Kingston Interactive Television KIT Review

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2.7 stars
Average rating for this product is: 2.7 out of 5

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Hullperson.'s Review of Kingston Interactive Television KIT

19th Sep 2001

Overall Rating

1.5 stars
  • Value for money
    2.5 stars
Good Points

Not throwing money at evil Murdoch/ NewsCorp. Can get most major satellite channels
Not available outside Kingston-upon-Hull, UK


Bad Points

Poor quality set top box.
Cannot share connection with PC.
Limited range of shops.
Video on Demand STILL not working.
Still no E4. Channel 5 reception better than terrestrial.


General Comments

This is one of the first areas to have ADSL service installed- this is TV, internet etc. down the telephone line.

First- the box takes a lot of time to start up, and if you ever turn it off with the remote, you can't turn it back on without resetting it. Menus appear very slowly considering the bandwidth available.

I can only really compare the TV service with conventional terrestrial TV.
TV picture quality is absolutely abysmal- blurred, flickering and washed-out colours, compression artefacts such as pixellation. Widescreen signalling is not properly implemented- BBC programs broadcast in widescreen do not look right. Sound is a lot worse compared to terrestrial analog. The whole TV service smacks of using a very poor quality set-top box. It seems to hang/crash from time to time. I often turn over to the channel to find a black screen. The box is so flimsy, it feels like it it is made of paper. They have been promising Video on demand for months now, it still hasn't turned up.

It's good to see smaller, innovative companies like KIT/Kingston Communications trying to push things on, but they are badly letting themselves down with a poor product. I would happily drop-kick the box into the River Humber. When I get to the end of the contract, I will definitely ditch this.

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Members' Comments onHullperson.'s Review

  • Ratbert. on 20th Nov 2001

    The review is 100% correct and to date no improvements have occured. Just get Sky avoid this like the plague

  • inhull. on 30th Apr 2003

    It's a pity the idiot who wrote the review above didn't understand technology or that innovative technology such as this takes time to develop and stabilise, yes it was pushed out quickly but all companies need to test on a wider platform to see the true effect. Had he stayed with the service he would have witnessed a marked improvement and yet still ongoing improvements all of the time. Sad Person probably signed up to Sky or FreeView and didn't realise the £60 charges per fault if you get an engineer!