BT Vision Review

Here

Perhaps wwwebber might like to post it up in the BTVision section of DigitalSpy, as I think he is a regular there as well (I read but don't post there )

It all looks very good! Wait a couple of months and then it will be proud of place in my home cinema!

I really can't help thinking that the VOD stuff is not going to be of sufficient quality to be worth using. 1.6Mbps is a very low bitrate, even for MPEG4, surely (as was hinted to in that review) there are going to be very visible compression artifacts? That to me would be a deal breaker to be honest, there's no way I'm paying

I have it installed and currently connected to a 40" Samsung LCD.

Watched a 2 hour movie over the on demand service at the weekend and was more than happy with it. No artifacts, no blockyness, as good as anything coming over freeview though clearly not as sharp as I get on the sky HD channels.

I also saw the review before release and having now got the box installed I'm thinking the guy that did the review was looking in the wrong direction.

The box itself has the basic hardware to do a great deal more than it is currently doing.

BUT..... who in hell at BT was stupid enough to chose a box running that well known STB OS WINDOWS?

Have you used XP MCE? It is the most power PVR I have seen.

Might be worth waiting for the XBox 360 IPTV that should be available later this year, should in theory offer the same material as the BT Vision offering but in a more usable and less feature stripped package.

Thanks for that - I don't really rate this review to be honest. The video on demand is on a par with anything that is transmitted via freeview - clear as day. The PVR functions are great. BT just need to sort the bugs out - there's a software update coming this month.

This will trash anything that the XBox will offer - 160GB hd, twin freeview tuners etc etc.

If anyone here has any questions then fire away.

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Jan-07 23:31:34)

I dont see why BT dont use x264, the compression is much better for the quality / file size..

Anyway why do BT need to charge an installation charge, cant be "that" hard to sort it all yourself ..

Edited by BSD (Mon 22-Jan-07 23:33:55)

There's no need. The VOD quality is just fine. HD streams will no doubt be available in the future when appropriate.