Tiscali TV Review

Overall Rating

Excellent VoD content, huge (and I mean HUGE) selection of VoD shows and music videos; extra channels not found on Freeview, like Sky 1,2 & 3, Paramount Comedy 1 & 2 and UKTV Gold; great PVR features on Tiscali+; easy to use system and menus, customisable content....

Slightly sluggish menus; T+ can only record one/watch DSL channel at once, but multiple can record/watch Freeview channels; no interactive TV or subtitles; picture quality sometimes not brilliant, but nothing terrible.

I thought I should come on here for Tiscali's defence. I've found it to be a great system. Having used Sky for a few years, I ended up having to find an alternative due to moving house in an enclosed area where a satellite signal couldn't be received and cable wasn't available.

I read about Tiscali TV and BT Vision, I didn't know much about video on-demand and it didn't sound very appealing to me personally, but Tiscali offered most of the channels I watched on Sky down the phone line, so this sounded good for us.

It wasn't until the system was installed I realised how brilliant VoD is and how much Tisali has to offer. I found more than enough TV shows to watch on-demand, and it's brilliant being able to make a huge playlist of music videos and have them play random, being able to skip past a track you don't want to watch etc, or rewind or fast-forward as if watching a DVD.

The Tiscali+ box also has some well implemented PVR features, the pausing and rewinding works well, I've found myself using these a lot. I believe it can record three Freeview channels received via aerial, or two while watching a third. It's a shame it only can record one programme from the DSL channels, but I understand this is a limitation is due to the phone-lines we have in this country. Hopefully ADSL2+ will sort this out when it becomes widespread.

The picture quality of the VoD and the DSL channels isn't perfect, slightly worse than Sky on the same 40-inch LCD TV, but it's never anywhere near bad enough to detract from viewing.

The menus are easy to navigate, but sometimes feel slightly unresponsive, so I have to slow myself down as the menus can take a bit of time to catch up. I've gotten used to it now.

All in all I'm much happier with the service than I thought I would be. The VoD content, including the Catch-Up services, and the PVR functions means I can watch things when I choose rather than being stuck to the TV schedules. I find the system better to use than Sky's with much more content when you get past the number of actual channels. Recommended to anyone.