is better for more people but worse for some; further improvement in 19/3/2018 release now drops you on the oldest (part unwatched) recording so you can pick-up where you left off.
- if a recording runs to the end it just offers an option to go to live TV when it needs to offer say delete recording, return to MyTV, return to live TV [see new idea topic] - improvement in 22/2/2017 retail release so now goes back to MyTV, later updates return you to the exact episode tile which is an adequate solution again to this issue
- access to MyTV is still a ridiculous number of key presses when arguably it should be no more than 2 (and really 1) [see original better use of YouView button topic]
- lost ability to enter a minute number to jump to that start point for a recording
- no longer offers link to on demand content from within a recording listing
- programme titles shown on the MyTV tiles are very often truncated, and the thumbnail images are not particularly useful such that understanding what each recording is is more difficult; quite a few programme titles start 'New: ' and simply cutting that off would be a small improvement although really one needs a better way to easily see more info and scan over all the recordings, e.g. an optional list view - improvements in 20/4/2017 retail release provide 12 uniform slightly larger tiles that show about 20 characters of programme tiles rather than about 15 (although this is still well short of the 35 characters old gen had space for)
- the 'action panel' options (such as in live TV or when in MyTV) are not yet implemented (this would apparently be a list of actions in the half-screen panel that comes up when you press (i), which is currently only an Info Panel. Equivalent to the list of buttons down the left-hand side of the info panel in the first-gen UI) - action panel options finally returned in 23/1/2018 retail release
- on turning on the main menu is displayed across the bottom of the screen for one minute (unless you explicitly exit it), this needs to be optional or stay on for a much shorter time such as 15 seconds [see new idea topic] - minor improvement in 20/4/2017 retail release such that the time out is now after 30 seconds rather than 1 minute
- sound options are partially broken, can only experience surround sound if using an HDMI connection whereas if using optical then can only get stereo
- the discover section has (temporarily) gone - finally returned in 23/1/2018 retail release
- highlighted programme in the EPG no longer shows its duration or start/end time so one can only guestimate the duration
- if you have 2 recordings under way and exit watching a recording you are briefly dropped into the recording list but then the message about a live TV channel change may have happened appears and bounces you out of MyTV [see new problem topic]
- in MyTV if a new recording starts all the tiles shuffle along but the focus box does not, in a worst case where you are just about to press delete you can end up deleting the wrong item
- EPG (and to some extent MyTV) transparency is pointless (or at least insufficient to really see anything of value) [see new idea topic] - improvement in 22/2/2017 retail releases extends transparency so one can see more (although still not a lot and hence some people will prefer to use the option to disable it altogether)
- EPG no longer shows a mini TV [see new idea topic]
- the main menu ribbon/mini channel list of programmes on now shows a fixed set of 10 channels (for a retail box this is the SD versions of 1, 3, 4, 5, 2 and then the next 5 channels from the EPG assuming none of these channels are hidden in which case they do not show and further channels are included in order from the EPG to make up the shortfall), this should at the very least show the HD versions in preference to SD variants, and ideally be a dynamic list of the most commonly used channels or a user configurable set of channels
- fastest fast forward speed is only 30x, would prefer further speeds up to say 60x, 120x, 240x [see new idea topic]
- pressing pause, play, rewind, fast forward produces the playback bar at the bottom and a shadow across the top of the screen - this distracts from viewing and obscures content, including subtitles, for far too long; better to drop the shadow at the top and reduce the area of the bottom section and time it stays on screen
- inconsistency in surround sound symbols on live TV and recordings, sometimes live TV is marked as surround sound but appears not to be whilst a recording may have no surround sound mark yet when played contain surround sound - fixed as of 22/2/2017 retail release
- inconsistent button actions key in MyTV and rollups (in MyTV the key is more obviously relating to menu remote keys whereas in a series whilst one can still use those remote buttons the key is suitable pictograms and one can move onto the key and select the actions - the latter may look nice but the former is more helpful)
- some will like the quadruple sized tile in MyTV but for me it is illogical, just wastes space and gives an inconsistent view and navigation around the tiles - this was dropped in the 20/4/2017 release
- if you have many pages of recording tiles there is no quick way to jump through the pages - jump by page keys/method now added
- wrap around from first to last channel in EPG is no longer possible [see new idea topic]
- clipped recordings will still occur on channels that fail to fully implement real time accurate recording signals
- there are no longer sort order options (alphabetical/date) for the recording list which will niggle some
- entering the info for a recording (or EPG entry) no longer offers 'more episodes' via on-demand [see question topic]
- there is no way to set a reminder for an upcoming programme if it is a repeat and already available via on-demand (pressing ok in the EPG just starts the on-demand content and there is no option to set a reminder from within the info as there was in the old system) [see question topic]
- software information page no longer shows when the software was last updated (only showing when it last checked which will most often be last night)
- ISP branding is much more overt and surfaced according to the ISP connection when it should arguably be only a function of the box provenance or active TV subscription
- still get the spurious extra entry in the scheduled recordings list when setting (from the current app only) a series link recording (i.e. an entry for 1st episode as well as an entry for the series link), this looked poor in the old list view and looks even worse in the tiled view so should have been cleaned up - presumably no longer an issue now the app has been updated
- show duration and series/episode number on tiles
- more immediately visible info on episode tiles (rather than it scrolling up only when you are on that tile)
- better reset options (i.e. all the maintenance modes) still not available within normal UI
- split recordings are still left as two entries (when ideally they would roll up into one tile or better still be automatically joined into one), this looked bad in the old list view and is even worse in the new tiled one
- no option to switch to a list view for MyTV which some still much prefer
- the EPG layout has been tweaked but would like to see more (optional) adjustments, e.g. show 8 channels not 6, show 3 hours not 2
- still no filter/feature that automatically excludes content from the EPG and search that you do not have access to (e.g. subscription content that you are not subscribed for)
- when multiple recordings are in progress, in the EPG grey out channels that cannot be viewed live at that time
I look forward to seeing further feedback from some of the other 2.5 million active/connected box owners as they too begin to experience this next generation UI
EDIT 12/3/2017: It is now almost 4 months since next gen began rolling out to TalkTalk users, and more recently to retail users, and then to BT (non-recording) zapper boxes. If TalkTalk (on average) maintained their fairly slow initial rollout rate they would be at about 650k boxes updated now, add in some retail and zapper boxes and one might guestimate this rollout is fast approaching 1m boxes.
This major update has produced almost unprecedented interest in this forum. A rough estimate based on all the emails I get from the forum (I am subscribed for all posts) would suggest that, compared to the traffic levels over the 6 months preceding the release, the traffic rose by over 50% from late November. The traffic levels took another step up in February to about 100% more than pre-November. As we now move in to March this has risen further and is now about 400% higher than pre-November. As is the nature of a forum, it mostly attracts people with questions, problems and complaints. Quite a lot of these recent posts fall into the latter category of complaints about an unexpected significant change to the system for which there appear to remain a number of rough edges and missing features.
When I posted the first impressions above, one of the good points I noted was the apparent ability for faster updates to the next gen software. Given some of the short comings listed above I had hoped, that based on wider feedback, YouView would have by now addressed some points and thus demonstrated steady improvement, which in turn would most likely temper the level of feeling in the complaints such that people are more just lodging their agreement about issues in the expectation it will assist in prioritising development and the confidence that development will come through soon.
In my assessment above, posted on the first day next gen was released, the lists captured pretty much everything that has since been raised, or re-raised by others. As one might expect some give more weight to some issues than I did, in particular I have placed a 'list view for recordings' as a missed opportunity whereas for some people this is seen as a key issue.
Overall, based on my own views combined with my interpretation of the feedback from others on the forum, I would very much like to see the priorities being:
- Fix the journeys back and forth through MyTV so it is efficient and effective, i.e. you arrive at the next unwatched item in a series rollup when you enter it, and when you stop a recording you are returned to that item directly so you can delete it efficiently
- (Finish) reimplementing an interface for channel hiding
- Change the logic that determines the skin the box uses, it is current naively based on the ISP connection when it should be trivial to change the conditional check to be based on the box model and/or active subscription details, or better yet further make provide the user an override option (e.g. if I have a retail box and BT is my ISP I might actually like to see what they can offer me and hence want to turn on that skin, and see their player and ISP channel listings)
- Review the MyTV view to consider an option to present a list view instead. One would hope the existing code is just a view onto the underlying data and that that view is flexibly coded. Such original flexibility might have been thought to allow for having/not having the oversized tile, or changing the number rows and columns of tiles per page. If so one could perhaps leverage that for a 8x1 view of tiles, i.e. effectively each tile is the full width of the screen and only a couple of lines of text high, what some might call a list. I expect it would need a little more work but whether done within a single piece of flexible code or as a separate bit of code a list view is surely achievable and arguably appropriate for accessibility reasons or just simple user preference.
- Provide an option to turn off the automatic nightly update checks and application (with a suitable warning that a failure to update could lead to features and functionality breaking down over time). In the absence of successful nightly update checks the box would still then prompt the user every 7 days if an update is available but leave it in the control of the user as to whether they accept the update or decline it for now.
EDIT 8/4/2017: As for what we seem to know about things that will return, my understanding is:
- action panels - confirmed as returning, and Stephen (YouView techie) has indicated it will be in the first features update once roll out has completed
- discover - being worked on and will be one of the first feature to return (although it is not clear to me that means in the first features update)
- hide channels - being worked on and will be one of the first features to return (although it is not clear to me that means in the first features update) - in 9/8/2017 release
- MyTV recordings journeys and series tiles order/landing point - being worked on, no specific indication as to what exactly is planned nor when it might be available - in 6/6/2017 release
- MyTV other issues (e.g. option for a list view, better presentation of titles so they are not truncated so badly, big 1st tile or not etc) - YouView is listening, and presumably discussing internally although it is far from clear whether they will then take any action
- As for the rest, who knows
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Comments
Thanks Keith. You got all that info very quickly ;-)
This feels like the way computer games are going, roll out and patch as you go along. It is nice to see they have actually released it to the public (not many public (non-testers) are reporting having it yet but still early in the day) but it still feels rushed out and not polished, maybe January would have given them the little extra time to polish some features ;-)
I do feel this build will annoy a lot of people and should have been held back to not give the wrong impression on what (with some polish) looks very promising.
I recall that you did, but I have been contradicted about this, and maybe it is only an option on the Apps?
(ii) Series recordings don't always bring up the spurious extra tile. I believe you only get this on NextGen from App series requests, not EPG ones. Unless anyone knows different?
(iii) Is that 30x really a 30x? I recall on Current Gen reporting that fast forwarding was going a good deal faster than the nominal rate, with an hour-long programme flashing by in a lot less than two minutes. But maybe they fixed this?
But the main thing here is that this is a root and branch bottom up rewrite of the GUI, and a good few things that go deeper than that, now that the correct approach seems clear, with us knocking on the door of 2017, in a way it could never have been in 2012.
Yes, it still goes to the same places, and it still leaves Keith's lists amazingly untouched, except maybe for a few additions needed. But the narrow winding country lane is now a fast, four-lane superhighway. And yes, it is bestrewn with billboards, some of which are going to need some more attention in the coming months.
But more power to YouView's elbow for having the courage to tear up the old approach before that narrow lane became a cul de sac, and create a solid foundation for going forward once more.
I'll change the point about the series record double tile entry above in a moment
My impressions of Next Gen are all very positive. I think Youview have designed something very special. I welcome the new visual design.
In contrast to keith, I really like the use of the large tile in MyTv. I disagree that it is "illogical". I think it serves an important part in the new design, and visual language. It serves to create a dynamic focal point in the presentation of recordings, whilst still being easy to read. I think If you're going to embrace a visual language then make the most of it - play with scale/size etc. Create dynamic, make it an enjoyable, & fun experience. Restricting yourself to a monotonous list of small squares would be... well monotonous
Regarding the niggly point above, If you press the info button on a program in the guide it gives you this information.
One can indeed get info on programmes in the guide but again having to press info just to see some basic facts or a snippet of the synopsis was something some people previous fed back on and did not like. To me it is not a big issue as I don't particularly need either but I included it for completeness since I knew some others would raise it
EDIT: Scrub that, looks like it may be temporary after all:
https://support.youview.com/youview-box/channels/hide-unhide-channels?q=hide
- Allow for easy sequential viewing of a series folder. Default tile selection should be earliest rather then the most recent recording. And should remember where you last watched
- Clearer and consistant display of extended program Info. We need titles in bold, episode and series numbers displayed consistently at the top of the text block.
- episode/series number, and title displayed on the individual tiles.
- Series folders also need to be curated by seasons ( in chronological order, regardless of when the recordings were made).
I think most of these points are already successfully implemented in Youview search results format, so hopefully its just a matter transposing that onto MyTv series folders. The new build with its quicker updates should help in this matter.EDIT: Scrub that, looks like it may be temporary after all:
https://support.youview.com/youview-box/channels/hide-unhide-channels?q=hideOn my tablet those two links produce the same result.
The important info that chiz has spotted is this statement:
"With this version of YouView, you can’t manually hide channels from your guide. We have plans to bring this feature to you as soon as possible."
Just to clarify what has happened to the Edit Channels feature.
We're afraid you can't hide channels generally in the guide, but we are working to ensure this feature is available very soon.
Any channels you chose to hide before the update will remain hidden.
However, if you decide to unhide these channels in the settings menu, you won't be able to hide them again until we re-introduce this feature in a future software update.
We'd like to also reassure you that you are able to hide/unhide adult channels at will, in the Parental Controls section in the settings menu.
We appreciate this isn't what you're used to, but are working on bringing the Edit Channels feature back as soon as possible.
EDIT: Scrub that, looks like it may be temporary after all:
https://support.youview.com/youview-box/channels/hide-unhide-channels?q=hideI've had a chance to revisit the parental controls now. I've then added an extra point in 'the good' section above to highlight the features for hiding adult content and/or restricting access to age rated and post watershed content.