Why are TV and set top box UIs always slow and jerky?

[mrochester]

There seems to be a recurring theme across pretty much every TV and set top box I have ever used in that the UI is always either slow to respond, jerky, or both.

I've got a Humax Freesat box here and you press a button on the remote and the box responds a moment later rather than immediately and when you scroll through menus, you can see it jerking and lagging. On my Samsung TV, it's a very similar experience. A VirginMedia TV box we recently got rid of was a pretty awful, slow experience.

My parent's Sony TV is just as bad, and their YouView TV box is equally as slow and laggy with actions often taking many seconds to occur after pressing the button on the remote.

A friend's Sky box is also slow and laggy.

The only TV box I currently have that behaves smoothly and quickly is my Apple TV, although that is only used for AirPlay.

Why do these devices offer such a poor experience? Where do you go if you want a TV that is fast and responsive to your remote control commands?

 

[tomparker95]

My Sky HD+ box or whatever it is, runs perfectly. Both the main one and my multiroom one too.

 

[Feek]

Never had a problem with any Sky boxes being unresponsive except when there was a bug with a software version a couple of years ago but I've never yet seen a Freeview 'guide' that works smoothly. They all look cheap and amateurish and perform dreadfully.

 

[marc2003]

I have a cheapo freeview HD usb dongle with windows media centre which works great for me. It's perfectly responsive although I do use a mouse rather than a remote.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Made to a tight budget. Needs to be cheap, quiet, cool.

 

[Burned_Alive]

I have a Sony Android TV and a BT Youview box. Both these are a dream to use, very quick and responsive.

 

[Mobius 1]

Samsung ks7500 here. The UI is lightning quick.


I do however agree with the foxsat freesat box being dog slow. I used to have one, it was painfully slow.

 

[Puzzled]

Sky q is quick but the Samsung menus are sluggish. Doesn't help that the buttons are so squishy.

 

[IronWarrior]

Virgin Boxes are ****, slow, laggy UI system where you have to "confirm" to change channel.

Man, the UI for cable boxes have gone pretty **** these days, the best I remember was in the early 90's. Never had any problems, UI was fast, you could easy setup favourite channels and put them in whatever order you wanted and the "BACK" button would change you to the last channel.

 

[McBain]

Sky Q silver box has a tiny, and I mean tiny bit of lag but nothing at all to complain about. My Samsung JS9000 (which was nigh on top of the line) lags like **** though.

Had Virgin TV back in the day and that was horrifically laggy.

 

[TheMightyTen]

Virgin Boxes are ****, slow, laggy UI system where you have to "confirm" to change channel.

Man, the UI for cable boxes have gone pretty **** these days, the best I remember was in the early 90's. Never had any problems, UI was fast, you could easy setup favourite channels and put them in whatever order you wanted and the "BACK" button would change you to the last channel.

The new TiVo v6 is lightning quick.

 

[unwashed potato!]

we've got a virgin tivo box. installed netflix on it for all to use. i cannot beleive how slow it is. it was so slow to search, just typing each character was laggy, that i ended up firing up xbox one, installing netflix on there, signing in and then finding the program in about half the time

 

[Vonhelmet]

The main problem we have with our nowtv box is the atrocious remote. You need to be absolutely perfectly aligned with the sensor for it to realise something is going on and then chances are it'll count about three clicks per button press. Useless.

 

[Mark A]

Yup our Virgin Tivo is unusable for me coming from a PC with fast internet. I just get too annoyed waiting for it to load after everything i click and give up.

 

[TheMightyTen]

For those with the old slow TiVos get on to Virgin to see if you can get a deal for the new TiVo V6, it's a massive improvement and you should be able to keep your old TiVo box to add into your network as overflow storage for the V6 box and another means to view your recordings in other rooms.

 

[TheVoice]

My UHD BT TV box seems very responsive so far, much better than the Sky+HD box it replaced which was getting very clunky.

 

[edGfaCTor]

Two things

1. hardware is not that great
2. poor software

 

[phil-k]

I have a Humax box and its the same, press a button to move a direction on the listing page and it takes a second or two to move, very annoying

 

[v0n]

It is always because of the bargain bin penny-a-piece hardware with awful 'one system fits them all' software.

I know Humax brand all the way back to the first DVB satellite series (5300/5400) in the nineties and in my experience they never, ever, in their history had a fast software on receiver. It's always super heavy, yet dully basic GUI on what seems to be absolute minimum memory and solar calculator chipset. Same goes for Nokia set top boxes - back in a day most of Europe had to deal with Nokia Mediamasters - the 9200 and 9500 dboxes, while few years later OnDigital in UK rolled out Mediamaster 9800 series. Those things were slow as hell. If you pressed volume button five times then channel up five times one press after another you could leave the room, make a tea, come back and the box was still cycling through consecutive channels (taking up to a minute to lock onto a picture on each one). At some point German hobbyst Uli Hermann made an interface for the chipset, downloaded the software from dbox and wrote his own - Dr.Overflow's DVB2000. That made the Nokias much, much faster, and much more featured. Uglier. But lighter. It's still legendary OS to this day. The best free STB in UK was OnDigitals Pioneer, identical to Canal+ box on mainland continent but with terrestrial tuner - nothing in Sky/Virigin and later Freeview range even compared to that box.