BT have announced a deal today that will bring ABC TV programmes to BT
Vision, their TV on demand service, on the 15th September. ‘ABC TV On Demand’
will give viewers access to popular US series from Disney’s TV production
company ABC Studios. This will bring programmes such as Desperate Housewives,
Private Practice and Brothers & Sisters being made available through the
service after they have had their first UK airing on broadcast television.
Customers will also be able to watch past series of hit shows such as Lost,
Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty.
“ABC TV On Demand is Disney’s first launch of an ABC-branded on demand
entertainment service outside of the US. BT Vision customers will be able to
start, pause or rewind their favourite shows whenever they want without having
to fit in with a broadcaster’s schedule or missing an episode. This is just the
latest addition to BT Vision’s array of on-demand channels including Discovery,
National Geographic and MTV.”Marc Watson, (Chief Executive of television and online services) BT
Retail
“The ABC brand stands for innovative, high quality US television production.
Leveraging this to launch an ABC TV On Demand branded service is a logical next
step in our digital distribution strategy. Through partnering with successful
and like-minded digital media platforms, such as BT, we are able to offer
choice to consumers in how and when they enjoy our programming, while
maintaining the highest quality of viewing experience.”Catherine Powell, (SVP/GM, Media Distribution) The Walt Disney Company
EMEA
The service will cost £6.99 a month with individual episodes priced at just
99p.
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An episode at 99p? A season maybe but an episode… good luck with that one.
Actually I think it might be £6.99 a month and that’s it. But if you don’t sub to that its 99p per episode, that would make more sense. But I suppose it depends how many episodes you can see in a month for the £6.99 if that is the way it works. I thought it was £6.99 and then 99p each 🙂
> > hit shows such as Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty.
Oh joy. They’d have to pay ME to watch those 🙁
Recommend a US based VPN then you can watch Hulu and other services.
Also by paying you are supporting biased corporate media.
why anyone would pay for this pants is beyond me….i had bt vision before i moved to vm and it is as slow as a snail that has been prescribed valium..eg:the lag between music videos and the selection time is a joke…
m8 it was the whole layout that got on my breasts..it is so slow to use..eg:watching a music video….before you can select the next one to play you need to either wait or cancel the one playing..then go all the was back to the index,then load then wait…zzzzzzzzzzz
you cant select the next video your going to play until the one thats on is done……so if u are wanting to play a selection of music videos,,,you spend more bloddy time going in and out of menues than you do watching the videos..lol
So for those on the top package (GOLD) we’d still have to pay another £6.99 to get the ABC shows? Which will air after the first UK broadcast? and they wonder why people download stuff??!
yep.! another rip off from BT. They are so desperate to plug the hole in the pension fund now that Ofcocm refused to support the wholesale pricing policy that BT put forward for the same reason.
Dont forget the October price increases..move your line now if you can.
BT Vision is crap, why don’t anyone think out of the box anymore? They are too busy copying everyone else ideas.
“BT Vision is crap”
Of course it is, what else do you expect from the joint child of BT and Microsoft. It’s a Windows CE set top box that MS had been trying to promote for years. I suspect this was a deal made at CEO level rather than the techies picking a suitable platform for the job and delivering it. Microsoft’s promise of end to end DRM may also have had something to do with it.
Or it could just be that all software in consumer electronics is rubbish. My Humax PVR is.
Depends on what you term update. It’s an embedded Win CE system with some custom software on the top hiding the OS. The first gen box has had a number of firmware updates fixing faults. I heard when it first launched you used to see Microsoft symbols n the like – that’s all fixed now.
The 2nd version of the Vision STB is much improved. The processor in it is a lot faster and it’s a much better end user experience.
No idea. To talk about CE being a problem is a red herring. It’s not visible to the end user. It’s probably less of a factor to worry about as most likely scenario is that they defined fixed final image of CE at launch to lock development/improvement down to the Vision client software stack.
As noted earlier – first gen boxes are much improved/stable and gen 2 (black STB) is runs like it’s on steroids.
Not necessarily. Your assumption is that the bugs in CE manifest in regular operation of the STB.
Given that Vision has had an average of 1 major update to the software stack each year it seems unlikely otherwise there would be regular patch jobs.
Just checked – Vision currently runs CE 5.0.1400 which goes along with the idea I have suggested regarding using a stable OS.
With regard to lack of HD content – thats more to do with lack of bandwidth to stream it. It’s well documented that Vision can do 1080p HD with 5.1 surround if you are prepared to download the film ahead of time.
With regards to next gen using a newer version of CE – i don’t think they will. Since Media Room as well as CE require payments to MS, I think they’ll look for something that will not tie them to 1 vendor and not add to the costs of the STB.
Most films list with both SD and HD versions, so not sure about the comments re lack of HD content?
Regarding the next gen box, given BT is part of Project Canvas it would be surprising if it didn’t offer that with the next box upgrade.
HD on BTV is for On Demand content only. Vision only has standard Freeview tuners at present.
Vision uses 1080i and 5.1 for HD content.
Don’t know what the codec is. If you want to watch HD content – you need to download the film to the Vision HD ahead of time. You are only charged when you press play.
It is possible to download HD trailers to test the system – The picture quality is oustanding.
SD content On Demand is also superb.
To be honest – For someone who makes a lot of sweeping statements about Vision you know the square root of hee haw CB….
There was a report on thinkbroadband saying files were ~8gig.
As for baiting New_Londoner it’s a bit pointless and achieves nothing for your own credibility as a contributer to this website.
@CB
You did say that “if an 1hr30min-2hr movie is 2gig or less its not very HD in my book”. Presumably you will be comfortable that the file size used by BT Vision is sufficient then, vs. the compression rates used by Sky, BBC etc?
Pity, given it meets your own stated criteria for an HD film but never mind.
By the way, agree with your comment about paying £12 to get an HD film. In my view, anything delivered electronically has to be competitive with its physical equivalent – either by being cheaper, being more convenient to purchase etc.
Well I guess that’s one area where BT can claim knowledge as a great deal of HD broadcast content for various UK broadcasters is encoded on their kit. I suspect they’re rather better informed on encoding than most….
Actually I think they do both encoding and transcoding, so you’re right to mention that as well.