It's supposed to turn the net into supercharged, interactive TV, but is broadband for real?

Richard Longhurst tunes in

THE rollout of superfast broadband internet access in the UK has been an expensive debacle. But for those who have braved waiting lists, taken time off work to let the engineer in and forked out hundreds of pounds, is it worth it? You can browse the net without tying up your phone line, there's no waiting to log on, and every web page downloads instantly. But broadband was meant to turn the net into something like interactive TV and more. Does it deliver?

Music Top of the Pops would be great if you didn't have to sit through the songs you didn't like (such as Bob the Builder). Fans can put together their own show on MTV's website, which also provides a broadbandorientated UK RealPlayer channel. Pop perves will be keen to tune into the raunchy video for Kylie Minogue's new single, Can't Get You out of My Head, and watch Britney cavorting with a snake live at the MTV Video Awards. MTV delivers some of the sharpest streaming video, but it's still some way off picture-perfect, full-screen footage (and while there is an archive, the number of defunct "links"

stopped me accessing it, albeit quickly).

_ www.mtv.co.uk Games and software For the first time, you can download state-of-the-art PC games: BTopenworld's trial Software to Go service lets you rent programs, with prices from 99p an hour to 7 per week. About 30 games, including recent releases, can be played on the trial service, which also offers creative and educational software such as Geoff Hamilton's 3D Garden Designer. It's not quite instant gratification, though -- a program can take anything from 10 minutes to an hour to be downloaded the first time you use it. Don't expect instant results: to get cult hit Deus Ex on my machine took a week of trial and error - and all for a 10-minute free play.

_ www.btopenworld.co.uk/stg Movies Terrified that their films will be ripped off Napsterstyle, the big movie studios have been slow to embrace the net and broadband. But things are starting to change. Disney has said it will make films (but not its cartoons) available through its Movies.com site and five major studios are planning a video-on-demand service (using Sony Moviefly encryption). But don't hold your breath waiting for big blockbusters online, not until next year at the earliest. Until then, broadband users have Movieflix, where it costs just $3.95 a month to watch more than 2,200 films, consisting of golden oldies, straight-to-video fodder and soft-porn flicks.

The video quality is reasonable, but is nowhere near capable of being shown full screen. Movie buffs should stick to DVD.

_ www.movieflix.com

Shopping TV shopping channel QVC has introduced digital TV viewers to the future of interactive shopping.

The closest that broadband users have to QVCActive is Shopping Channel UK, a new online store that features video presentations for its products. Now you can see the Magik Cloth and Garlic Genius in action before you buy them.

The video only plays in a small window, but it works seamlessly. Before you know it, you'll have a virtual basket full of Mr Sticky Lint Remover and Sweepa Brooms.

_ www.shoppingchanneluk.com News Last week's events proved that we need rolling 24-hour TV news channels such as CNN and the BBC's News 24. It also showed that net news services could not cope in a crisis, with many sites rendered inaccessible by the demand for news. CNN's website, www.cnn.com, is the nearest online equivalent to a rolling news channel, enabling visitors to watch video reports uploaded at irregular intervals. With a normal modem, these can be slow and jerky broadband lets you keep a video news window on screen whatever else you are doing on your PC.

BT says a 500K ADSL connection is fast enough to deliver video of "similar quality to that of video and DVD". Not true - and BT should stop pretending otherwise. Speedy email, super-fast web browsing and the ability to download large files in a short time are the main attractions of broadband, and are likely to remain that way for some time.

_ More information at: www.broadband-help.com; www.adslguide.org.uk; www.blueyonder.co.uk; www.

ntl.co.uk; www.btopenworld.co.uk.

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