BT Vision

If you leave BT will vision still work as a PVR, not fussed about VOD?

Not as far as I know, it doesn't have the line profile on the server and doesn't serve anything up not even recordings.

When I plugged Vision into my Be line, it completely disabled the box including the Freeview.

I beleive it gets some of the EPG from the internet and talks to home, so as others have shown it looks to be locked to ISP currently. I think the Freeview side works but not no PVR

Thats a [censored] as I find it far superior as a PVR than SKY+. Lot easier to watch and record.

Thats right - it'll never work outside of BTs network - it gets its entire EPG from BT servers. Recordings are also scheduled remotely - so yes - it just becomes a freeview box with no programme info, EPG or PVR facilities.

Staying with BT now ?

Nope freeview wont work either as once it's unplugged it needs to connect to BT's servers for its bootstrap.

Rumours are they are working on a stand-alone Vision service but nothing has been announced yet.

It should have been here from the start but it appears to have been abandoned. They had a lot of problem getting it working without a connection to the Vision servers.

Not even that as the first time that it needs to reboot it will stop working.