BEV is the master of "gee, this is the first time we heard of this"

It's a load of CR*P. They KNOW!!

Just in case BEV is listening

We have experienced it quite a bit on our 6100.

Same here. It's at the point that the wife refuses to watch her shows on HD on the 57", and instead goes and watches them on Shaw cable SD on a 21" TV. If you want high resolution still pictures, the 6100 is for you. If instead you are looking for video rather than photo, stick with Shaw. Our contract is up in July.

We have no reason to stick with Bell even though we purchased our hardware. Bell has dropped the ball with their poor support for this model. I am very disappointed, as sometimes the HD works great. Is Bell's poor simsubbing the problem? I don't know. That's for them to figure out. As the end user, I just want something that works every time.

BEV's response to the Better Business Bureau regarding my complaint:

"We currently are addressing a system issue that results in very infrequent video freezes. We are currently making changes to those channels that intermittently cause the model 6100 to freeze video.

We expect that this problem will be resolved soon but cannot commit to a date as of yet."

At least they are admitting to it. My one caveat is the "very infrequent" part, although I will say that it does appear to have gotten better lately (although I haven't been in front of the TV alot lately, we'll see this weekend).

To those of you that haven't complained to BBB, I suggest you do. You can do it online, it's free, and it only takes a few minutes.

I am very observant to subtle differences. Here is what I have noticed.

1) the freezing has been greatly reduced over the past few weeks.
2) In the past, my video would freeze with a static image for a second or two, but now, it is very brief and I get the small blocks which are typical of a low sat signal. However, my signal is fine.
3) I have had two freeze ups that completely locked up my receiver and I had to turn off the power to recover.

I don't think the simsub is the root cause. I have had freezing on programs that have the US logo still in the corner of the screen.

I sincerely hope BEV continues to improve things. It is almost watchable now! But just like the cold virus..... you know it will be back. One day, it could get as bad as it was before x-mas.

Bob

I took in some interesting material, here and elsewhere, regarding mpeg format and key frames.
As a consumer I'm completely in the dark about the real problem but the hypothesis of the receiver missing those key frames and thus waiting for the next key frame sounded plausible.

I agree, it happens outside of simm subbing.

"very infrequent video freezes"

What a joke, they should come and try to watch HD at my house!

I think all they are doing now is moving the trouble from one channel to another. CTVHD was the worse before, but is much better now, Global HD which I rarely had issues with in the past, is now is my worse channel.

I think they are just playing the shell game with the problem... maybe hoping to trick us to think things are getting better?

What a joke BEV is... a real joke.

WW:mad:

Seems to have gotten better lately, still seeing the occasional stutter but it's pretty infrequent.
Cautiously optimistic.

I was watching the Super Bowl at CBS (channel 817) and the freezing starts half-way until the end of the game.
Any other have seen it?

Watched it on Global, 2 real small stutters, good quality feed, very happy.

during Superbowl, i got freezing every 2 minutes or so. When my little kids who know nothing about sports kept asking me why the tv was freezing, you know theres a big issue! None the less, game looked amazing in HD! :o

Yeah, same problem here on CBSHD... what a freggin joke... half way through the game I started getting the freezing... even though it was a direct feed from the US! What a joke... so much for the "simsub" theory to justify this problem... I had 6 others watching the game with me, all first time HD watchers, and I had to justify the freezing... what a joke! They all wanted Bell HD the first half, but by the second half, they were turned off by this annoying problem.

To add insult to injury, they just jacked the price an extra $3... no wonder everyone wants to hack them... charge, charge, charge and give lousy service... what a great company... if this isn't fixed in the next few months, I will certainly cancel and go elsewhere...

Later
Rocket69

Same here. Somewhere around the start of the 2nd half, I was getting freezes and macro-blocking about every 10 minutes on ch 817 on my 6000.

But overall, the PQ was better than the Global HD feed and even ch 822 looked a little soft by contrast.

I guess at this point you can't have everything, but some day it would be nice.

I started to watch Superbowl pregame on CBS east. Lots of freezing. Switched to CBS west and not one freeze for any of pregame or game itself.Other posts have mentioned freezing on CBS east so it may have been that channel. I had 2 minor freezes last night and that was it. Right now things are much better but I still wait for it to happen. It will take more than a few nights to convince me but overall I would say things are much better than they were. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

Not sure if I’m the only one to notice, but everything seems “better” now with my HD channels.

I only really started complaining to Bell last week RE the freezing problem. And, with the suggestions from this forum-topic, I complained in every way possible (CRTC, BBB, Bell Executives)...

Well almost overnight, the problem is almost gone, only once in the past week have a noticed a freezing and, during last night’s Lost, none at all!

So, if the solution to the freezing is to start complaining, then I suggest everyone get on it!

Anyway...wait and see I guess.

Mine is better also, still some occasional freezing but I suspect that most of these events are related to sim subbing than the receiver freezing.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

The game itself was flawless on CBSW, however as soon as a commercial was broadcast the freezing was unbearable....what a joke BELL.

There is a known issue with HD freezing that occurs if there is an SW44 in the setup, where the HD receiver is on the same line as the Power Inserter.

The fix is to move the Power Inserter to either another receiver's feed line or a seperate feed into the SW44.

Don't forget that the Power Inserter has to be on Port #1 of the SW44 to make things work.

This "fix" has cured dozens of customers freezing issues on all of the current HD units. The 6100 is affected the most from my experience.

Nimiq 1

I have my sd box hooked to the output (#1) that has the power inserter hooked to it and my 6100 and 6000 are on outputs 2 & 3.

I still get regular freezes on both hd boxes.

Then believe it or not my Techs would change out the Power Inserter and most times, it cures the issue.

I am told its "noisy" hydro that causes it.

Nimiq 1