fuzzier than expected

So I spent some time this weekend setting up and playing with the BT vision + box.

First disappointment is that the "+" doesn't stand for HD.  Indeed complaints abound on BT's support site that BT vision isn't HD.

Well, I say it isn't HD - some of the on demand type content is HD, so the box is obviously capable of outputting HD.  It's just that the Freeview side of it isn't HD.  Which is bonkers.  you could understand it when if first launched, but why put out a new bit of kit that has some HD on demand content and HDMI and optical audio connectors but only has SD tuners - it even has two tuners so can record two things simultaneously, but it's not HD. Weird.

The second disappointment is that some of the content only appears to be available if you get the 'unlimited' package.  Note that even though it's "unlimited", there's still stuff you can only get by paying for it.  So it's unlimited apart from the limitations.

Now I understood this going in - it says on the website you have to pay for some bits if you've not got the unlimited package.  that's fine - pay for what you want.  Except the granularity suggested by the website is very broad - films not available at all, everything else you pay 50p and up for.  Except that's not actually true - some of the non-film bits you also can't get unless you have the unlimited package.  And I mean not at all - you can't pay to get them individually, you need the full unlimited package.

The third disappointment wasn't so much a disappointment, but that getting this unlimited package would not be particularly good value.  Okay, you get all that stuff in the package, but most of it I've either seen or don't really want to see.  I mean there's stuff I'd like to see, but not enough to make unlimited good value for money by a long way.  Certainly not since most of the stuff I'd want to see you can pay for.

On the up side, the stuff available via the full-on paying methods (i.e. you pay irrespective of which package you've got) isn't too bad at all.  There's a reasonable selection of films, for example.

However, unlike the other films you can only get via unlimited it wasn't at all clear if they were available in HD.  Certainly some of the trailers looked quite high definition, but that may just be because the trailer is at a higher bit rate.  I shall have to give the searching another go and see if that reveals the answer, or just give it a try if not.

Another up-side was that the iPlayer and the other catch-up devices work quite well.  Well, iPlayer crashed the time I tried to give it a go properly, but then it's crashed when I've used it normally too.

A good thing there of course is that iPlayer is available in HD so those programs I can't watch as HD on Freeview I can't watch on the catch-up.  And since I record and watch back 95% of my viewing that should suit me fine.

The last disappointment is the amount of light it puts out.  Now this is a bit of a specific to me one, but I live in a bedsit, which means my TV stuff is in the same room as me.  I also have difficulty sleeping when there are bright sources of light and the vision box really pumps out a lot of light.

Now I'm used to that to some extent and am adept at covering panels with clocks on at night to block the light.  The problem is the vision box has a weird curvy front panel and it's so bright that this didn't really work last night.  I'll have a fiddle over the next few days, but I've a feeling I may end up unplugging it and only plugging it back in when I want to watch some on-demand stuff.

Overall then I'm a bit disappointed - I certainly don't think it's worth £4 a month.  I mean my PVR is way better at doing Freeview and easier to use and the few things the vision box does better are actually really only at their best if you pay 3 times that.