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May 2010

BT Vision+

Freesat Freeview euro tv skyThe best kit, The best programmes

n www.btvision.bt.com n 0800 917 7610 n Free to BT Total Broadband subscribers/£90 TesT freeview

receiver must complete is a scan for Freeview channels. yet the box could find nothing.

Given that we were making a straight swap with a working first-generation BT Vision box, being fed by a 100 per cent quality terrestrial signal, we could only conclude that the unit was faulty.

a second sample duly arrived, but it too failed to find any signals coming out of our aerial.

subscription packagesWe eventually solved this tuning conundrum by daisy-chaining the unit after another piece of hardware, looping the aerial feed through to the BT box. Then, voila, the BT Vision could see channels! It would seem that the box can’t tolerate high signal strength and demands attenuation.

Freeview aside, BT has been building up its VoD content but has yet to acquire a convincing slate of HD programming. a variety of subscription packages exist, offering different levels of TV grazing. Check the BT website for more details.

The most significant difference between this second-generation box and its predecessor is speed. It whips through its EPG, leaving both the Sky and Virgin Media platforms looking tardy by comparison.

The remote (now with enlarged characters for the visually impaired) also remains ergonomically above average n Steve May

BT Vision+Great looks can’t make up for the fact that BT Vision’s latest PVR fails to bring much more to the VoD party

as BT Vision is still the sickly swot on the school playing field of pay-TV jocks, you might imagine that its long-awaited second-generation box

would pack some surprises. However, the big surprise is that it doesn’t.

Sure, it looks rather more fashionable – all shiny black with circular play/record wheel and glowing blue power button, but beneath the hood there’s little that will give it an edge in the increasingly competitive VoD PVR box market.

The BT Vision proposal combines a standard Freeview PVR with Video On Demand functionality. It’s only available to BT Total Broadband subscribers. Beneath the lid of this second-generation box is still a smallish 160GB hard drive (giving you the capacity to record around 80 hours of SD), although componentry has been changed in this Pace-built box to reduce power consumption.

also new is support for Dolby Digital Plus, the 5.1 standard which embraces slightly higher bit rates than the original (although we don’t believe any broadcaster has adopted this yet).

Rear connectivity comprises HDMI, two Scarts, optical digital audio, stereo phonos, S-video and aerial loopthrough. There’s also a non-functioning, front-facing USB port. Missing from the original box is a phone line connection, now obviously not required.

Poor scanningSo you might be left asking, what’s the story?

Well, outside of a cosmetic urge to match its box with the new glossy black Home Hub router, this new BT Vision iteration doesn’t seem to represent any great strides forward. Surely it would have been better to hold on for Freeview HD and then increase the size of the HDD accordingly?

although BT Vision has always been ahead of the curve conceptually, it’s been dogged by a flaky reputation since launch. So we were expecting some quirks – and weren’t disappointed.

Connected to an active Home Hub, the first job the

verdictThis is something of a treading water exercise for BT Vision.

It looks smart and is highly responsive. However, its tuner tantrum left us bemused and it’s not a platform predisposed to high definition.

BT can still claim a practical advantage when it comes to integrating broadband content with linear TV. Here’s hoping we see that borne out with a third-generation product sometime soon.

featuresHard disc size: 160GBEPG support: 7-day

Software upgrade: Via broadband AV outputs: HDMI, 2x Scart, optical digital audio, S-video, stereo phono Data ports: Ethernet, USBHD output modes: 720p, 1080i Dolby Digital: yes (DDPlus-ready)

ratingsPLUSn Integration of VoD with Freeviewn Quiet n Responsive interface

MinUSn Potentially troublesome tunern Limited HD VoD contentn No Freeview HD reception

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66%2 What Satellite & Digital TV May 2010