BT Vision

tony863

Hi,

I'm in the midst of cancelling sky as I feel that they aren't really offering me value for money anymore. They offered me HD, but I didn't think it was worth it.

My question is - What is BT vision like (from a customer point of view) and what is the best deal going at the mo for it?

The best I have seen is 3 months half price. The thing that attracts me to it is free ESPN (I love UFC)

Cheers

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

BT vision uses your aerial to get the Freeview channels.
The On-Demand and IPTV content comes through the broadband connection, for which you must have BT broadband.

macman

Total waste of space. As advised above, it's just the standard Freeview channels with rather limited on-demand content. If you want ESPN you can get it via Top Up TV and a CAM module for £9.99 a month.
Even worse because it locks you into BT Broadband.

tony863

Forgive me for not understanding the lingo, do you mean one of these

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5321911/c_1/2%7Ccategory_root%7CHome+entertainment+and+sat+nav%7C14419512/c_2/3%7Ccat_15701169%7CDigital+boxes+and+services%7C14419633.htm?Price+Cut=1

Oh and what is a CAM module?

macman

tony863 wrote: »

Forgive me for not understanding the lingo, do you mean one of these

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5321911/c_1/2%7Ccategory_root%7CHome+entertainment+and+sat+nav%7C14419512/c_2/3%7Ccat_15701169%7CDigital+boxes+and+services%7C14419633.htm?Price+Cut=1

Oh and what is a CAM module?

No, that's a PVR device. To get Top Up TV you just need a Freeview TV or Freeview digibox with a CAM slot. The CAM module contains the viewing card, which is supplied by Top Up TV.
The module can be obtained from them or on eBay.

spaceman5

macman wrote: »

Total waste of space. As advised above, it's just the standard Freeview channels with rather limited on-demand content. If you want ESPN you can get it via Top Up TV and a CAM module for £9.99 a month.
Even worse because it locks you into BT Broadband.

would not say it is a waste of space, we currently have sky full package, and bt vision bronze package, i can honestly say that in the year and 3 months that i have had bt vision, i have not picked up the sky remote and watched a program on sky

tony863

Again, forgive me but can anyone provide me a link to a recommended one as I still don't really know what you mean

I'd like one that can record channels too as I need something to replace sky +

thanks

fredbear5150

BT Vision attracted me because I refuse to pay money for advertising - Sky and Virgin can therefore get stuffed unless they take the adverts out and charge for it, or give it away free with ads.

I should say that I also tend to be someone who records stuff to watch later rather than sit in front of the TV channel swapping for an evening.

I had BT Vision for a year, they give you a Freeview recorder with Internet connectivity from which you can stream on demand programs. There's various packages meaning that some or most of that on demand stuff is free to view.

When I stopped the service about 9 months ago, there wasn't a *huge* amount on there but what was there was ad-free and you get entire series of TV programs to watch (anything from "Lost" to "America's Toughest Prisons").

However, you need to be careful before you consider it...

You need 2.5mb/s minimum broadband speed and, despite having an "unlimited" broadband package with BT, I know for a fact they do some download speed capping if you are a heavy broadband user between 4pm and 11pm weekdays - in my particular case, my broadband connection was being capped from 3.5mb/s to 1.5mb/s during those hours. Funnily enough, the BT Vision video also started to have problems during those hours as well.

BT always stated that any capping would not affect the Vision service but I don't believe that to be the case. In the end, I gave them the option of removing the capping or cancelling my Vision contract with no cost and they chose the latter. (Although the BT Vision test guys were very helpful in trying to find the problem, I don't think they have any control over the broadband capping so it confused them also.)

So that's my summarised review - if you do notice any download speed decrease on your broadband during peak hours (web browsing and streaming is fine still, that's why it doesn't bother me that much), then you may be being capped and I do believe that capping affects BT Vision, simply because "the right arm doesn't know what the left is doing" in BT.

fredbear5150

Incidentally, when I signed up to Vision, I think the first 3 months were at £7.99 and £16.99 thereafter. You had to sign up for a year, so it worked out to about £180 over a year, by the end of which you owned a Freeview TV recorder - plus during that time had some free ad-free TV programming, as well as paid-for on demand movies.

So actually the costs aren't too bad overall, bearing in mind I've cancelled it but have a working Freeview recorder as a result - plus I still have connection to Vision so I can go in there and still buy the content if I want; there's just no free stuff in there any more but no monthly charge either.

tony863

I haven't got fast enough BB to get BT vision. Mine goes up to 2meg max. Can anyone recommend a freeview box with cam module thingy that can also record like sky?

Anyone??

macman

Humax PVR 9300T.