Telstra’s jumping deeper into the home entertainment space with the launch of its new T-Box, which bundles a high-definition set-top box/PVR with unmetered BigPond TV and movie on-demand content.

The Good
To get broadband-delivered content on your television screen, Telstra is packing quite a lot of punch into its new T-Box. It’s an HD-ready digital TV set-top box that gives you access to free-to-air digital channels. With two tuners, its video recording functionality lets you record one channel while watching another, and you can store up to 100 hours of standard definition or 30 hours of high-definition content on its 320GB hard drive.

It has a seven-day electronic program guide and the menu structure looked very easy to use, scrolling through all the standard- and high-definition digital free-to-air television channels, as well as seven additional BigPond TV channels.

In addition to the BigPond TV channels, what makes T-Box more interesting than a stock-standard PVR is access to the BigPond library of on-demand movies. Telstra says that it currently has more than 1300 titles available to hire, and the number should grow to 2000+ by the end of the year. There’s a pretty good mix of genres with distribution agreements in place with Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount, Village Roadshow, Icon, Umbrella and Hopscotch.

And, of course, no self-respecting IPTV offering this year would not include access to YouTube, so naturally it’s included with a big caveat: all BigPond content comes unmetered (ie, you won’t pay for what you download), but YouTube content is metered, which can chew up your data allowances rather quickly.

You can connect the T-Box via either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, but obviously the T-Box’s biggest drawback is that it’s only an option for those on high-speed BigPond Cable Elite or BigPond ADSL2+ Elite plans, which start at AU$69.95 for 12GB and range up to AU$179.95 per month for a 200GB data allowance. BigPond movies will start at AU$3.99 per movie, but most recent titles will likely be AU$6.99. The T-Box itself can be paid for upfront (AU$299) or pro-rated in 24 payments in your plan.

Telstra is aiming the T-Box at those who would rather pay for video-on-demand than be committed to any type of subscription TV contract. The BigPond TV Channels will have particular appeal to sports fans, with full replays of AFL and NRL matches on tap and the on-demand movie selection should rival your local video shop. It’s early days for IPTV generally in Australia, and no doubt a much wider selection of programming and services are in development.

Whether you choose to jump on the IPTV and video-on-demand bandwagon via your TV vendor, game console or ISP, the key is watching what you want without getting smacked with exorbitant data charges. If you stick with the unmetered content available through BigPond and T-Box, this option might be a good way to get started.