BT's Vision for the Future (BT Vision)

Member Name: Russ1973

Product:	BT Vision
Date:	17/09/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, Huge selection of content available

Disadvantages: No sky movies/sports, etc

I had Virgin Media cable services, but moved house to a property without cable so I had to choose between Sky and BTVision.

I've been a customer of Sky before, and it's ok, but nothing special and I wanted to try something new and BTVision sounded promising.

One downside could be that getting everything from BT could be more expensive than shopping around for your broadband and phone calls, but I am a firm believer of 'you get what you pay for', I've always found BT's service to be ultra reliable, unlike my friends/family who have gone with cheaper alternatives. Also the added convenience of having all my services in one place tipped the scales for me.

I did have difficulties ordering and it took 2 months from moving in to getting the service running, however, this was due to the previous occupant not cancelling their services when they left. I did receive compensation for the inconvenience.

Anyways, BTVision...you have to have had your BT Broadband running for 1 week before you can activate Vision due to needing the broadband to 'settle in' or something. When the kit arrives it's all nicely packed with clear, easy to follow instructions on plugging it in and getting going. The first time you turn the box on it takes an excruciating half an hour to initialise and turn on!

I've only had the service for 2 months so far, but I have to say it is awesome! It is essentially just a freeview box with a harddisk recorder, but with the integration of on-demand content streamed over your broadband and onto your TV it feels like so much more. It is also HD compatible, however, I don't know what HD content is available as I don' have an HD tv set.

The on-demand content is what really makes the box shine. There are viewing packs you can add to your package including Sports, Kids, Movies and Music. I was only interested in Movies and Kids but it was only a couple of quid more for the full monty so I have all viewing packs.

In recent weeks I have been delving deeper into the menus and ondemand content and have found an astonishing amount of content. As well as catchup style content, series box-sets, sports, movies, kids tv, etc I have found a huge Lifestyle section with films/documentaries/video lessons on all sorts of stuff from greeting card making to learn to surf or play the bass guitar/drums!

In addition to the included content, there is also pay per view premium content as well. Most new movie rentals appear to be £3.37 for 24hours (with HD versions costing £4.84, but I don't have a HD tv so can't comment on this)

I am currently on an introductory rate for 3 months due to a special offer that was running, but I believe the full price for my phone, broadband and full vision service is approximately £55 per month. I believe that is fairly comparable to getting similar package levels from Virgin or Sky. I am unsure of the pricing if you wanted just broadband/vision.

All in all, I can't rate the service highly enough, a nice easy to use TV recorder (I never watch live tv now, I timeshift it so I can skip the ads!) and a huge library of on-demand content that all works seamlessly. Highly recommended.

Summary: A real alternative to Sky/Virgin