Virgin Media Stream And TV 360 Get New Features Update

In a brand new update, Virgin Media has announced a series of enhancements for its Stream and TV 360 platforms, targeting a more refined user experience.

This software update, which focuses on more personalisation, visual changes, and user convenience, is already available on supported devices.

The core of this update is the introduction of more tailored content suggestions and improved navigation and watchlist features, aimed at enhancing the ease of use for viewers (see full details below).

But remember that these updates are specifically targeted at Stream and TV 360 users. If you’re using one of Virgin Media’s older boxes, these changes won’t affect your service.

Virgin Media’s “old-school” TV platform, TV-360, offers access to 190 channels and up to three mini 360 boxes around the home if you want to watch in extra rooms.

It also provides access to the Virgin TV Go app, allowing customers to stream their preferred shows on mobile devices, offering convenience and flexibility.

Virgin Media Stream (see our review), available to both new and existing customers who subscribe to Virgin Media’s broadband, is a streaming-based TV platform with apps, Freeview-via-broadband and catch-up libraries.

Although the library of apps on Virgin Media Stream doesn’t quite match those of third-party streaming devices like Amazon’s Fire TV or Roku, it still includes most of the major streaming services in the UK, including BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Paramount+ and more.

The Stream (get it here) offers complete flexibility with a 30-day rolling contract and no ongoing cost beyond the streaming subscriptions users choose to subscribe to (but remember – you must be a Virgin Media broadband customer – and that does usually carry a long-term contract).

Stream customers can also benefit from Stream credit, which provides a 10% saving on select streaming services added via their Virgin TV bill.

Virgin Media Stream And TV360 January Update: What’s New?

The software updates (versions 5.06 and 5.07) are free, and should have already been rolled out to customers’ devices (Stream and TV360), assuming those devices are connected (though sometimes it takes longer).

These are the new features and changes:

Default Home Screen

Until now, when you switched on your TV and Stream / TV360 device, the last channel that you watched would have been the first thing you see when waking the device back up from standby mode.

Now, when you switch on your TV and bring your box out of standby, the first screen you will see is the Home screen.

This is either a plus or a minus for viewers – depending on whether you prefer to watch the same channel every time or not…

Landscape Programme Tiles

To make the programme tiles (on content screens/menus) more visible, they will now appear in Landscape (horizontally instead of vertically) across the majority of screens, including Boxsets & Movies, Recommendations, and Watchlists.

Progress Bar On Home Screen

The progress bar, which shows how much of a show has been watched, will now only display on the highlighted programme (previously, it showed up on all the tiles in the row).

Better Setting Descriptions

Find yourself lost and confused when checking some of your Virgin Media device’s settings?

For a better understanding of the various settings options available, these will now display a description next to the setting in the menus.

Profile Creation Screen: More Categories

When viewers create new user profiles on Virgin Media TV’s devices, they get several content recommendations, helping them decide what to watch.

With the new update, the content categories you can select when creating a new profile have been refreshed to match the most popular selections, such as Lifestyle and Fantasy/Sci-Fi.

My Watchlist (Stream only)

The My Watchlist functionality on Virgin Media Stream boxes has been improved.

Whereas previously, you could only add upcoming shows to your watchlist, you can now add any programme, including those that have already aired through Catch Up.

This makes it easier to add programmes for future watching – even if those programmes don’t currently have new episodes slated to air.

If you missed the previous update – these were the changes in October 2023.

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