TV - How It Should Be - Watch What YOU Want, When YOU Want! (BT Vision)

Member Name: Silverwillow

Product:	BT Vision
Date:	27/01/09 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pause, Record & Rewind Live TV, Packages Available, Great Signal

Disadvantages: Box Is Not Energy Efficient, Have To Have BT Broadband

After having worked for Sky and being reprimanded for not attempting to sell to a grieving widow (I had just asked to speak to her very recently deceased husband and she was understandably upset with me) I will not pay a single of my hard earned pennies to that company, much to my husbands disappointment. Meaning his dream of having Sky+ would never be recognised.

A colleague recommended BT Broadband to us as she had great success with them and the service was perfect for gaming (PC & PS3), downloading and video streaming.

BT Vision is only available if you are signed up to BT Broadband and soon we were receiving booklets galore asking if we would be interested in this service. The box was on offer at £40 (the price of a decent Freeview box) but with the added bonus that you could record, rewind and pause live television it seemed too good to be true.

To begin with we declined their offers of 'packages' as we had enough to watch on the Freeview channels (after having only 5 terrestrial channels for so long). But the husband wanted Setanta and wouldn't stop going on about it... The options given were:

1. Continue with the Freeview and add Setanta at £10 per month
2. Bronze Package - £13.70 per month - Choice of 2 from films, sports, kids and music channels
3. Silver Package - £17.61 per month - Choice of 3 from films, sports, kids and music channels
Gold Package - £19.57 per month - Includes all films, sports, kids and music channels

We've chosen the Bronze Package which is half price for the first 3 months and went with the films and music channels.

We are able to give a month's notice if we wish to swap any of the packages for another, I really like this idea. My nephew stays over a few nights every odd months and with some forward planning I can make sure we have more kids channels for him that month and return to what we watch most the next.

Regardless of what package you have there are is a large library (which is always being updated) of films and shows that you can watch 'OnDemand.' There is a small cost of ordering these but the price is definitely competitive with the likes of renting the DVD from such places as Blockbusters. There are also some shows that are available to watch for free, it's just a case of keeping an eye on the menus and new additions.

I never realised how many interruptions there are in your life and how much of a programme I missed due to a phone going, dearest husband wanting to tell me something right as the CSI finds the murder weapon or someone landing at the door. I don't think I can go back to life without a TV pause button. Working two jobs, running a house and having an active social life often doesn't fit in with the TV stations schedules and it is fantastic being able to record all the programmes I would like to see and watching them in my own time. The series record function is fantastic as once set, I don't have to worry about remembering to set each episode to record.

The memory on the system is impressive as well, between us we have several movies, a couple of series, who knows how many football matches and we still have room for more recordings.

Saving the planet time - although the box will record whilst on standby, even on standby the unit is using a lot of electricity. I would like to see a more efficient box being released in the near future for those of us who are all too aware of our carbon footprint on this world.

Overall, this is a fantastic service if you have BT Broadband. The sound and picture are normally of a high quality (there have only been a few occurrences where the picture has not been of watch able quality but as there were extreme weather conditions but in such circumstances I'm quite happy to overlook these and use the video streaming on the laptop).

Summary: Great Improvement On Freeview With Options To Add On Channels When You Want