BT Vision now especially for XBox weenies.

The BBC writes: BT is teaming up with Microsoft to offer its television service via the software giant’s Xbox 360 console. Sales of BT Vision have been somewhat sluggish according to critics, with BT signing up around 100,000 subscribers since launching in November 2006. The fact that it cannot offer the Freeview content or DVR … Continue reading “BT Vision now especially for XBox weenies.”

The BBC writes:

BT is teaming up with Microsoft to offer its television service via the software giant’s Xbox 360 console.

Sales of BT Vision have been somewhat sluggish according to critics, with BT signing up around 100,000 subscribers since launching in November 2006.

The fact that it cannot offer the Freeview content or DVR (digital video recorder) functionality of the dedicated BT Vision set-top box – known as a V-box – may also prove a barrier.

“The reason for streaming only on the Xbox is because currently the console does not have the capability for live TV or enough hard drive for practical downloading of content,” explained a BT spokesman.

Sound extremely compelling. Not.

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0 thoughts on “BT Vision now especially for XBox weenies.”

  1. Here are some of my observations as to why BT Vision may have poor sales:

    * The advertising and communication is a mess. It took me a considerable period of research to work out what the hell it actually was.

    * The range of on-demand programming they have is weak, and the monthly “packages” poorly explained on their website. Again, poor communication. There is poor co-ordination on the billing side between BT Vision and any other BT service.

    * BT’s broadband network is so poor, that many households – including brand new housing – don’t get a fast enough connection to support it. When I was trying to sign up for it, 50% of the time BT told me I couldn’t as my line speed was too slow. Eventually it limped past the speed limit and I could sign up.

    This is all bit of a shame, as the BT Vision box itself is pretty good. Close to TiVo in terms of ease of use, IMHO. Plus it supports HD, although you would never know this, or be able to tell if the online content supports HD, because – guess what – they never mention it.

    So with the XBox announcement, it looks like BT just want a way to push their on-demand content into homes any way they can, and signing up with XBox Live is certainly one way to do it. There is already a link with MS, as the Vision box is based on Windows CE as far as I can tell (that information IS definitely well hidden, and probably with good reason 🙂

    I think they’d be better spending the money improving the NI broadband infrastructure and finding a better way to explain what the BT Vision service actually consists of.

  2. I think that the market may not be really ready for TV over IP frankly especially with the limitations outlined above.

    The delivery of BT Vision would also cause horrendous latency on your broadband, limiting the effectiveness of VoIP and other internet activities.

  3. It’s true that I wouldn’t want to play any games whilst watching a VOD program.
    Initially I though that the BT Vision would cache the programs on its internal hard drive – it doesn’t.

    It certainly seems to be a “poor man’s Cable”. In Seattle, I had super-fast Cable Broadband AND buckets of channels and VOD stuff. It was faster and cheaper.

    Still, I’m still kind of surprised BT is selling this, aren’t you? It seems a little adventurous for what was one the GPO. And when it works, it’s good. We watched several new movies over the holidays, without having to venture out of the house to the depleted video rental store. And the internet phone made calls to relatives overseas cheaper than ever.

  4. I think that the problem is that BT don’t know how to sell it.

    Rather than selling this – they should be providing a VIDEOLINK version of BitTorrent for their customers. You enter in a code, heck it would be the VideoLink code from the Radio times, and it immediately starts to cache your programme on the hard disk. And asks if you want to make this a series link.

    The broadband also needs to be quick enough to watch it in real time so that if you fancy watching something that has just started you don’t need to wait for half the program to be over by the time it’s cached the start.

    Portability of the video is also an issue. I want it to download the TV series that I watch. And also make sure it has the last two weeks of Corrie, Easties and America’s Next Top Model. And Big Brother. Because she watches TV a lot more than me. And these items are going to be so popular that a BitTorrent-inspired method would mean minimum impact to their backhaul.

    And once it has downloaded all of that – I want to transfer some of it to my iPhone. Or her iPhone. Or stream from my set top box to my iPhone over Wifi. Or across the net to wherever I am.

    I’ll just have to cope with Sky+ and a Slingbox. Hopefully Sling will come out with an iPhone client soon enough.

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