For BT This Isn't Too Bad (BT Vision)

Member Name: chids

Product:	BT Vision
Date:	07/07/08 (202 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Features, Small, Online Downloads, HDMI

Disadvantages: Noisy, Slow Menus

For the last few years, Sky has dominated the PVR market with it's useful Sky+ box. Before that there were boxes you could hook up yourself, but none were as simple to use and took many hours of faffing around.
The BT vision box is like a Sky+ box, but without the pricey Sky subscription.
Most existing BT customers can get the box free with a phone call which obviously gives most people the chance to try, and if you don't like it, sell it for profit. To be honest, there's not much reason to sell it though. It has a wide choice of programs, all of which have schedules for the next week allowing you to record something up to 7 days away. And, due to the box containing two tuners, you can record up to two things at once or watch something while you record another. You can even record an entire series of a program.
A cleaver feature, not found with Sky+, is the ability t download films and TV shows from BT's servers. Meaning if your rental store is closed and you want to watch a film: hit download and your away.
The build quality of the unit is very high and the array of ports is excellent. BT have made it future-proof by including a HDMI socket for the not to distant HD channels.
And now: the bad parts. First of all is the noise of the hard drive. I have the box in my bedroom and i have to turn it off when i try to sleep because it's so loud. The fan is silent so i don't quite know whether it's just my machine or what? The other gripe is that it has to be hooked up to broadband (home plugs are provided). And the final moan is that the menus are quite slow which is very frustrating.
Overall, it's great for a freebie, try it out: if you don't like it sell it, if you do: keep it.

Summary: It's great for a freebie, try it out: if you don't like it sell it, if you do: keep it.