| Product: |
Telewest |
| Date: |
01/06/02 (202 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: No dish needed
Disadvantages: Shared channels, Reception, Price
As an ex ITVdigital customer who can't have a satellite dish my only option was Telewest. Digital is still 2 years away in my area, so I had the analogue system installed.
The actual fitting was fine (£40), but I began to have doubts when I saw the cable box. It looks like something from the dark ages. Small and ugly with a green back-lit LCD screen. The back-light doesn't go off even if the box is switched off, which means my bedroom is bathed in green at night. There's no Scart connection and no audio outs (fab if you have an amp). This isn't high technology.
The reception is unimpressive, worse than through an ariel, mainly due to cross-channel interference.
Now for the actual channels. I went for the Max package, which looked okay on paper. Unfortunately you don't get the full channels. Paramount Comedy is shared with Nickelodeon, Trouble with Bravo, UK Food with UK Drama and Cartoon Network with TCM. I haven't got children so I don't want the kiddie channels, but that's the daytime viewing that I get. Why they can't get rid of some of the minority channels like, Rai Uno, Bloomsberg, Bid-up and QVC (this is on 2 frequencies) and screen more popular channels 24/7 is anybody's guess.
Worst of all is E4. I was looking forward to watching this year's Big Brother through the day, but Telewest in their wisdom only broadcast E4 between 4pm and 4am. At 4am the signal dies and the Telewest info page is displayed. What makes this even more frustrating is that foreign language channels like Rai Uno, and the shopping channels are broadcast all day. Also on E4 some programmes are sent out in widescreen (not letterbox) which means on a 4/3 TV the picture is distorted. This service is incredibly amateurish, I presume there's a bunch of monkeys running it somewhere.
My contract means that I'm stuck with this awfulness for a year, although I'm reducing my package to the minimum.
After that I'll be having it uninstalled.
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 29/06/02 I have analogue and agree the shared channels are a nightmare. I want Paramount during the day, I don't care about Rai Uno! I've tried emailing but they don't give a ****. Reading one of the other comments I wonder if their staff just have trouble reading basic english... |
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- 21/06/02 Just one further point, I made no personal remarks in my opinion, as you claim. I simply gave an accurate opinion describing the poor service I've received. Perhaps there wouldn't be 1500 redundancies if customers had been better served. I also suggest that you read opinions more carefully before commenting. I made it very clear that I have the analogue service. |
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- 21/06/02 I have the analogue service as mentioned in the first line of my opinion. There is cross-channel interference (reading teletext is impossible on some channels). It's a back-lit LCD (not LED) display and it is as bright as I describe. My box doesn't have SCART or audio outputs. I can tell you work for Telewest, here, have a banana. |
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