BT Vision

Marg

We have had BT Vision for some time and are 'reasonably' happy with it but there are one or two issues and I'd be grateful for any help any MSE can offer.

• The remote access is really bad, clunky and slow compared to Sky ones I've seen being used by friends. It's quite hard to describe but there seems to be a very narrow band that you have to hit to get the remote to react at all with the box eg you point the remote at the box and then have to 'wave it around' stabbing the button repeatedly to get it to work. Is this usual? Any suggestions how we could improve it please?

• BBC I-player is sporadic. It freezes after, say, 30 seconds, waits about a minute, plays another 30 seconds and after a few minutes we give up as it's unwatchable. Other times it works perfectly with say only one pause in an hour programme. I can't see any pattern as to which things work but it seems like spooling used to be on an old pc. So once again, is this normal? Are there perhaps some settings I need to change? Do we need a new box?Would swapping to Infinity help?

Thank you for reading and any help you can offer.

macman

BTV needs a minimum line speed to work properly, at least 2Mbps. What is your line speed?
www.speedtest,net
If it's bufffering in peak hours (evenings 5pm onwards) but alright at other times, then it's probably a contention issue, which you can do nothing about while you remain on BT's poor broadband service.

Ectophile

1. I haven't had any particular problems with the remote. If the box is getting cranky, sometimes the solution is a quick reboot. In most cases, just holding the power button for several seconds for a "soft" reboot is enough.

2. I have found iPlayer radio pretty much useless - the sound goes on and off frequently. I don't use iPlayer TV much, but it has generally worked for me.

tiredofpoorservice

Well, BT services off today and TalkTalk phone and Broadband on. So far this is working well - the coverage in the house is much better than the BT coverage.

I was hoping that the BT Vision box would still be usable to play stuff that I had recorded on it but this turns out not to be the case. I can still watch TV through it and see the programming guide. But for some reason the recorded programmes menu has gone. Anyone know why?

I now have a two week hiatus before the TV man comes to install the YouView box. I can't see this gap being especially popular with people switching. Their appalling customer services told me that the delay was necessary to ensure that the BB was working properly but this sounds like complete BS to me.


TOPS

Ectophile

tiredofpoorservice wrote: »

Well, BT services off today and TalkTalk phone and Broadband on. So far this is working well - the coverage in the house is much better than the BT coverage.

I was hoping that the BT Vision box would still be usable to play stuff that I had recorded on it but this turns out not to be the case. I can still watch TV through it and see the programming guide. But for some reason the recorded programmes menu has gone. Anyone know why?

I now have a two week hiatus before the TV man comes to install the YouView box. I can't see this gap being especially popular with people switching. Their appalling customer services told me that the delay was necessary to ensure that the BB was working properly but this sounds like complete BS to me.


TOPS

If you still have the original version of the BT Vision software, then it relies on a connection to BT's servers to schedule recordings and to update the TV guide. If there's no connection, then large chunks of functionality just stop working. If you leave it connected, it might continue to work with reduced functionality for 2 weeks. If it's ever re-booted, then it will fail to start up and will be no use for anything.

VisionMan

Marg wrote: »

We have had BT Vision for some time and are 'reasonably' happy with it but there are one or two issues and I'd be grateful for any help any MSE can offer.

• The remote access is really bad, clunky and slow compared to Sky ones I've seen being used by friends. It's quite hard to describe but there seems to be a very narrow band that you have to hit to get the remote to react at all with the box eg you point the remote at the box and then have to 'wave it around' stabbing the button repeatedly to get it to work. Is this usual? Any suggestions how we could improve it please?

• BBC I-player is sporadic. It freezes after, say, 30 seconds, waits about a minute, plays another 30 seconds and after a few minutes we give up as it's unwatchable. Other times it works perfectly with say only one pause in an hour programme. I can't see any pattern as to which things work but it seems like spooling used to be on an old pc. So once again, is this normal? Are there perhaps some settings I need to change? Do we need a new box?Would swapping to Infinity help?

Thank you for reading and any help you can offer.

Hi Marg,

The remote access is really bad Is this usual? No. You either need new batteries or a new remote, which BT will supply for free.

BBC I-player is sporadic Yes, it is. The iPlayer on the BT Vision platform is very unstable and flaky. I just refuse to use it, and so I just record the BBC content I want to view at a later date.

tiredofpoorservice

For anyone following the thread, the latest on my shift from BT to TalkTalk.

The man came to install the YouView box last Saturday. It all worked OK although I don't think he did anything at all that I couldn't have done and, in fact, did do when I had my original BT Vision box. Annoyingly (and, presumably) according to company policy, he has set the system up so that we can no longer just watch TV through the telly or the DVD/HD player that we also have. Next weekend I will try to change it so that I can - does anyone know any technical reasons why this should not be possible?

Anyway, the system itself seems to work well. The front end for catch-up is superior to BT Vision's. The unexpected free stuff is a nice touch, although not particularly appealing to us. One minor disadvantage is that the ITVplayer on YouView has adverts that you can't even fast-forward through (on BT Vision there were, blissfully, none). But, all in all, it seems good and nothing has gone wrong yet so I would recommend it.

On the down-side, the TalkTalk customer services have, so far, been abysmal - just have to hope I don't need it very much. Also, the 2 and a half weeks between broadband coming on and the TV service being provided was not impressive; perhaps they should consider giving customers the option of self-installation.


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Ectophile

tiredofpoorservice wrote: »

For anyone following the thread, the latest on my shift from BT to TalkTalk.

The man came to install the YouView box last Saturday. It all worked OK although I don't think he did anything at all that I couldn't have done and, in fact, did do when I had my original BT Vision box. Annoyingly (and, presumably) according to company policy, he has set the system up so that we can no longer just watch TV through the telly or the DVD/HD player that we also have. Next weekend I will try to change it so that I can - does anyone know any technical reasons why this should not be possible?

Anyway, the system itself seems to work well. The front end for catch-up is superior to BT Vision's. The unexpected free stuff is a nice touch, although not particularly appealing to us. One minor disadvantage is that the ITVplayer on YouView has adverts that you can't even fast-forward through (on BT Vision there were, blissfully, none). But, all in all, it seems good and nothing has gone wrong yet so I would recommend it.

On the down-side, the TalkTalk customer services have, so far, been abysmal - just have to hope I don't need it very much. Also, the 2 and a half weeks between broadband coming on and the TV service being provided was not impressive; perhaps they should consider giving customers the option of self-installation.


TOPS

I expect that the reason you can't watch Freeview directly on the TV is simply that the "RF out" output on the YouView box hasn't been connected to the TV aerial input using a flylead. If it worked on BT Vision, you should now have a spare lead hanging around, ready to be connected.

As for the DVD, I would guess it's just a matter of plugging it into the TV again. It would help if your TV has multiple HDMI or SCART inputs, so you can connect the YouView box via one and the DVD via another.

tiredofpoorservice

Finally got time (and motivation) to look at the TV. It wasn't quite as simple as all that. The installation man had disconnected the aerial from the DVD/HD recorder and also the link between the TV and the DVD recorder. However, restoring this link, and putting an output from the YouView box to the DVD recorder didn't bring the signal back. I had to go into the set-up for the YouView box and enable TV output - it claimed that this is an energy-saving issue but clearly it is more energy-efficient to watch TV with the YouView box off.

Clearly, the YouView people only want you to be watching through the YouView box - presumably, this helps with some advertising claim. All a bit underhand, I think.


TOPS

VisionMan

All YouView boxes have the RF OUT setting disabled as an energy saving requirement.