Product Reviews

While BT's IPTV service isn't new, the company has now introduced a self-install option, which means you don't have to pay £60 and wait in for an engineer to do it for you.

To qualify for a free BT Vision V-box you need to sign up for BT Total Broadband and your line must support a speed of at least 2Mbit/s. Prices vary depending on the phone and internet packages you choose, but it can be as little as £8.95 including VAT for the first six months, reverting to £18 including VAT for the remaining 12 months of the contract. The only 'hidden' cost is a £30 connection fee.

Installation is more complex than a normal hard disk recorder, since you need to connect the V-box to your BT Home Hub (or other ADSL router). BT supplies a pair of 200Mbit/s powerline network adaptors for this, as well as SCART and RF cables to connect the V-box to your TV. Fortunately, the manuals are well written and easy to follow.

The first time you turn the unit on, it takes a few minutes to scan for channels. Once this is finished, you can watch Freeview programmes and on-demand shows. Since there are two tuners, you can record two shows at once while watching a previously recorded one.

The V-box uses the WinCE operating system and Microsoft's IPTV software, which looks roughly the same as the TV portion of Media Center. This means it's the best-looking and easiest-to-use interface of any PVR we've seen. The EPG has information for the following 14 days, but this comes over your internet connection so is sometimes a little slow to appear.

There's no contract, but you'll have to choose whether to pay for content as you watch or on a monthly basis. If you pay monthly, you'll need to choose which viewing packs to buy (at £6 each). However, we'd recommend the Value Pack for £14 per month. This lacks Setanta Sports, which costs £10 per month, but includes TV Replay, which lets you catch up with selected Channel 4 and BBC shows you've missed over the previous seven days. BBC shows are free, though, and can be accessed without buying a pack. You can find the full list of on-demand shows at www.btvision.bt.com.

Before you reach for your credit card and sign up for BT Vision, you should be aware of several major flaws that prevent us recommending it fully. Like the Virgin V-Box, there's no standby mode. This means that pressing the remote's power button simply cuts the output to the SCART, HDMI and S-video interfaces and turns the front LED orange, but the internals - including the hard disk and fan - remain running as normal. You could turn it off at the mains when you're not watching, but this disables the RF passthrough, so your TV wouldn't receive a signal.

What's more, the box will power up again only if it can find a live internet connection. That means that, should your broadband connection go down when the V-box is off, you won't even be able to watch or record live TV.

Another gripe is that there's no support for surround sound in on-demand movies or television shows. Finally, the box doesn't upscale standard definition shows when using the HDMI output - you just see a high-definition menu system.

Fortunately, BT is already working on a new V-box, which should be launched next year. This should address most of these issues and - we're told - will add exciting new features such as the ability to control the menus simply by making hand gestures. For the moment, however, we'll have to settle for making rude gestures at the V-box.