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Go to our video guides
Listen to our two short videos below for an explanation of how to change the accessibility settings on your Virgin TV for sight loss.
You can also read on for more information about the support we offer customers with a visual impairment.
Audio cues
Virgin TV V6 and TiVo® box’s ‘audio cues’ might help if you have difficulty seeing your screen. These are sounds that show actions and reactions to button presses on the remote control.
There are four main audio cues:
• A tone that starts low and goes higher – this means you’ve moved forward into the next menu.
• A tone that starts high and goes lower – this means you pressed Back or returned to the previous menu.
• A single tone – this means you’ve pressed a button when moving around the TV guide.
• A deep tone – you'll hear this sound when you’ve tried to carry out an action that isn’t available.
Audio description
Audio Description (AD) could help if you can’t see your screen very well. It’s additional commentary that explains what’s happening on screen. AD can describe key visual elements for you that you might otherwise miss – things like facial expressions, body language and movements on screen.
How to turn on audio description on a Virgin TV 360 box or on Stream using voice control:
Press and hold down the microphone button in the middle of the TV box remote
Say Audio description to turn it on
Say Audio description off to turn it off
How to do this using your remote:
Press the Home button on the TV box remote
Press the left arrow button three times, then the OK button to get to your Profiles in the Settings menu
Press the right arrow button once to get to Accessibility
In Accessibility, press the down arrow button twice to get to Audio description. Please note that changing this setting impacts the active profile. This can be set differently for each personal profile.
Press OK to turn audio description on or off
When audio description is turned on by default, the AD logo will additionally be shown alongside the show names in the Grid Guide and Enlarged Guide.
Enlarged TV guide
The enlarged version of the TV Guide is available on the Virgin TV 360 box and the Stream box. It has significantly enlarged elements and text, so it’s much easier to identify and read information. This will make it easier to:
See which programmes are airing now on different channels. It also lets you see which channel and programme is currently playing.
See the schedule for a particular day for any channel up to 14 days in the future, and 7 days in the past (including access to Catch Up content where available).
Identify which events are available via Catch Up and which are PIN protected. On the Virgin TV 360 box, you can also see which events have been recorded and which ones are planned for or currently recording.
You can also view an enlarged TV Guide temporarily on the screen, instead of changing the TV Guide setting for good. Simply press 555 on the remote, or using voice control, press and hold down the microphone button in the middle of the TV box remote, and say ‘Enlarged Guide’ or ‘Go to 555’.
To set the Enlarged Guide as the default for the active profile:
Press the Home button on the TV box remote
Select Settings
Under the Accessibility option, navigate down to the Enlarged TV Guide
Press OK to turn it on or off. Please note that changing this setting impacts the active profile and can be set differently for each personal profile.
When the setting is on, pressing the Guide key will open the Enlarged TV Guide
High contrast settings
By changing the colours and overlay transparency of your screen, we can create a higher contrast between the text and background of your TV menu. This High Contrast User Interface setting is available on our Virgin TV 360 box, V6 box, TiVo® box and Stream box.
How to turn on High Contrast on a Virgin TV 360 box or on Stream using voice control:
Press and hold down the microphone button in the middle of the TV box remote
Say ‘High Contrast On’ to turn it on – a message will pop up to let you know the TV box will restart to apply the changes. Press OK on the Turn On option to continue or navigate down and press OK on the Close option to cancel.
Say ‘High Contrast Off’ to turn it off – a message will pop up to let you know the TV box will restart to apply the change. Press OK on the Turn On option to continue or navigate down to and press OK on the Close option to cancel.
How to do this using your remote:
Press the Home button on the TV box remote
Select Settings
Under the Accessibility option, navigate down to get to High Contrast
Voice control
Use your voice to quickly search for shows, access the TV Guide, switch channels and open apps like Netflix or BBC iPlayer. It’s easy to do – press the microphone button on your Virgin TV 360 or Stream remote and speak your command. For instance, you can play and control video by saying instructions like ‘Skip forward one minute’. You can also turn subtitled and audio descriptions on or off.
We are aware that using voice control to get to ‘accessibility settings’ won’t take you to the accessibility section in settings. But we are working on improving this. For now, it will lead you to the last opened section in settings instead – and not the accessibility one specifically.
Voiceover guidance
Like a screen reader, our Voiceover guidance will read aloud the text on screen from the TV Guide or channel bar. The aim is to make it easier for you to browse and navigate.
How to turn on voiceover guidance on the Virgin TV 360 box or on Stream using voice control:
Press and hold down the microphone button in the middle of the TV box remote
Say ‘Voiceover guidance on’ to turn it on
Say ‘Voiceover guidance off’ to turn it off
Alternatively, you can use your remote:
Press the Home button on the TV box remote
Press the left arrow button three times then OK to get to Profiles in the Settings menu
Press the right arrow button once to get to Accessibility
In Accessibility, press the down arrow button six times to get to Voiceover guidance. Please note that changing this setting impacts the active profile, and can be set differently for each personal profile
Press OK to open the options to turn Voiceover guidance on or off, and adjust the voiceover speed and the volume
TV apps
Complement your Virgin TV experience and manage your entertainment with our apps.
This is our streaming app that works together with the Virgin TV 360 box and Stream from Virgin Media. This clever app lets you watch telly at home or on the go on your devices, anywhere in the UK. You can watch selected live TV channels, On Demand content and more using either a mobile connection or WiFi.
The app also lets you access subtitles and audio description with Live TV and On Demand content when it’s provided. To do this:
Select or tap on the language options icon
Choose your subtitles or audio description options
If you don’t see the language options icon, then the channel or On Demand programme doesn’t offer either subtitles or audio description.
The TV Go app is also designed to provide spoken feedback to users who have Apple’s ‘VoiceOver’ or Android’s ‘TalkBack’ accessibility features enabled. This means the app will announce buttons, icons and on-screen text and messages. It will provide special navigational aids too.
Mobile features
When choosing a mobile phone, you may want to look out for the following features:
• Voice-activated dialling and a big, clear keypad that makes noises when you type
• A large, high contrast screen and VoiceOver or similar screen reader feature
You can now view Accessibility features on O2’s Mobile phone handsets. Find out more about Pay Monthly phone options from O2.
