Don't get Homechoice with HD Ready TVs

[kwcm]

After numerous telephone discussions with Homechoice including 2 engineer visits, I can confirm that if you care about picture quality, do not get homechoice on a large TV, especially not one which is HD ready.

The problems with picture quality are those mentioned on this forum (ie blocky, slow and essentially looks like you're watching a downloaded video clip from the internet on your laptop). Essentially, it's worse than free-to-air and freeview quality.

Discussions with Homechoice has come down to this: They acknowledge that their service may (ie will) have problems for people with large screens and HD ready resolutions. However, they claim that because I did not mention that I had a HD ready tv at the time of signing up, they didn't have to tell me the picture quality could be bad. They also added that I shouldn't assume that Homechoice was "compatible" (ie get a signal at least EQUAL to free-to-air and freeview signals) with my TV.

All seems a bit dodgy to me. I'd be interested to see what consumer protection laws may be relevant here. I know that for goods, the law is regardless of what's in a contract, goods must be of a merchantable quality. There must be something similar for services.

[neilcoburn]

I had a similar discussion with them, and they hinted that they might do a deal on the contractual period if I returned the box. If you really don't want it, they might concede something.

[sideysid]

I was looking at the homechoice root when moving to my new house.

Looking to save money with an intergrated service as I wanted as low as possible outgoings (plus £70 sign up bonus through Quidco), plus Mpeg-4 compression, this looked like a contender worth investigating.

I went into a Sony Center to have a browse round a box they had on demo linked up to a HD panel. I flicked around and suffice to say I wasn't impressed.

Although its supposed to have Mpeg-4 on some of its channels, I still think the majority are low bit rate Mpeg-2, taking it back to the days of OnDigital.

I decided to save money instead, by getting Telewest broadband (no need for phone rental) and go down the Voip route for home phone.

Then I installed a decent aerial and cable and built a MCE pc for freeview.
Picture is decent to say the least, and better than sky on my brothers PX60.

[druidvideo]

So watching SD on an HD screen is not the best quality. What a shocker

[JethroUK]

Originally Posted by kwcm

I know that for goods, the law is regardless of what's in a contract, goods must be of a merchantable quality. There must be something similar for services.

That's a good point and it equally applies to some of the poorer cable channels - i wonder whether there are any guidelines as to what qualifies as 'a TV service/reception'

[hitchkee]

i got my homechoice connection around july 2006. never knew of this problem but then i had moved over from a small 18" TV to my 42" so it looked good. however, what i found strange was the homechoice claims that they are digital and have freeview etc but i cannot use the red button on my remote to see interactive TV. that is annoying, that was a feature of digital that i wanted to play with once i got digital tv - interactive viewing.

i have tried to look in ofcom regulations on what they define as digital and then take it up with homechoice.