BT Vision - Part 2 (Using it)
High Level Summary
So after 5 days of use of BT Vision, I can summerise my initial experience as a pretty good one. I’ve been able to watch, record, replay and view “on-demand” TV successfully experiencing few issues. The graphical user interface is pleasing to the eye, stable, fast and intuitive. Overall, the initial user experience has been higher than I had previously expected and I’m looking forward to BT providing more on-demand content to satisfy the £14 subscription per month.
I’ll also put some pictures and videos up to let you see it in work very soon…
Detailed Installation Summary
The engineer (Mohammad) arrived on time (as promised the AM slot on the 29th September). In fact, he was actually early! He tried to call us at 8.30am, but we had our telephone switched off by accident so he wasn’t able to get in! He did left a voicemail but then was able to gain access to the building at 11.00am. I wasn’t in the house at the time (I was doing some food shopping at Borough Market!) but he was still there when I returned at 12.00pm. He was having a few difficulties registering the BT Vision set-top box to the BT Hub. He tried a different set-top box from the van and it was having the same issue. He mentioned that it might have been our television. It is pretty old (old CRT Beko TV - at least 10 years old) as it was going to sleep when the set-top box was powering up. So I got out my small LCD TV from the box to see if it was something wrong with the old TV but we experienced the same problem.
So after 3 attempts, the set-top box recognised that there is an “issue” and it automatically carried out a clean reboot. This sorted the problem out and after 15 minutes of reinstalling the system/application and finding all the channels, Mohammad provided us with a quick “how to” tour. 20 minutes later, he was off to complete his remaining jobs for the day (he had to do another 2 installs) and we were left to our own devices!
All setup by 1.30pm!
Detailed “Using BT Vision @ Home” Summary
Olly got a bit sleepy by the afternoon so it gave me a good opportunity to explore what features BT Vision actually had to offer. First thing I have to say is that the remote control is very sturdy and a good fit in the hand. It doesn’t feel cheap and when a button is pressed you know that it’s been pressed because you see a bright blue LED light emitting from the remote control. You have quick access buttons like Favorites (where you can programme your favorite channels), On Demand (to go directly to the the On Demand Section, TV Guide (to see the Electronic Programme Guide) and the standard Play, Record, Pause, Rewind, Fast-Forward and stop buttons. Basically everything that need on a remote.
I scanned through all the channels and you get all the basic Freeview TV and Radio Channels. The BT Vision set-top box seems to have pretty good Freeview Receiver as my other two standard Freeview boxes didn’t seem to receive all the channels. The BT Vision box was able to receive Channel 5 (5ive) which was a (noticible!) addition. I flicked around and thought “hmmm… this is ok but I watching the freeview channels that I was previously watching this morning without the BT Vision Box… WHAT AM I PAY THE EXTRA £14 PER MONTH FOR???!!!” Then realised that I was getting a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) for free as well. OK, so I get to record Freeview Channels when I want and the facility to do this is actually quite cool. it even has the ability to record the entire series by pressing the “R” button twice. The PVR can record up to 80 hours of video so quite alot!
I thought again… OK, I’m getting a PVR… but I still can’t justify paying £14 every month! With Sky I would be getting some premium channels like Sky One. But I had missed the clincher… ON DEMAND!
I was opened up to a whole new world that I had never experienced before! ON DEMAND TV! This is a totally new concept for the vast majority of consumers in the UK. The ability to watch a programme when you want and also have the facility to pause, fast-forward and rewind the content right there! If you subscribe to the £14 per month option, BT Vision offer you a relatively large library of On Demand Television from a wide range of genres (from UK/US Comedy to Documentaries to Lifestyle to Drama). Popular shows include classics like BBC’s “Red Dwarf” and drama “House of Cards” to the modern US comedy shows “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and cheery “My Super Sweet Sixteen”! BT Vision offer entire series of programmes also. So if you missed the last series of “The West Wing” or “Peep Show” then you can play it here. There is enough here to keep you going for at least a few months. Not only do they offer you TV shows, but the subscription also includes On Demand for Kids (which I have yet to try out!) and On Demand for Music. On Demand for Music is quite cool as you are in direct control of which music videos you actually what to watch at a any time (with NO ADVERTS!). There is a good 300 music videos to choose from.
So I put down in a few bullets points some of the good things:
- Robust and fast Graphical User Interface
- PVR/Recording ability is easy to use
- EPG is also very good and intuitive to use - goes very far into the future so you can record things at least 1 week in advance
- Provides good level of information about each programme/show (epsiode summary, cast info and subtitles info)
- Minimal rebooting required on the V-Box (once since installing)
- On Demand functionality is very good - Quality of Service for downloading content is fast reliable with a high quality picture output
- Lots of TV settings and also the ability to use a TV with HDMI port
- Items which are not free on demand has a reasonable pricing structure (from £0.29 for music, £0.79 for TV and £1.99 for film)
But, I do have a few areas which I feel require few improvements and highlighted them below:
- The TV signal quality is not 100% all the time - this may either be caused by our aerial or by the box. Currently the signal quality across all the channels seem to vary from 20% - 100% and obviously when it is low, the picture and sound quality dramatically reduces
- The music section does not let you queue up multiple on demand tracks meaning that you have to select a track everytime it finishes
- The amount and variety of On Demand TV is currently sufficient (approximately 100 series), however BT will need to keep on the ball on providing new content to justify the ongoing subscription
Things that have yet to be proven (e.g. ringing customer service) will be put on hold until the next installment. Hopefully BT will take on bored what I have said and potentially implement them and release it out as an automatic upgrade!
I won’t be comparing against Virgin Media (sorry!) as I haven’t excperienced their service! But I will be writing a little thing about BT Vision vs Sky very soon.