I would be interested to know whether homechoice customers experience heavily pixelated images on certain channels at certain times, and whether this is likely to improve in the future? Some programmes are near-perfect quality, but on many minority channels (e.g. ITV3 or More4) the number of digital artifacts on the screen, especially in action sequences or in background shots, make the programme unwatchable. I know there are many factors that influence the picture quality such as the quality/age of the phoneline and the bandwidth possible for each channel, and I know that a digital picture can never be as detailed as an analogue picture with no interference, but surely they can make the quality better than this? I thought the upgrade to Mpeg4 AVC was supposed to fix the quality- have HC completed the upgrade yet? I am planning to downgrade to the base pack anyway, and I wonder if that will mean that I will have fewer channels sharing the bandwidth, leading to better quality pictures? At the moment the picture quality simply is not good enough for me to recommend the service, though I would like to because I like a lot of the features.

I get very occasional breakup for a second or so. I do notice various artifacts due to MPEG4 encoding, crowd scenes seem to have a low frame rate for instance. Its not unwatchable but a bit wierd. HC have to get HDTV asap...

Switching to the base pack will make no difference, only one channel is transmitted at once and its 1-2mbit/sec.

Be careful about things like using good quality filters and extension leads - these, I find, can cripple HC if not used

Thank you for the info. I know the phone line/ extension being used is a bit old but it has worked fine for ADSL before. I have a Homechoice line now, so will they come round and fit a new line for a fee? I find a lot of the channels to be unwatchable, and live feeds are handled extremely badly: looking at 'Strictly Come Dancing' looks like a fuzzy blend of arms and legs, and prerecorded 'The Bill' on ITV3 also looks like people are moving and leaving bits of themselves behind in the form of pixels. The replay and video on demand stuff is pretty ropey too. I don't see how high-def would help if HC can't even provide adequate standard definition, it would just make it look even worse. I'm starting to feel a bit cheated, especially as my (wireless)internet intermittently cuts when Internet Explorer 'cannot find server'. Would the whole thing be any better connected to the main telephone socket (would mean relocating my TV)? Any HC staff out there got any ideas as well?

*Background info* Phone line was really fuzzy and faint in the week between swapping the line to HC and miraculously recovered when the engineer finally managed to come round to install the box. Maybe they buggered the whole thing up? Oh well, only 10 months to go and then I'll have to find another option (no analogue/freeview reception/cable/sattelite dish is possible)!

I dont have any problem with the picture quality of homechoice. Some channels are better than others but none are unwatchable, especally with the blocking problems you talk about. There are artifacts like what was mentioned by Peter We but not really blocking, infact the picture is less blocky on my homechoice picutre than my freeview one (Mpeg 4 seems to smooth out the picture a little).

Think this maybe a fault, you should contact homechoice.

I don't think it is a fault as such as I have seen other HC TVs looking the same....I think it is more to do with the service itself and possibly the quality of the BT line, which is always going to be a limiting factor. I have a year with HC, so I hope they improve in that time. There aren't any other options for me currently but maybe there will be by then. Right now any TV at all is a bonus and I guess I will just have to put up with the intermittent internet.
Anybody who works for HC don't be scared to comment!

for the first time in absolute ages i took advantage of replay to watch spooks from monday and was impressed with the picture quality which had previously been a major gripe of mine. (had to do that cos was recording vincent which clashed)

>Is having an extension the problem?

As mbear says, your internal wiring can have a massive effect on ADSL (any provider). The BT line is to certain standards up to the wall jack, after that its very easy to wreck it.

I must be one of the lucky ones then I guess.

What you say makes sense and so I assume quality can vary greatly from customer to customer. Is this is a big problem for homechoice?

As I have a Homechoice line now, I might ask whether they can replace my wiring because it is very old anyway. From what Peter said I assume BT takes care of the wiring on the outside walls of the house/block? Does anyone know how much it might cost to get two new sockets and a new extension? And do you think this will have the desired effect of improving picture quality and maybe internet reliability too? Any advice appreciated!

There is no harm in complaining/reporting it until they can fix it.

One thing they may ask you to do is to make sure the Homechoice is in the Master Socket. They will also ask you to confirm you have ADSL filters in all your extensions (or maybe only the ones that have handsets plugged in). You could try unplugging everything bar the Homechoice box and see if that changes anything.

Have you tried doing the RGB Test yet to see if the signal is up to scratch? (Switch HC Box off and on at the switch, after the light stops flashing Red press the Red Key on your Remote followed by Green & then Blue - try searching other threads in this forum for ideal results but the ideal line should be between 8 and 10Mb)

I and at least one other person had a faulty connection going from the master junction to the STB. Replacing it made the difference between an unusable service to 99% perfect.

The master wall socket should also be one with a built in adsl filter, the old 'dongle' type of filter are not as good.

I am using dongle filters as the sockets do not have built in ADSL, but I think these are ok. I rang up HC and they said that my set top box was behaving badly anyway and they are coming round to replace it on Monday. Bit sceptical that this will make any difference, but they said it could help with framing errors. They also said they would monitor my phone line at the same time to see if they can increase the bit rate at which the TV signal is sent, but that there was quite a lot of external noise on the line so this could be counterproductive. When the engineer comes round should I get him to look at the extension boxes really carefully? (I think I have quite an old setup with the master cable exiting the wall to enter one box, then exiting this box to enter a second box, then being split from this box to two separate sockets in two separate rooms where two dongles are plugged in.) What else should I ask him to investigate? Thanks for your help guys.

Which socket is the STB plugged into?

Have you tried swapping the filters around?

What did the RGB test show?

I have explained my cable set up as best I can, basically the splitter sends two wires to two sockets, in two different rooms. Both of these sockets have ADSL filters (which I have tried swapping), both have telephones connected to them, and one of them has the STB connected to it. I have conducted the RGB test but I'm not technically savvy enough to interpret the bars/numbers displayed on the TV. There are a few green bars followed by a larger number of blue bars, and lots of numeric info that I don't understand. Since I rang HC, they seem to be doing something with the bit rate on my line, because the picture quality has improved and is now almost up to freeview standard, but not as good as it should be yet. The internet is still behaving erratically but as the engineer is coming on Monday to provide a new box, I'm hoping this will sort the internet out and hopefully reduce framing errors on the TV to make the picture better. They have asked me to monitor the internet connection and the picture quality for 48 hours after the new box has been fitted, and then report back to them. So fingers crossed! Thanks for the help, and I will tell you how I get on.

Engineer came and fitted a fancy 2 in 1 phone/ADSL socket and made that the master socket before connecting the STB. HC have also put the bit rate on my line up. Net result: no difference whatsoever. Picture is still fuzzy and pixelated- the engineer even told me that all the HC boxes are a load of crap and are overdue an upgrade. Charming!

sounds about right and they seem to have some engineers of about the same stamp

Now they say the bitrate should be put down, not up! Plus the landline is now dead. Thanks Homechoice, great customer service.

The bit rate they change will only be to try and stabilze your line so that you can run the highest possible iNet speeds along with the TV, it won't affect the quality of the picture/the feed you receive.

If you pay your line rental to BT, then you need to speak to them about the dead line, if you pay it to HC, then call them.

My Partner has HC at her flat in north london and has never had a problem neither does her mum over in shoreditch i'm in south london and have had similar problems to joshua as has my brother in west london who told me about HC, i wonder if its to do with certain parts of the city? - just south london or what?, where are you joshua? north or south?

With my problems they swapped the box for another one and fitted one of those phone socket things like joshua describes - have they swapped your box? - it might be worth calling and getting them to do that if you can, that and a drop in the speed of my package has sorted mine out, unlike my experience with ntl telewest engineers (so glad i aint with them anymore) homechoice seem to actually care about getting you running smoothly

I'm in north London so I guess it's pretty random. Yes the box has been changed. I would say that HomeChoice is a pretty mediocre service at the moment, the picture quality and the internet dropouts mean I can't really recommend it, and the VOD/ replay stuff is no longer unique. Yes the staff do seem to care, it's just that they don't know anything and don't seem to talk to each other. The only reason HomeChoice is a good idea for me is that I have no freeview reception, cable or satelite options. To be honest if BT had done the true IPTV thing with BT Vision I would have signed up to them at a jot. As it is I'll stick with HC for the 12 months and then consider my options.

I have been with Homechoice for 18 months .I live in Islington and the picture quality is superb on most channels
The image is darker on FX and Hallmark..but apart from that I am
very happy with the service