DS Forums

 
 

Homechoice Digital Television


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 01-07-2004, 09:38
M3G4
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Westerham, Kent
Posts: 641
Homechoice seems very promising for what you get - I especially like the idea of the ability to JUST subscribe to broadband and the music package. I'd have no hesitation in cancelling NTL and taking on HC if it was in our area.

W/S don't bother me; all the TV's in the house are 4:3
M3G4 is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 01-07-2004, 12:00
mithy73
 
Posts: n/a
Originally Posted by Brush Master
Is the calculation that simple?
Who cares, it's a rough guesstimate, and it does for the purposes for which it was calculated.
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2004, 12:15
Brush Master
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: London, U.K.
Posts: 1,560
Originally Posted by mithy73
Who cares, it's a rough guesstimate, and it does for the purposes for which it was calculated.
That's a bit like saying "my car is big enough" even though you don't know what you're going to transport. You can only be satisfied with your estimate if you assume the overhead is negliable. My point exactly: neither your nor I know what the packet overhead to payload ratio is, not even as a ballpark figure.

Even though your assumption might well be correct, I am still curious if anybody can provide guideance regarding the overhead ratio.
Brush Master is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2004, 13:32
Craig_E
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Birmingham; XboxLiveTag=in5ane
Posts: 3,697
Originally Posted by Brush Master
That's a bit like saying "my car is big enough" even though you don't know what you're going to transport.
No it's not!

Anyway, Homechoice looks excellent, and pretty good value for money, considering the combined cost of some internet and tv packages around today.

I just wish it was available outside London!
Craig_E is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2004, 14:17
Denuvo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tooting, London
Posts: 103
The limit for the 1Mbps service is 1GB per day.

I can download a gigabyte in a day without even trying hard. A single ISO CD image (e.g., a new Linux release) can top 700MB. On a 1Mbps link, you can download that 700MB in under two hours. And a Linux release typically fills several CDs.

A single high-quality (128Kbps) audio stream will exhaust your 1GB in a bit over 18 hours. Want to listen to Virgin all day? Better buy a radio.

Or look at it this way: 1GB is 8Gb, which works out to 97Kbps. You're buying one megabit per second, but you're only allowed to use some 9.5% of that. Some deal.

The limit for the 2Mbps service is 45GB a month, meaning you get 7% of what you pay for. Even better.
Denuvo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-2004, 14:23
Brush Master
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: London, U.K.
Posts: 1,560
Originally Posted by Denuvo
... You're buying one megabit per second, but you're only allowed to use some 9.5% of that. Some deal.

The limit for the 2Mbps service is 45GB a month, meaning you get 7% of what you pay for. Even better.
Interesting thought.
Brush Master is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-07-2004, 08:42
jaggers
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: London
Posts: 16
The currently problem with HC is that they are madly trying to expand their customer base. They are also toying with the service every step of the way.

For example you can now get 512KB service for £27.50 a month (13.75 for first 3 months). The offer on the 1Mb service is £17.50/month! Great for new customers but I would rather see them offer discounts to existing customers too

Broadcast channels are being piped down to customers is the format HC receive them. So Channel 5 progs are often in widescreen format! There is a setting on the new HC box for widescreen. No one in customer service has been able to shed light on this yet. The downside are the movies which are all in 4:3 it seems although some can be zoomed in if it is cinemascope format (i.e. bands top & bottom). Bit mix & match.

Can anyone shed more light on this?
jaggers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-07-2004, 17:57
GaryC
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Westcountry/London
Posts: 153
Originally Posted by Denuvo
The limit for the 1Mbps service is 1GB per day.....

A single high-quality (128Kbps) audio stream will exhaust your 1GB in a bit over 18 hours. Want to listen to Virgin all day? Better buy a radio.
Your point might hold up, if you tell me exactly WHERE do you get a 128k Virgin Stream!!

I've yet to find a uk broadcast station above 64k..
GaryC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-07-2004, 23:06
vinnielo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: South East England
Posts: 5,714
www.radiofeeds.co.uk will get you a few 128k streams.
vinnielo is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 05-07-2004, 09:34
Denuvo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tooting, London
Posts: 103
Some further intelligence:

I've got 16:9 now but it's not perfect. The picture seems to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 on a per-channel (not per-programme) basis. For example, HomeChoice always gives me ITV in 16:9 (with visible stretching) even when ITV are running a programme that should be 4:3 (confirmed by checking analogue and digital terrestrial broadcasts). I can get around this by manually switching my television to 4:3 mode, but it's an ongoing annoyance.

I'm less than delighted with the picture quality. It's tolerable, but noticeably inferior to digital terrestrial. This should improve (possibly dramatically) when they make thier mooted switch to MPEG-4, reportedly later this year.

"What the f* are you doing," inquires our colleague Brush Master, "if 1GB/day (or 45GB/month) are a significant complaint?" Here's an example: I signed up for Napster over the weekend and had downloaded 2GB of (entirely legal) music before I even realised it. "Get a life", you say? "Bite me," I reply. For a service that supposedly represents the new era of digital convergence, 1GB per day is a joke.
Denuvo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-07-2004, 09:47
Brush Master
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: London, U.K.
Posts: 1,560
You must have one hell of a connection that enables you downloading 2GB before you even realized it. We're all jealous.

But seriously - we can moan about traffic limitations as much as we like; I believe we need to live with it. I expect all signifficant providers to introduce usage limitations unless you pay through the nose. It's just not manageable otherwise.
Brush Master is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-07-2004, 12:27
Denuvo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tooting, London
Posts: 103
I have the HomeChoice 2Mbps service. I downloaded that amount of music over the course of an evening.

The universal use of bandwidth caps is far from inevitable. As some major players introduce them (hello, BT) other ten-ton gorillas build their marketing around the lack of them (I never thought I'd say this, but kudos, AOL). Saying "it's just not manageable" without limits is nonsense. If the largest ISP in existence (AOL) can pull it off, I'd hardly say it's unmanageable.

At these levels, bandwidth is flat rate. ISPs do not pay per gigabyte transferred; they pay by the megabit or gigabit per second. If an ISP have, say, a 1Gbps connection with a peer, they will pay the same whether they use 5% or 95% of it.

BT say that 3-5% of their broadband customers are the sort of "bandwidth hogs" targeted by their new limits. It's a safe bet that the overall average bandwidth use is far below their cap levels (15GB/month for 512Kbps users). The point of these limits is not to save money today; it's to prevent the ISPs from having to upgrade their outbound connections to something larger and more expensive. It's a misguided attempt to postpone the inevitable.

Bandwidth use will rise, and it will rise dramatically. Today we're starting to see the launch in the UK of commercial music services like Napster and Rhapsody based on "all you can eat" flat rate subscription models. I pity he who subscribes to Napster and tries to listen to much 128Kbps streaming music with a 5GB per month limit. (That's 91 hours of music per month, if you're curious. I don't know about you, but 3 hours of music per day is not a lot for me.) Tomorrow or the day after we'll see movie download services like Movielink. We're entering an era of copious, cheap digital content streaming down your broadband connection, and miserly download caps simply aren't going to cut it. ISPs will either have to upgrade their connectivity to meet the demand or create a lot of pissed-off customers looking to jump ship to AOL as soon as their contracts expire.

Incidentally: HomeChoice's bandwidth cap for their newly-announced 512Kbps service is a wonderfully ludicrous 5GB per month - that's three times stingier even than the Kings of Stingy, BT! If that sort of bandwidth package were being sold professionally it wouldn't be called 512Kbps. It would be called 16KBps, bursting to 512Kbps.
Denuvo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-07-2004, 12:38
Inkblot
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,303
Originally Posted by Denuvo
That's 91 hours of music per month, if you're curious. I don't know about you, but 3 hours of music per day is not a lot for me.
Actually, most people probably don't spend three hours per day listening to their computer. Music, yes; radio, yes; TV, yes: iPod, yes; computer, doubt it.
Inkblot is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 14:29
gerglish
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 5
To summarise the debate for the non-technical user, am I right in saying the following?:

- the picture quality is fine compared to analogue;

- the bandwidth limits are OK for watching a couple of hours TV and/or downloading a movie per night;

- the limits would also allow a few hours PC-usage per day, providing that you don't download programs, streaming video or high-resolution pictures;

- the new prices (£27.50 / £35 per month for 0.5 / 1Gb) are attractive at present, but 12 months is a long time

- no-one has noticed phone usage problems;

- subscribers are generally satisfied.

Final question: if you don't use the PC and TV/video at the same time, is the 0.5 Gb service adequate?

Many thanks
gerglish is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 14:33
Inkblot
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,303
The bandwidth limit only applies to broadband internet, doesn't it? I'm assuming you can watch as much TV as you like, and only have to pay extra for films.

One thing I'm still not sure about is the extent of the free (i.e. included in the subscription) TV on demand. The web site says there are programmes from BBC One and Channel 4. So which programmes are available?
Inkblot is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 14:38
Brush Master
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: London, U.K.
Posts: 1,560
I believe the bandwidth limitations are far less severe as you describe. 1GB/day lets you download a lot of software (approximately 1 CD full of stuff), and the TV/VoD service does not add to the bandwidth limitation.

For the adverage standard user not intending to download a ripped DVD per day or sucking all of Napster within 24 hours, the 512kbps service is probably more than sufficient.

[Edit: Oops - 512kbps is 5GB/month. Not good enough. 1MB service is 1 GB/day, which is good enough for most. I just confused the two... ]

Last edited by Brush Master : 06-07-2004 at 15:11.
Brush Master is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 14:38
gerglish
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 5
I think the TVOD prgrammes are basically the Top 20 you'd expect. There's a list somewhere on that second-rate site! [Those quoted on-site are the previous 7 days' EastEnders, Derren Brown, Holby City, Hollyoaks, and Casualty. One subscriber has quoted others elsewhere - basically predictable.]


Does the 5GB monthly cap also apply to internet only? Or to total traffic across the line i.e. including VOD, which is included in the basic price? [Sorry - silly question: of course it applies to internet only.]

Many thanks for the assistance, guys. I'll post further if I encounter serious problems.

Last edited by gerglish : 06-07-2004 at 14:52. Reason: Amendment
gerglish is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 14:52
Blue100
Banned User
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: London
Posts: 228
The service looks crap.And it is even more restricted than cable operators like ntl and telewest.The whole of SE is cold Turkey .Stick with Sky mate.More choice.
Blue100 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 15:02
Denuvo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tooting, London
Posts: 103
- I'd say the picture quality is OK compared to analogue, yes. It's definitely not as good as DVB-T.

- The bandwidth limits won't be a problem for most people right now. But I'd think twice before signing up for the 512Kbps service, as 5GB/month is very low compared to other ISPs.

- 12 months is, as you say, a long time - but HomeChoice does represent an excellent value if you take into account the combination of broadband plus digital television.

- HomeChoice uses standard ADSL, just like that from any other ISP. It will not cause problems with ordinary voice phone usage.

- The bandwidth limits do indeed only affect broadband service, not television.

- The video-on-demand library is not very deep. "Top 20" is a fair description of the BBC and Channel 4 replay services. If you're really interested, I can make a list of the replay programmes at home tonight. The movie selection is better.

- I would agree that I am "generally satisfied" but not thrilled with the service. Thrilled would require picture quality matching what I get from Freeview, correct switching betwen 16:9 and 4:3, and of course the abolition of those godforsaken bandwidth limits.
Denuvo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2004, 15:17
Inkblot
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,303
Originally Posted by Denuvo
- The video-on-demand library is not very deep. "Top 20" is a fair description of the BBC and Channel 4 replay services. If you're really interested, I can make a list of the replay programmes at home tonight.
That would be great if you have time. Or is there a proper list on the web site? The bit I've seen is very vague.
Inkblot is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-07-2004, 09:15
Denuvo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tooting, London
Posts: 103
Here are the current contents of the "replay" services. These are the programmes that HomeChoice keep available on-demand for one week after they're originally aired. This is not the regular video-on-demand library, which consists of older material and is rather larger.

BBC One: Silent Witness (2 episodes), Top of the Pops, Holby City, EastEnders (4)

BBC Two: Wimbledon highlights (5)

Channel Four: Bo Selecta, Derren Brown, No Going Back, Hollyoaks (7)
Denuvo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-07-2004, 09:58
Inkblot
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,303
Thanks for the info. Not exactly a big selection - I had hoped it would mean the end of fiddling about with my useless old video recorder, but it looks like buying a new VCR would be a better plan.
Inkblot is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-07-2004, 10:45
Zapomatic
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: London SE17
Posts: 681
I've recently had HomeChoice installed and so far am impressed. Picture quality seems to vary between channels. The main terrestrial channels, the music channels and all VOD services have a picture quality roughly equal to Freeview, but the quality on some other channels, especially UKTV Gold, leaves a little to be desired. Still acceptable though.

The STB is tiny (about the same size as a VHS case) and feels very nice. It's also very responsive and the interface good. Certainly better than any cable or Sky box at the moment. Nice metal remote with plastic (rather than rubber) buttons too, though I can't get it to work my Thomson TV.

The VOD library is pleasingly large, with a wide varieety of programming which I am told is updated monthly. And I've found that despite the inclusion of MTV and VH1 etc, I haven't watched them. Why would I when the V:Mx service is ad (and screen clutter/DOG free!) and I can skip songs that I don't like?

Exploring all corners of the service seems to keep revealing yet more stuff, for example Disney Treasures has a selection of free films.

The internet service seems very speedy too. Initially I had the well known DHCP lease time issue with my wireless router, but that seems to have sorted itself out now. Upload times are good and the webspace quick.

I've also been impressed so far with the quality of customer service, always getting straight through to someone on the 0845 number. Hopefully this will continue rather than due to them having a relatively small number of customers at the moment. The installer was also very professional, certainly more so than the Sky and ntl ones I have experienced. Surprisingly included in the box with the STB was a 2-way mains plug adaptor! So now I have yet another one of those, and yet another ethernet cable. The scart lead supplies seems to be thick and good quality. Also a nice touch is that the user guide book and installation CD are presented in a HomeChoice tin. With thouches like this I wonder if this company is burning money too fast?

So far I'm very pleased with the service, not least because I can only get analogue cable and no Sky. My wish list:

- A bigger range of UK comedy, and more series available at once (for example at the moment of Red Dwarf only one series is available)

- Surprising omissions of artists and songs from V:Mx fixed

- Better picture and sound quality on certain channels (to be fixed later this year with MPEG4)

- More information about forthcoming on-demand programmes (currently only provided for the kids programmes on Scamp)
Zapomatic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-07-2004, 11:11
red_g00ner
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 790
"The internet service seems very speedy too. Initially I had the well known DHCP lease time issue with my wireless router, but that seems to have sorted itself out now. Upload times are good and the webspace quick."

Could you let me know what this was? I am having HC install this morning and have a Linksys Wireless router
red_g00ner is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-07-2004, 12:17
Zapomatic
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: London SE17
Posts: 681
Originally Posted by red_g00ner
"The internet service seems very speedy too. Initially I had the well known DHCP lease time issue with my wireless router, but that seems to have sorted itself out now. Upload times are good and the webspace quick."

Could you let me know what this was? I am having HC install this morning and have a Linksys Wireless router
Reading adslguide.org.uk suggests that the DHCP lease time HomeChoice uses is very short, maybe 1-5 minutes. This means that a connection not doing anything much will lose its IP and get another one assigned. Computers connected directly to the box seem to cope OK, but some routers get confused and revert to an internal IP, which means your connection gets interrupted. I'm using a Linksys too, and setting the DHCP lease time on it to something under 5 seems to fix it. I also updated to the latest firmware.
Zapomatic is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply



Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 23:32.