FOAK - BT Vision

http://www.btvision.bt.com/

That thing, has anyone got it?
My parents are trying to embrace the digital revolution, my Mum is rather
partial to the cricket and being newly retired would like as much of that
sort of sport as she can eat. My sister thought this would be the sort of
package that wouldn't have a high maintenance cost. They're well tooled
up on Internet stuff, currently with Zen, but their house has been with
BT for Internets before with no evident ill effects.

I've given their line a thump with all the BT tests I can think of, and
can't see any problems relating to delivery of the service other than
possibly needing a new TV aerial, theirs is crap.
A personal review would be appreciated if anyone's got one already though.

They don't really want sky, because of the dish and the daft prices for
the "sports package", there's some choice implied on the "value added"
bits of this BT thing.

You have the floor.
Ta
cat.

 

You won't get much cricket on BTVision. Sky have most of the home &
international competitions wrapped up for years.

 

There's a line checker on the BT site which has a stab at guessing
your line speed, which will tell you whether or not you'll be able to
get the service.

It's basically a Freeview PVR, which I am reliably informed is a
fairly good example of the type. Normal TV is delivered over the air,
on-demand stuff down the phone line. Until recently you needed to
have an engineer round to install the set top box, and the BT home
hub, and a length of Cat5 between the two. I understand that it's now
self-install, with a couple of powerline adaptors to bridge between
the BT hub and the STB - wireless won't cut it. Only major bugbear
that I know of is that the EPG is sometimes slightly out of sync,
which can bugger up recordings if things run late.

If you are one of these nutters who won't have any Microsoft products
in the house, you probably shouldn't get BT Vision

A couple of people at work have got it and seem impressed. I'll be
getting it shortly, but then I won't be paying for it ...

 

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:52:55 -0800, simonk wrote:

I'm good for all that bit, I'm rather in the internet business, and got
one of our techies to do the relevant testing, it looks good from the S/N
att. point of view at any rate. Distance to exchange is low, etc etc.

Does it *require* the home hub junk then? "powerline adapter", is that
the etherweb over power doohickies? They're not the sort of people who
enjoy wires trailed round the house, and they're not really up for the
expense of a sparky drilling holes and making good, I expect.

I use XP for what it's good at, and linux for everything I can't be arsed
faffing with, they're a fully paid up M$ shop, so I'm sure they'll be ok.

The tout the box as being worth £200 and capable of 80 hrs recording,
which is basically what they're after, so on that basis alone it looks
like a good deal.... tying them into the 12 month contract with BT as an
internet provider is the only bit that makes me a *bit* nervy. They use
Yahoo for email, so I can't see any headaches there, there's not much to
migrate except ips.

Thanks for the advice, I'll check up on the cricket issue, I think that's
fairly pivotal!
cat

 

I believe it does, yes, but ICBW. Even if it did work with a random DSL
modem I doubt you'd get much sympathy if it went wrong

Yes

 

Not that there's anything wrong with the HomeHub, anyway.

Early software revisions were a bit unstable - mine used to need
re-starting every so often, but the last few months it has been
rock-solid. Dead easy to set up and use, too.

 

cat secured a place in history by writing:

If you take Sky (+), plus their broadband, plus Skytalk...the price for the
sport starts looking rather less daft....

 

Only cunts use HomeHub and similar DOP shite.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."

 

What's a DOP and what's the intense aversion? These are retired people,
they're not on the bleeding edge of technology, they just want to tape
some tv shows and send a few emails.

 

Data Over Power?

As far as the cuntish nature of DOP-tech users, I believe Darsy
freely admitted to utilizing something alone those lines.

 

Ah, I didn't realise that homehub *was* DOP. I thought it was a wifi
doohicky with a plugin phone or something.
I've rather given up watching TV, so the daft adverts with that kid from
2.4 children or whatever it was being "amazing new dad who brought
internets for us" aren't managing to explain their techno-bundle to me.

Ho hum, when did I become a luddite?

 

If DOP = data over power, then it's not.

 

Case proven! Next!
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."

 

Oops, I meant HomePlug. Plenty of cunts use HomeHub I've no doubt, but
the 100% rate is held by Homeplug.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."

 

Grimly Curmudgeon secured a place in history by writing:

I'm stumped: What have you got against Homeplug? It's a lot simpler and
more robust a solution than 802.11g...

Haven't got any mind, but I was considering it as a straightforward way to
get ethernet to my 360, particularly since there seeems to be a fair bit of
competition and prices have fallen...

 

"It" isn't - the hub is wireless, or wired ethernet; but the self-
install pack for BT Vision includes a couple of homeplugs - and
presumably a couple of short lengths of Cat5

 

<fx: waves>

Try using wireless in a 1920s built house with 30cm solid walls.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, darsy

Houses built in the 1920s didn't have 30cm walls.

They were 12". People fought and died to make sure of that, and don't
you forget it.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Fallen apart) Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single"
Norton 850 Commando Kawasaki GTR1400

 

sorry, granddad!

 

http://bplinterference.wikispaces.com/

BPL on overhead lines mostly, but Homeplug is covered about 2/3rds of
the way down the page. Homeplug (and others) are just smaller versions
of the bigger stuff.

And the cheap imitators pay even less attention to the interference
problems. Homeplug is bad enough - take with a pinch of salt Homeplug's
protestations about being clean and notching out some bands - it's a
load of crap, as anyone who listens to SW or is active on the amateur
bands will tell you. The problem is now, the horse is well and truly out
of the stable and there are hundreds of thousands of these infernal
devices in use throughout the British Isles. Each one may not cause all
that much bother except to the person (or people) within a several
metres radius (although some badly-made or defective ones radiate much
more than that) but the sheer number of them deployed in urban areas has
become a problem.
Homeplug users are blissfully unaware of the trouble they cause to
others through their blind use of a seemingly-useful technology. Even I,
in the sticks, have noticed an increase in background hash on HF, and
I'm bloody sure it's Homeplug use somewhere within shouting distance of
me.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."