Sky + or BT Vision
Discussion
So stuck with Sky.have also been told about this http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/dtv/vplus/ind... so now really confussed
BT Vision is TV on demand, not really channels. So if you want to compare Sky with BTV then yes, Sky absolutely wipes the floor with it. I mean, how many channels does Sky have now? 200+? Ok most of these are just 1 hour delayed or shopping ones, but you will not find Discovery or the like on BTV.
But BTV is on demand. You choose what programmes and they just play them. No waiting, no pauses and no scheduling of TV. Fancy watching Life on Mars Series 1, no problem. Just select the episode and you are off. Like I said, its on demand (get the difference here?) so you select it and there is maybe a 1 or 2 second pause and then you are off. There are NO adverts and if you go for a package then you get a whole load of stuff for free and you can watch it over and over. You do need to pay for films, but if you go for the value pack then everything else (bar sports) is FOC.
The critical question is about the catalogue though. The BTV catalogue isnt exactly overloaded at the moment. There is a load of BBC and C4 stuff on there and a mixture of Discovery, HBO, Nat Geo and a couple of others. Want the latest series of LOST? You wont find it on BTV. Want 4 channels worth of Friends re-runs? Not on BTV.
Want Top Gear series 8? Life on Mars series 1 and 2? Grays Anatomy S1 and S2? South Park S1 and S2 (and S3 and S4 soon). They are and you can watch what you want, when you want it. The library is constantly changing so new stuff is added and older stuff is rotated.
Would I recommend it? In one way yes, in another no. Pro's are very good indeed. The technology works really well (for me at least) and I am not one for watching the latest US TV series anyway. My kids love it and because there are no adverts its nice to just watch programmes and not have bloody adverts every 9 minutes. Imagine just sitting down and watching a 30 minute TV programme right through.... novel concept I know. What it does is very good, but that it doesn't might be the killer for some people. If you like trawling through 100's of channels for something to watch, then BTV is not for you. You do really need to know what you want and when you want it.
On the plus side though, its currently free with no minimum charge and comes with a twin tuner Freeview system. So you can watch one channel while recording another and its got a 80 hour capacity. If you want a package then you just pay monthly with no minimum contract. The Freeview bit is pretty good and offers the usual pause, rewind and series record options. Its a little sluggish to operate, but works well and offers an excellent search facility - which works on actor/actress, name, director etc. Pretty good if you want to be a culture vulture! Only issue is that you do really need to be a BT Broadband customer.
The future? Well, at the moment standard def TV takes about 1-2Mbps bandwidth. It supposedly reserves the bandwidth automatically when needed through your BT broadband router and sorts itself out, so if you are on a 4Mbps or above connection then its all pretty transparent. As and when BT rolls out the higher capacity stuff (8Mbps and above) then they can start delivering HD content. Now that becomes very interesting indeed. Lower cost point to get your TV out there and not bound by Sky at that point. Interesting and potentially the killer reason for the service in the future. At the moment Sky HD is still limited and costly, this will change, but who knows as BT can potentially do everything that they can. Lets see I suppose.
Oh, and if you hate BT with a passion then don't touch it with a barge pole. One more point though, it comes with a HDMI connector as standard and therefore pumps Freeview and On Demand content to 720 or 1080 as required (which is nice).
But BTV is on demand. You choose what programmes and they just play them. No waiting, no pauses and no scheduling of TV. Fancy watching Life on Mars Series 1, no problem. Just select the episode and you are off. Like I said, its on demand (get the difference here?) so you select it and there is maybe a 1 or 2 second pause and then you are off. There are NO adverts and if you go for a package then you get a whole load of stuff for free and you can watch it over and over. You do need to pay for films, but if you go for the value pack then everything else (bar sports) is FOC.
The critical question is about the catalogue though. The BTV catalogue isnt exactly overloaded at the moment. There is a load of BBC and C4 stuff on there and a mixture of Discovery, HBO, Nat Geo and a couple of others. Want the latest series of LOST? You wont find it on BTV. Want 4 channels worth of Friends re-runs? Not on BTV.
Want Top Gear series 8? Life on Mars series 1 and 2? Grays Anatomy S1 and S2? South Park S1 and S2 (and S3 and S4 soon). They are and you can watch what you want, when you want it. The library is constantly changing so new stuff is added and older stuff is rotated.
Would I recommend it? In one way yes, in another no. Pro's are very good indeed. The technology works really well (for me at least) and I am not one for watching the latest US TV series anyway. My kids love it and because there are no adverts its nice to just watch programmes and not have bloody adverts every 9 minutes. Imagine just sitting down and watching a 30 minute TV programme right through.... novel concept I know. What it does is very good, but that it doesn't might be the killer for some people. If you like trawling through 100's of channels for something to watch, then BTV is not for you. You do really need to know what you want and when you want it.
On the plus side though, its currently free with no minimum charge and comes with a twin tuner Freeview system. So you can watch one channel while recording another and its got a 80 hour capacity. If you want a package then you just pay monthly with no minimum contract. The Freeview bit is pretty good and offers the usual pause, rewind and series record options. Its a little sluggish to operate, but works well and offers an excellent search facility - which works on actor/actress, name, director etc. Pretty good if you want to be a culture vulture! Only issue is that you do really need to be a BT Broadband customer.
The future? Well, at the moment standard def TV takes about 1-2Mbps bandwidth. It supposedly reserves the bandwidth automatically when needed through your BT broadband router and sorts itself out, so if you are on a 4Mbps or above connection then its all pretty transparent. As and when BT rolls out the higher capacity stuff (8Mbps and above) then they can start delivering HD content. Now that becomes very interesting indeed. Lower cost point to get your TV out there and not bound by Sky at that point. Interesting and potentially the killer reason for the service in the future. At the moment Sky HD is still limited and costly, this will change, but who knows as BT can potentially do everything that they can. Lets see I suppose.
Oh, and if you hate BT with a passion then don't touch it with a barge pole. One more point though, it comes with a HDMI connector as standard and therefore pumps Freeview and On Demand content to 720 or 1080 as required (which is nice).
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