Tiscali TV

The Broadband + TV + Phone package is good value for money, but keep your fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong. Calling their customer service is a stressful experience. Your call is usually answered somewhere like the Phillipines, before being put through to TV customer service based in London. Rarely do the call operators transfer the call and pass the information on, meaning you have to go through security each time you get forwarded to someone else and have to tell them again whatever the problem is. On a recent call I ended up at a call centre in Ireland, they knew nothing about why I was calling, even though I'd told two of their operators already. Having to go through security so many times is insecure in itself. My whole office must know my security details now - its a joke.

Finally, they have provided the ability to give feedback on their customer service by putting you through to a telephone questionnaire at the end of the call (as if you didnt want to get off the phone as soon as possible!). Unfortunately, if the call hasn't gone well, the operator who you speak to will just put you on hold again and wait for you to hang up, to prevent you giving any bad feedback.

Staff are generally unhelpful. They don't seem to care how terrible the service they are giving is. Their apologies when things go wrong are hollow. Everything is so much more complicated than it needs to be.

This has to be the worst customer service I've ever experienced from a firm. Altogether its shameful.

I have just cancelled my TalkTalk TV, I have taken this long to do it because it was cheap. The package sounds great but the reality is that it's not reliable - the straw that broke the camels back was the complete disappearance of BBC1 yesterday. Help desk advice - switch it off then switch it back on again (which surprise surprise didn't work).

The box is noisy - almost as load as the computer.

It freezes at least once a day (switch it off and back on again)

You can only record 2 or 3 things at once if they don't all rely on the same source.

It turns it'self off on a whim

It records full programmes sporadically and you are given 'partially recorded' but no reason.

An extremely frustrating piece of kit and under no circumstances would I recommend it. I am switching to Freeview and will buy a recorder box.

The overall TV service is a disappointment. The Tiscali pvr switches itself off when it feels like it and thus fails to record set programmes. It is entirely unreliable. On the rare occasion that it will stay on it is great, but often it just switches itself off during a show. I have suffered it because it is not my sole TV recording device and it is inexpensive when taken alongside the telephone/broadband bundle.

I had a few problems with the box when it was 1st installed but this was due to the light sensor on my TV but they were quick in replacing the box with a different IR sensor inside of it and everything worked fine the HD up scale is rally good 100% better picture quality then Sky+ HD offers for there standard definition channels and the on-demand is amazing on par with Virgin Media. I was a Sky+HD subscriber but when I saw the Tiscali package was over £30 cheaper than Sky I thought I would give it a try as I could only watch 1 channel or record 1 channel on my sky box.

Internet speed is now 7.7mb on a 8mb line where with sky I was getting 2mb on a 8mb line so I am quids in and my internet speed is far faster and an amazing tv service.

Would recommend any one looking to move away form sky to get this service.

The Tiscali+ box is horrendously noisy (mine makes more noise than my computer),if recording via the phone line you can only watch terrestial programming at the same time. I had no cause to contact Tiscali customer services but since Talk Talk have taken over I've had an issue with overcharging and their customer service is abysmal and I'm now looking for another service provider.

Reading many of the reviews above, most complain about customer service, and I agree, Tiscali's customer service in general was awful, although, being able to report issues through their forum is useful, and generally gets a response. Better than using their 5-10ppm phone line.

Now they have been bought out by and rebranded as TalkTalk, I worry that customer service may drop further, as TalkTalk have never ranked particularly high.

However, the Tiscali TV package is fantastic, being able to watch programmes from the BBC on demand, or Warner series when you want to is great, and has to be the future. I was watching series 8 of Smallville this weekend.

I just hope TalkTalk now invest in the product and get ITV and five on board with on demand.

Hopefully if Ofcom rule that Sky charge too much for their wholesale channels they will come down in price too.

TalkTalk TV now needs to keep ahead of the game, with BBC iPlayer soon available on Freesat, possibly later on Freeview, and ITV, 4OD, and demand five possibly to follow, TTTV have to improve their product further to retain customers.

I also hope their boxes can be made compatible with Freeview HD content.

DO NOT USE TISCALI FOR TV!!! installation..fine no problem but the actual function of tiscali+ is terrible.I was told it would record 3 programes at once but was not told that the chanels recieved through the phone line could not be recorded whilst watching another through the phone line, i was recieving all chanels through the line which meant i could only record one programe but had to watch it aswell???? when i rang up on the day of installation to cancel i was told my 14 day cooing off period ended 5 days prior to my installation date????? and after being on the phone to the customer service for 30 mins i was cut off by an employee mid sentence, his name was azur by the way.Do yourself a favour if your reading this and thinking of going to tiscali tv..DO NOT DO IT. Many words come to mind when i think of tiscali but the only one acceptable for public eyes is RUBBISH.I am now back with sky who i should never have left.

CUSTOMER SERVICE ARE USELESS, ALWAYS HANDING OFF THE QUERY, NO-ONE TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. I JUST WANT THEM TO STOP CHARGING ME FOR SOMETHING I NO LONGER HAVE!

Great VoD Channels & Awesome Choice of Movies

Awesome Internet Speeds (5x my previous provider)

No Hidden 'Max Bandwidth' so UNLIMITED means UNLIMITED (and thank god for that because I assume the TV alone racks up a good 50-100GB/Month!

Phone service 2nd to none.

Would recommend Tiscali to anyone.

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.