@circuitbender
BT Vision preceded, and was different from, the YouView DTR-T1000. Though there might have been a slight overlap, with both available, at first.
The T1000 did not have a good record for reliability - the capacitors would fail - though generally when they failed, that was it, unless you were handy with a soldering iron, so I don’t recall many mentions of a lock-up syndrome. Though no doubt there were some.
The T1000 was followed by the rather faster T2xxx and still faster T4000 boxes, and now by the Pro boxes, that can be run over Ethernet or WiFi, according to preference. The T1000 was kept up to date until 2016, but was then allowed to fall by the wayside in terms of updates, due to its hardware limitations.
But YouView and BT have only just finally pulled the plug on T1000s at the end of February, cutting them off from the internet. Though the ones that have survived this long will still operate to watch and record live TV even now, albeit complaining about their lack of internet connectivity at every turn.
My T1000 has survived all this time, 11 years plus, though it is my second, the first one having succumbed to BFIS (a sort of COVID for YouView boxes) about three weeks after the product launch.
Nowadays, you have the choice with EETV of the Pro box, a recording YouView box, or the EETV box, a jiggered Apple TV box that can’t record. Both offer Now, and other sports offerings, as linear channels in the EPG; this is the EETV USP.
The need for a recording capability is not what it was in 2012, though Now/Sky’s provision of Sports catchup is so patchy that I would want to record it from live, which only the Pro box can do.
Both boxes can now give you channels over IP, which is a consideration for those in Freeview Lite areas, or without a terrestrial TV aerial at all.
Other than that, you need to make a careful comparison between the offerings based around each box , and the above-mentioned option of buying Now direct from Now. This will produce useful cost savings, since if you start the cancellation of a service direct from Now, you will very likely get an automated retention offer; so you can actually get Now significantly below the sticker price.
It’s not so seamless doing it for yourself though; be prepared to forego the warm bath of EE support if you go that route 😛
But what does EETV actually cost? If like me, you don’t want to be spoon-fed various restricted takes on this, the item-by-item prices are available in this useful document, at pages 112-117:-
https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt/storefront/pdfs/BT_PhoneTariff_Residential.pdf
*** Longtime YouView box owner, BT Broadband customer, but never a BT TV subscriber ***
