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Bell TV 9241 HD PVR discussion thread

1M views 3K replies 596 participants last post by  dshag 
#1 ·
This discussion thread is for owners to discuss the new ExpressVu 9241 HD Receiver when it becomes available.

Any posts discussing when it will be available or from NON-owners will be deleted and the poster will receive an infraction.

Once again, this thread is for OWNERS only.

For non-owners who would like to learn more and discuss the new ExpressVu 6131 or 9241 receivers you can discuss it here.
 
#66 ·
Hello, first time post. I received my 9241 Wednesday after following through on the model 6000 replacement program. The installation went fine and everything appears to be working fine so far but I must say I am very disapointed in the SD picture quality of this receiver. The quality isn't close to that of my 6000, it is extremely soft and borders on blurry. I have tried watching SD contenet on all 3 of the cables I am using, component, S-Video and composite. These are the same cables I used with my 6000 and are connected to my system in the same way as my 6000 was.

Have others noticed this? I called Bell and explained my situation, they said what I am seeing is not a fault in the receiver but how the current receivers deal with SD signals and there is nothing that can be done. I am just taken aback that a 7 year old receiver performs head and shoulders above that of the current generation receivers on SD content. The HD channels look practically identical to the 6000 when displaying HD content.

I asked if there was a way to keep my 6000 so I could use it for SD watching (which still is 75% of my viewing) since I purchased it when they first came out from a retail store and have never rented it but they stated it would not be able to receive any signals after the HD switch starting in April. I was under the impression the 6000 would still be able to get SD channels. One option would be to get the current SD receiver but it costs $100 or $3/month but since I have SW21 switches that makes it difficult to feed another line. If I were to split the line wouldn't that weaken the signal to both my 9241 and another receiver? Honestly the fact I have to look into such measures to receive the same quality service I have had for 7 years is ridiculous.

Any suggestions? I know leaving Bell is high on my mind right now.

Thanks,

Rod
 
#69 ·
Double-check that you've set the 6000 to output at the same 720p/1080i setting that the 6000 was using. It could be that it's using a different res and your TV is storing per-res settings (my projector works that way). I can't say I noticed any difference in brightness when I went from the 6000 to the 6141 on 3 different displays.
 
#70 · (Edited)
Both the 6000 and the 9241 were/are set to 720p. The 9241 is set to 16:9 which the 6000 did not have (I don't think). It had 2 4:3 options. I tried both the 4:3 options on the 9241 but that didn't make a difference. The brightness drop on the SD channels (and HD for that matter) when watching using S-Video or composite is not as bad, it's the component that is really dark. I will eventually try HDMI, perhaps that will be normal.

My tv, Pioneer Elite PRO-150 does not have a setting like you describe.
 
#75 ·
I called Bell again last night to inquire about the darker picture as it is really annoying me and I was surprised to get the same answer as the issue with the SD quality. There is nothing wrong with the receiver, the darker picture is indeed normal with these receivers and like the poor SD picture quality there is nothing that can be done about it. They offered $25 off the price of the receiver :)
 
#76 ·
Posts removed.

From post #1

This discussion thread is for owners to discuss the new ExpressVu 9241 HD Receiver when it becomes available.

Any posts discussing when it will be available or from NON-owners will be deleted and the poster will receive an infraction.

Once again, this thread is for OWNERS only.

For non-owners who would like to learn more and discuss the new ExpressVu 6131 or 9241 receivers you can discuss it here.
 
#77 ·
So last night as I was watching tv, SD channel via S-video, for a few seconds I notcied the picture quality was actually good and compareable to my 6000. This didn't last long and it went back to the poor picture I have brought up in my previous posts. I waited and watched very closely over the next few minutes and noticed a very distinct pattern imerge. The good quality/bad quality difference would alternate very few seconds. When the picture went bad it would literally go out of focus which was the cause of the softer image I have been complaining about and if there was text on the screen you could clearly see the text was out of focus which presents itself as a really soft image on anything other than text. I didn't think to check if it is doing this on the composite feed so I will do that tonight but even if it doesn't this can't be normal and there must be something wrong with my receiver. The picture should not be losing focus every few seconds regardless of Bell telling me the overall picture quality on SD sources is not as good as that of my 6000.

I'm assuming no one else is experiencing this?
 
#79 ·
I was able to do a composite video test and the constant focused/out focus video was still there. I tested with 3 S-video cables and 2 composite cables going through my surround sound processor and then directly to my tv all with the same result.

I called Bell again to inform them about what I am experiencing and this time with more time talking with a tech 3 guy he determined the unit must be faulty, most likely some issue with the video processor so they are sending me a replacement. Fingers crossed.
 
#80 ·
Anybody know when and if Bell fixes the freezing issue with the 9241? It's starting to get really annoying, left a message for bell on their website and haven't heard from them and this was a couple weeks ago now. If I need to fast forward, what *seems* to work most of the time is skip, then wait a few seconds before fast forwarding again.
 
#82 ·
I got my replacement receiver yesterday and unfortunately this one exhibits the same behaviour as the first, a darker picture over component and a constant focus/out of focus image when using S-video or composite cables. So the odds of me getting 2 receivers with the same defect is pretty slim so this has to be a flaw in the software or hardware. It still bothers me that I seem to be the only one with this issue.

Swapping cables didn't fix the problem, switching to different inputs on my tv didn't fix the problem, going both direct to my tv and through my surround sound processor didn't make any difference. Using the same cables I have tested with I connected them to my VCR, DVD player and Xbox and none of those have the problem I am seeing with the receiver.

I guess it is possible there is some odd incompatibility between my tv and the receiver but that's unlikely. Does anyone else have this receiver connected to a Pioneer Elite PRO-150 tv?
 
#83 ·
i got my 9241 on the replacement programe for my 6000 about 3 weeks agao.

I too have been having the problem where unit gets paused and u have to wait 10m seconds before u can do anything.

Also when you skip forward or back it is not as refined as the 9200 which i also have. 9200 nicely moves audio back a bit too so you don't miss the first second or 2 of audio like u do with thed 9241.

Hopefully as with the 9200 firmware updates will fix issues with 9241 soon.
 
#85 ·
I called Bell back last night to let them know that the replacement receiver had the same problem, the original CSR put me straight through to teir 2 which was nice. I described the situation and all the trouble shooting I have done. The guy went away for a few minutes to talk with a senior level 3 tech. As the problem is not a known issue they immediately opened up a ticket to have the problem investigated to see if it might be a software or hardware issue which could be fixed. They told me to hold onto both receivers for now and will call me back in a few days after they have had some time to investigate further to see what the next step will be.

The only thing I hadn't thought to test out until this morning was to connect the receiver to a different tv, just to see what happens. Based on all my previous trouble shooting I didn't expect to see anything different and I was right, the problem was evident on the second tv. My main tv is a Pioneer Elite PRO-150FD, which is a 60" 1080 plasma. The second tv I tested with was my old Hitachi 53FDX01B rear projection CRT. It is HD compatible and can display 1080i content. It is a 4x3 dispaly.
 
#88 ·
Just adding another voice to the "freezing" problem noted by others with the 9241. The time to recover is about 20-30 seconds. This is all the more frustrating because the freezing also means there will be lost portions of any second program recorded at that time.
I also notice the before mentioned quality loss when watching SD channels as compared to a previous PVR. A-B comparing my old 5900 to corresponding OTA channels showed the quality loss on Bell to be "detectable". With the 9241 it is "noticeable".
I have no means to do a similar A-B comparison with HD channels.
Presumably we all should contact Bell regularly on these issues to encourage a firmware update as soon as possible. Do any of the more experienced folks here have thoughts on the best way to do this? E-mail, phone, website? Does it matter?
 
#89 ·
Timer Record Difficulty?

My new 9241 was installed this week. My fisrt and only Timer recording was one of the HBOHD channel movies. However, since then all attempts at Timer recordings of both HD and SD channels have failed. The Statu screen tells me that "Signal Loss Detected". The last attempt was for Channel 306 (I subscribe) this afternoon. The red record light was not glowing ten minutes into the record time. So I weent to channel 306, viewed a few minutes of the movie, and then pressed record. The red light glowed!

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I may be missing?
 
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