Ok, I just want to clear up a few things here, to make sure I understand it right.
I have 4 TV's in my house. At many times, all 4 TV's are on, watching HD content. With Bell Fibe, this wouldn't be possible right?
On top of this, I frequently have my PVR recording 2 HD programs during prime time, plus at least two other TV's watching live HD content, sometimes, 3 TV's.
So, if I understand Fibe tv right, you can only have 4 TV's on at once, watching or recording HD TV. So if your PVR is recording two HD programs, that leaves only two TV's that can watch an HD stream.
and to confirm, its not that you can watch 3 hd streams, and record an additional 3. Even though Bell website says supports up to 6, that really means 6 boxes, not 6 TV's all turned on at once.
You can watch 6 TVs at once if you want, but you limited to 4 live channels (3 HD and 1 SD). The other TVs can watch previously recorded programs from the whole home PVR.
The way I use Mediaroom is to record all the programs that interest me and watch them at my convenience (and skip the commercials). I almost never watch live TV. With repeats on specialty channels and time shifting, it's pretty easy to schedule recordings for off-peak times.
I pretty much do the same thing . . . I have the time shifting and do most of my recording on the west stations and leave live TV open for hockey and stuff like that. I have 3 kids and my father also lives in the basement and we manage.
That's how I operate, but I have a younger family member who is always watching sports, and my in-laws who watch tv as well. Both are HD feeds, so that leaves me with one feed to record with right? That doesn't even have my wife watching her HD food channels etc in the bedroom.
This may sound silly, but this is exactly why two or more PVR's should be allowed. I can't believe I would be the only person in such a situation.
I am glad some of you manage, but, I am not going to spend my time worrying about conflicting things happening, and most certainly trying to explain it to my in-laws, who's grasp of English I would say is subpar, and their tech understanding, is even worse.
It's not silly at all . . . in fact, for me, this is the biggest stumbling block Fibe TV has. However, the rest of the Fibe TV experience has been great.
I am assuming that Bell will expand the number of streams now that they have increased the internet speeds. If I am not mistaken, mediaroom and our equipment can handle 7 HD streams.
This is an area cable has an advantage over Fibe. Technically it might be possible to make use of more than one PVR but that would create all sorts of other problems.
The simple but expensive option is to have two accounts (the second on a dry loop line), two PVR's (and associated STB's), without any interconnection between the two PVR's. You might be able to work out a special package deal with customer service but it will still likely be more expensive than a similar cable configuration.
I'm not sure that I understand exactly what the problem is here. As I understand it, Fibe TV allows you to hook up to six TVs to one installation; then you can watch three HD and one SD streams live, and also watch other pre-recorded programs - all simultaneously. I'm sure that this capability meets the requirements of the vast majority of viewers.
If one has a requirement to view more than above, how much is it going to cost to rent/buy the PVRs from another provider - like Rodgers ?
You can hookup six STBs simultaneously on Fibe, but only 4 live streams are coming into the home. If you had six STBs with Rogers you would have a total of 7 live "streams" assuming one of the STBs is a PVR. For large families who have different viewing patterns during primetime, the Fibe limitation could be problematic. But for smaller families and single people, its not a big deal.
It really depends on how much bandwidth Bell allocates to it's HD and SD streams. They use H.264 multicasts, with which you can get excellent quality HD PQ with 4Mbps per stream.
thenewdc I think his question is, while using 4 streams with your Fibe boxes, can you still watch shows via the Bell Fibe app . . . I believe the answer to this question is yes since the app uses your internet bandwidth.
Edit: I just noticed bev fan already answered.
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