If Internet is part of the picture, consider the findings of CBC Marketplace. They recently compared Telus, Bell, Shaw and Rogers -- all of whom quoted 7 mbps Internet ... one provider (Rogers) delivered, pretty much, as advertised; two were somewhat behind; one was, well, pitiful.

Find the program rebroadcast link on this page: www.cbc.ca/marketplace

Facing north, you won't have much choice in satellite vs. cable; unless your building offers VDSL. That will preclude HD, PVR, On Demand and other services. Rogers is a potent choice.

For Home Phone ... Bell and Rogers provide similar services, at similar prices; features and extras may or may not sway you. But add bundle discounts, as 57 suggests, and you are well ahead.

By all means switch if you are unhappy: but try to be sure what you are switching to better meets your needs, regardless of price. The grass sometimes is greener, even in winter.

Yes i remember that marketplace episode, rogers came out the winner hands down

If its fine the way it is, no need to change.

The Marketplace segment is not typical of DSL but it does happen in some areas. I would suggest looking at independent DSL providers. They often provide much better service at a lower price. Rogers is probably the best for TV right now, especially HDTV. There isn't much difference in price between home phone services but if you have a lot of features and use a lot of long distance, there are better deals than Bell from independent land line providers or VOIP.

Expressvu's compression within the last few months is really making me crazy. Watching a hockey game in "HD" and seeing bluish squares on the ice surface doesn't qualify as HD to me.

I have almost made up my mind to take advantage of the "Ditch the Dish" promotion. The only "hang up" that I have is that I haven't been able to get an answer to one question: What "bitrate" are Rogers HD channels?

I called Rogers, got a CSR (who could barely speak English. I thought I had dialed the EV number by mistake :p) who told me that bitrates do not apply for Rogers HD. He based that answer on the fact the he "did not have that information. So it is not apply to Rogers HD." :confused:

I'm not sure what's going on there. Was the CSR wrong? If so, what are the approximate bitrates for Rogers HD? EV seems to have dropped at lot recently in addition to the compression issues.

Rogers Ontario doesn't compress the incoming signals, so the bitrate you get at the STB is the bitrate that is broadcast by the affiliate, which can vary from about 12-18 Mbps, depending on the channel. Rogers puts 2 HD channels per QAM, which allows for a maximum bitrate of 19.4 Mbps on each HD channel.

Remember though that MPEG has limits so with fast motion on-screen, even the broadcast bitrate can have compression artifacts, since the original signal is over 1 Gbps and is compressed to a maximum of 19.4 Mbps for broadcast, a compression factor of over 50.

Please see the following post, useful for newbies to the forum. Please put your location in your UserCP Profile (location). This helps us help you.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741

OK thanks 57. I hope Rogers here in NL does the same as in Ontario. Expressvu's poor PQ since late last year is something to behold. I am watching the TOR & BUF game now and the compression artifacts are infuriating; just too much of those.

Maybe try asking in the Rogers forum? There may be some fellow NL'ers there that can provide more details.

Moved thread to Rogers Atlantic. Perhaps someone here can confirm. I don't believe Atlantic has as many channels, so make sure you're able to get the channels you want.

A quick check of rogers.com/channels shows most of the HD channels in Ontario are available in New Brunswick; there are fewer in Newfoundland.

My understanding is Rogers has interconnected fibre throughout ON and NB and therefore signals at the Master Control can be sent anywhere on the fibre. There is a little less capacity in Moncton than Toronto, but then 60+ multicultural channels aren't sent east helping to make up the capacity difference.

Missing are Leafs TV HD and The Score HD -- I don't know if Leafs TV is licensed outside of Ontario and The Score HD still could use some better HD content before it's badly missed.

The missing MMore and MPix in HD is more serious, although only for TMN subscribers. There is still On Demand; and some of that is making it's way into HD.

Newfoundland is different, of course, since Rogers is kind of an independent entity out there. St. John's seems to be missing a few ... like OMNI.1, OMNI.2 and Sun TV but the lack of Global and CityTV a little more serious. Anyway, wasn't there some fibre being laid last fall connecting NL to the rest of the country and Rogers was a co-partner in financing it? That suggests somewhere down the line that St. John's (and other parts of the province on the fibre with full digital systems) ought to get pretty much the same as Ontario and New Brunswick.

Yes Nfld has new fibre optics connected to the main grid now but i wont hold my breath waiting for them to add more channels. When other competitors arrive we will get it all here. Im still waiting for home phone and only live 5 min outside st. johns. Its pathetic how slow they are to expand services only five minutes away from the main centre. Come on rogers add more hd channels and get your money back on the 14 million dollars you invested in 50 million fibre optic expansion project here in Nfld.

For all of you who have been following this thread waiting for an update ;)

I switched to Rogers (from EV). For the majority of channels, the picture is much better (which will change with recent compression announcements). But I am really disappointed with the service as a whole. My cable box constantly resets, audio dropouts, picture lockups, signal availability due to weather, etc. all the same issue I've had with EV :) An additional issue is the sound level from the PVR hard drive: it is loud. I can hear it in other rooms; disgusting.

According to my installer, my signal is really strong so that doesn't seem to be an issue. I have also compared my numbers with numbers posted on the board and they are comparable.

Going back to what I said previously, the last "storm" we had there was a minimal amount of wind and snow but my signal died for an hour. I hooked up my old EV receiver and it had a very strong signal on the HD channel I was watching before the signal died. So much for the weather not causing issues.

I would sat the issue is with your box. As I have an HDPVR and have none of those issues..

Cap, you have different hardware than we in Atl Canada have. We are on Motorola hardware.


tuskalin, I would suggest getting your PVR swapped. However, I will say that the noisy drive issue is not going away. And to top it all off, there is a noisy little fan in there that is supposedly cooling the noisy drive. They are just noisy STBs.

I do not notice that big a difference with EV and rogers, and there probally will be almost no difference as soon as rogers starts compressing. I think EV is the best future proof service ATM

EV is the most future proof? That's an awfully bold statement.

Well that's my view on the situation right now, and EV does not look that terrible too me and a lot of people

Actually, cable is the most future proof as it can be slowly replaced with Fiber throughout the grid and then eventually right to the house. This give WAY more bandwidth than satellite could dream of!

Just look at what FiOS is doing for Verison. And keep in mind that they are a telco that started laying out brand new infrastructure!!! A cable Co has existing high bandwidth infrastructure out there that can be leveraged during the transition.

On the satellite front, you need bigger or more satellites that have to compete for ever more cramped GeoSync orbital slots. You also have to build TWO satellites each time as when one BLOWS UP, you want the other quick at hand so there is not as big a delay. And to that, there is always the delays that come with getting a launch window.

interesting point JXP. But how long do you think rogers will take to lay out fiber? also that doesn't meen anything for a lot of people since rogers cable is not available in a lot of areas (Quebec).... If they move to fiber I would move to them instant, when they or if they ever come to Quebec (Probally not)

Any cable company is capable of moving more towards fibre, not just Rogers. Videotron could easily do it. Beyond bandwidth potential, IMO cable's advantage is its two-way ability, something satellite just cannot do.

The fact still remains that cable is more "future proof" as it currently has the most capacity and has much more potential capacity than satellite. Bell has announced no plans to adopt FIOS so cable is still the best BDU system available in Canada. Rogers is also very aggressive in rebuilding its system, more so than almost any other cable company in NA. The main problem I have with Rogers is that their HD signals are not very reliable outside of the Toronto region. Infrastructure and capacity are good but high quality signals and reliability are also required. I was considering a move to Rogers (actually placed the order) but canceled when I heard about issues with their signals and the move to adaptive compression. A retention offer from EV also factored in but was not the only reason. I wanted an improvement, not more of the same old same old.