[QUOTE=ARR]Your not even paying $0.02 for HD. It's FREEat *C, as it should be for now. You must have been thinking about your $10 Bell HD surcharge.
Never had Bell and never will. What I meant was the service in general. I did not say HD service in particular. My bill just went up $2.00 per month so that is my gripe. Enough people have posted on the Dialogue Zone, myself included, about this particular problem with NBCEHD and *C keeps skirting the issue. So what is the answer. Do we just sit back and say oh well it's ok because we are not paying for the HD anyway?

As has been posted before, we are paying for HD somewhere in all the packages. There isn't much in this world for "free".

Just means *choice is cheaper then Bell and much better overall.

Oh OK, Not saying increases are a good thing, unless of course they buy a boat load of transponders for new content and more HD, but I was just reading on another board about some Bell increases.
$2 for them as well and 1 fellow went up $8. There was a surcharge for each bundle.
Maybe the price of gas to keep the birds in the sky.

Am I the only west coaster who is royally upset at Star Choice's decision to offer a full complement of US Network HD services to eastern customers (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and PBS) but a paltry three to westerners (CBS, Fox and NBC)? Is our $100 a month not as good as that of somebody from Toronto or Montreal?

I do understand that Star Choice was forced to discontinue the omnibus approach to HD owing to requirements from the CRTC and that they are limited in bandwidth but why hang us westerners out to dry?

On the advice of a CSR named Sonya, I sent an e-mail on July 4 to Frank Guido (frank.guido@starchoice.com), who supposedly heads customer service. Within about ten days I got a call from someone named Noa (hope I've spelled it right) not offering me any concrete answers but assuring me I would not be swept under the rug. After no further response for several days I made more noise and received a call from Gary Pizante, VP of business development. I unfortunately was not home when he called but did try him back within a half hour of receiving the call to no avail. I left a message on his voicemail and received no response for several days. More noise at my end and he finally called back on my cellphone at a time when I was too busy to talk to him. Not a word since.

Is it only me or is this not exactly sterling customer service? Going on two months? I can't be alone in either my opinion on this or the experience I have encountered in trying to get this handled. Let's hear from you folks, please. Thanks a million

I'm not sure why the HD is setup the way it is. It could be:

- because most of Canada's population is in Ontario, over 8 million in Toronto alone!
- it's better to get the feeds at an earlier time than to wait for a later time.
- they have limited HD spots open and could not supply both east and west.
- the feeds in the east may be of better quality or carry more HD content.
- if they offered only the western feeds people would complain that they have to wait to see what's on.

These are only guesses, but there could be a good reason. If they did have to pick between offering western channels or eastern channels, I can see why they would pick eastern. Let's say a show comes on at 10 PM Eastern time. You can see it at 7 PM in the west. However, if the tables were turned, and the show comes on at 10 PM Western time, not many in the east will be staying up until 1 AM to watch it.

In any case, I heard that StarChoice was going to be getting more HD channels. Perhaps they will add more western network HD feeds at that time.

Word is that ABC West HD will be back as soon as more transponder space becomes available - apperently October.

I'd be impressed you got a call back from senior management. When was the last time someone from your phone or power company gave you a call in response to a complaint? Regardless of whether you were there to take their call or not, it shows that they heard your message. However - of course everyone wants more channels. You want them, and you can be darn sure that Star Choice wants them. Unfortunately, its not that simple. Not even senior management can just snap their fingers and create extra transponders or carriage contracts to fulfill every request.

Additionally, I very much doubt you're going to get an answer much different from the one printed on the latest programming brochure (http://www.starchoice.com/english/store/download/EngPrgGuide_East.pdf) :
"Star Choice has 11 HD channels to choose from, plus 4 new HD channels coming in October '05."

Now, I'll remind anyone again who likes to cry Western Alienation that Star Choice is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Heart of the (New) West. There is no conspiracy, only logic and numbers.
1) There are more subscribers in Eastern Canada.
2) Given the choice of having most people watch Lost and Desperate housewives at 9pm, and having some people have to watch it at 6pm; or having some people watch it at 9pm, and most having to watch it at 12:00am, which is more appealing?
(Maybe I'm wierd, but I watch all my primetime programming out of Eastern Standard Time and then spend primetime watching Family Guy and Futurama reruns on Teletoon. So I usually don't care about the Western feeds).


Now, I'm exausted and am going to get back to watching my delightful free High Definition programming. Widescreen is waiting!! :cool:

@ DKS and @Satellite:

I'd like to thank you ever so much for your input. A lot of what both of you say makes a great deal of sense.

I strongly suspected all of the above all along. What incenses me so is that nobody at Star Choice had the courage to tell me what you have. I do not understand this veil of secrecy in companies like Bell and Star Choice. One of the biggest lessons I learned during my many years of customer service is to demonstrate to the problem customer that something is being done for him or her. Not necessarily to give an answer right now but show things are in the works. Star Choice has fallen flat on its face in this regard. If they had been upfront with me I would not be posting this here. You guys and others seem to be in the loop that something positive is happening and yet nobody at Star Choice is willing to confirm this. To me, everybody who works for a company is ultimately answerable to the customer. Perhaps I live in a dream world but if there were no customers there would be no company.

When I bought my DSR 500 I was able to enjoy ABC west coast programming; this has now been taken away from me. I have to ask you guys. Would you exactly be overjoyed if your investment in HD equipment suddenly produced less capability than when you bought it? Regardless of whether you are paying for HD services or not? It is just a smidge difficult to watch prime time programming at 5:00 PM when you have to be at work to pay for it all.

I must wonder whether the problem is "Star Choice" at all. Perhaps it is merely Shaw tightening up the purse strings. They wouldn't want too many people to switch to the other division and lower cable's humongous profits, now would they?

Shaw has a history of being slow to add new services, if my experience with their local operation is any indication. After fighting with them in vain for what seemed like an eternity, I actually took them to the Cable Television Standards Council some fifteen years ago on over a dozen issues ranging from shoddy simultaneous substitution, to mediocre technical quality of several of the services, to lacklustre selection on the FM band. I won concession on each and every one of the issues I raised. Their manager at the time was ultimately supremely receptive to customer input.

Hi Tunesman,

I agree with you - the customer service has been lacking at StarChoice since they came out with the DSR530. They have been giving people the run around. I was told by a CSR immediately after the A4 release came out that they were rolling out an additional release in 2 weeks to fix some of the remaining problems with the A4 version. Well that was a couple of months ago now. Those 2 weeks have come and gone. Was he lying? I don't know. Was he trying to appease me and get me off of the line? Probably. I contacted senior management about it and they replied back stating that there would be no new release until September. Let's see if they keep their word this time.

As far as your HD channels go, I understand that there is some temporary bottleneck with the HD channels due to equipment/satellite shortages. If they are adding 4 or 5 new channels in October, you may get your western feeds back. Let's see what happens.

Grr looks like they had problems at the beginning of the game and switched to SD feed..... :confused: :confused: :confused:

@ DKS and @Satellite:

I
When I bought my DSR 500 I was able to enjoy ABC west coast programming; this has now been taken away from me. I have to ask you guys. Would you exactly be overjoyed if your investment in HD equipment suddenly produced less capability than when you bought it? Regardless of whether you are paying for HD services or not? It is just a smidge difficult to watch prime time programming at 5:00 PM when you have to be at work to pay for it all.

.

Put the blame where it belongs - BELL CANADA

Bell had the almighty gall to complain to the CRTC about omnibus channels - then when they got what they wanted - BELL OWNED Telesat didn't have the available Ku transponders for all the HD channels.

Wonder of wonders - we talk about corruption in other countries - but it florishes in Ottawa big time. Now we have to wait for the FCC to OK the move of AMC 16 to 118.7 to open up additional transponders on F2.

Can you imagine DirecTV owning Dish Networks's satellites???

Bell had the almighty gall to complain to the CRTC about omnibus channels - then when they got what they wanted - BELL OWNED Telesat didn't have the available Ku transponders for all the HD channels.
And to add insult to injury... the CRTC today approved BEV's request to set up omnibus channels to broadcast local programming.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/db2005-457.htm

I say an omnibus channel is an omnibus channel... if *C can't have them then BEV should not be allowed.

Dirty B@$t@rd$, Look at the CTV (Friggin BCE owned as well) HD lineup for this fall.

It's a virtual omnibus channel all by itself.
It carries virtually EVERY major U.S. Networks primetime HD programming.

We might just as well ask for CTV HD East and West and go find other unique content to fill up all the US Nets HD channels that are redundent.

Lets see how many Voom 21 HD originals we can get, and some HDNet/Movies as well.

Put the blame where it belongs - BELL CANADA

This is the most ironic thing I have found since doing further research on this nonsense. It is truly amazing just how much "competition" we have in broadcasting in this great land.

I'm really surprised Bell Canada didn't come up with the brilliant idea to give Star Choice and Cancom special rates on transponder space just for them, namely rates so high that they simply would not be able to be in business owing to the end charges they would have to pass along to their customers.

No wonder we aren't getting the full complement of services on Star Choice that Bell offers. Through it also owning Telesat, Bell is directly dictating what its competition does.

I thoroughly fail to see just what contribution the requirement that Canadian DTH services use Canadian satellite space only makes to the cultural and economic fabric of Canada. The only thing I see it doing is limiting choice for the end consumer and making the biggest and fattest player even more grossly bigger and fatter.

And to add insult to injury... the CRTC today approved BEV's request to set up omnibus channels to broadcast local programming.


There is a big difference here though, Gary. These are strictly Canadian services Bell is talking about.

As we all know, the main reason the CRTC exists is to shove the almighty Beaver down our throat every two seconds. They most certainly would never deny such an opportunity to continue on that mission.

If the CRTC and Ottawa had their way, we would not be watching any of that evil foreign programming. Unfortunately, that Pandora's box got opened back in the days of rooftop antennas. If they just banned it outright, they know there would be an unmanageable public outcry. So they let just enough of it in in order that that won't happen. People are complacent enough to continue dining on the watered-down, Canadianized fare we are continuning to be served without complaining.

Take TV Land for example. How many times a day do they run Beachcombers? Check It Out? Forest Rangers? King of Kensington? Could someone please explain to me just how this contributes to the cultural fabric of Canada?

I have long thought that Canadian content for the sake of Canadian content is wrong. Canadian content should be on the air because it is good and people truly want to see or hear it. If I was a performing artist in Canada, I would take little consolation in the fact that my work was on the air because it was legislated to be there, rather than because people really like what I was doing.

Dirty B@$t@rd$, Look at the CTV (Friggin BCE owned as well) HD lineup for this fall.

It's a virtual omnibus channel all by itself.
It carries virtually EVERY major U.S. Networks primetime HD programming.


Isn't this the way it has always been ever since the inception of simultaneous substitution in the mid 1970's?

On the one hand, as a television broadcaster, the CTRC is telling you to broadcast Canadian content which is very expensive to produce. On the other, they are offering you a different "carrot" by giving you the opportunity to knock a US competitor right off the dial if you carry the same show at the same time.

I think in some quarters this would be called an oxymoron.

It has always been so reassuring that we have a group of television broadcasters which offer such an alternative to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and UPN.

Sorry everyone - I had a quick look and couldn't find anything - this may be an old question and may have already been answered ...

Any news on when the 4 additional HD channels are being added?

Any news on when the 4 additional HD channels are being added?

I'm just guessing but a hint may be found here:
Switch from Anik F1 to F1R (http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31071)

So maybe as early as Oct. 11th, unless more testing is required. This may be the date we see more HD from Shaw 860 MHz systems as well.

I'm just guessing but a hint may be found here:
Switch from Anik F1 to F1R (http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31071)


That has nothing to do with HD. It is merely the North American beams of F1 being moved to F1R due the premature aging of the solar concentrators on F1.

HD is on F2. There was speculation that SC would get the new F2 transponders when AMC 16 was temporarily located at 118.7 But F1R is testing there now so it will November before AMC 16 gets to 118.7 Unless some F2 users are moved to Echostar 5 which is now operational @129 DBS slot.

Wow I can't believe the PQ while watching the Dodgers v Diamondbacks!! So crisp and clear. Not sure if its the lighting or what but I am amazed.

:)

Wow I can't believe the PQ while watching the Dodgers v Diamondbacks!! So crisp and clear. Not sure if its the lighting or what but I am amazed.


I watched a couple of innings - mainly because the PQ was so good. I've seen a couple of games from NESN that were similiar. Question to Rogers: Why aren't your Rogers Centre HD games this good? (in PQ I mean - we all know the Blue Jays suck ;) )