BT Vision
Compared to the established services of Sky and Virgin Media, BT’s internet television package is the new kid on the block. Where its two rivals have convinced the general public on the benefits of pausing live TV and taping programmes to a hard drive, BT hopes to show those same consumers that you don’t need a dish or a cable messing up your house to get your entertainment – just a regular internet connection.

Available features: A mixture of internet television, broadband internet and landline telephone.

Our option: The basic pay-as-you-go television service, 8Mbps BT Total Broadband, landline telephone.

PVR (V-Box)
We have had the box for the last three months and have used it every day in preference to our Sony DVD recorder. It is a Philips-made bit of kit running Microsoft software. It also comes with a remote control that is as good looking as the box isn't. As we’ve had it for a while, we undertook installation before the self-install option became available.
A quick scan found the full complement of Freeview channels within our area (in line of sight from Crystal Palace). The picture was nice and sharp on the set and sound was also good.
Recording TV is very simple. Use the TV guide to find the programme you want to watch, then press the record button once to record that programme or twice to record the whole series. The box contains a 160GB hard disk that should give around 80 hours of content before it starts deleting old material (although this can be earmarked to be saved).
The electronic programme guide is quite slow to navigate through and we feel this is something that needs to be addressed if BT is to make a success of the box and its services. But as least the user interface is pleasing to the eye!
As for everyday use, the box has been temperamental, often crashing at the end of a piece of recorded TV. We were assured that a software update would solve the problem, but are unsure whether this has taken place. A lot of other PVRs will tell you that an update is in progress, but this one hasn't so far. We admit that it doesn't crash so much now, but it still happens every now and again.

On-demand
As part of our use we were looking forward to watching a movie from the on-demand service. Hot Fuzz was available and we settled down to compare the picture quality of the on-demand content with normal Freeview programmes. This is where we hit our first problem. Playback stuttered, with the picture coming to a halt every five seconds. Of course, we don't take this kind of thing lying down so we set about trying to find the cause. We weren't supplied with powerline adapters as part of the installation, but luckily we had some on loan from D-Link. Trying to eliminate that as a potential problem we connected the Vision box direct to the BT Home Hub (We used the powerline adapters so we didn't have cables all over the floor). When that didn't work, and after much head scratching, we did what any geek would do when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, we Googled the problem on the internet.
Basically, if you are reading this and you are wondering why that on-demand movie keeps grinding to a halt, here is what you need to do. Go to the BT Home Hub box, locate the cable in the back of the hub, switch the cable from one Ethernet port to the other, and then settle back to watch your movie again. All we can assume from this is that one Ethernet port on the Home Hub has quality of service and the other doesn't. Whatever the reason, this solved the problem and ensured that we could sit and watch the movie without wanting to hit the box repeatedly with a cricket bat.
As for content, there are a few good movies on the on-demand service, as well as a lot of catch up telly. Films cost either £2.99 for new releases or £1.99 for oldies. The cost of each film or programme is automatically added to your BT bill. It must be said here that the range of stuff available is a bit thin (well the good stuff, that is) and a lot of movies had that straight-to-video air to them. And the newer releases seem to have been on the guide for a rather long time.
We have also tried the BT service with an HD-ready TV. While Freeview or the BT Vision on-demand service content isn't high-definition, the box does have an HDMI output at the back. With an HDMI cable (which you will have to buy yourself as it doesn't come with the box as standard) you can set the device to output in either 720p or 1080i. Either of these options does appear to improve the picture quality of Freeview channels, recorded programmes or the on-demand service.

Broadband internet
One drawback of using the on-demand movie service is that it shows up the limitations of limited bandwidth. When watching the latest Harry Potter movie, fast-moving scenes did exhibit a mosaicing effect, or blockiness in other words. There is little that the box can really do about this problem until we get proper terrrestrial high-definition television, which we fear will be a long time in coming.

Customer Service
Two engineers turned up on our doorstep (on time) and proceeded to link up the box to our TV. And yes, they were slightly thrown by our initial television set up – which included a very old plasma without a Scart socket on the back. Luckily we know a bit about the set-up and rather than putting them through the pain of trying to work out how to solve the problem, we asked them to pipe the BT Vision box through our Sony player, which relayed the signal to the component inputs in the TV.

Cost
BT’s V-box only costs an installation fee of £30, with no annual contract. However, you do have to sign up for BT Total Broadband, which costs £17.99 per month.
Our TV package was the basic pay-as-you-go option but there is also an all-you-can-eat option where for £6 you can get drama, comedy and documentaries on-demand. Other packs include music or value for £6 each, and a sports pack that charges £4 for matches after the final whistle. Access to the Setanta channel can be achieved with a £9.99 a month subscription.

Overall
If you are already a BT Total Broadband customer, the price of the box is too good to pass up to access these extra services. But until problems such as the software crashes and the lack of content are solved, it is hard to recommend this as your main source of entertainment.

Verdict: 5.5/10