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Fibe, Questions..

429K views 1K replies 249 participants last post by  Dr.Dave 
#1 ·
Im thinking of ditching bell tv after 5 years. Love the service, prices are good but sick of satellite tv losing signal in bad storms. The new Fibe tv service is available in my area.I currently have the fibe25 internet. Ive read that its a max of 4 set top box's. My question is i have 5 tvs. I want to change to fibe tv and i obviously want to watch my 5 tv's so i need 5 set tops. The most set top box's that will ever be on at once is 4 ( 3 sd and 1 hd). Now is it possible to get a 5 box install in this case? the 5 tvs will NEVER all be used at once. Unfortunately this is a deal breaker for me.. I need the 5 tvs or ill have to either settle for bell tv or make the swap back to robbers. I'd call be all ask but i already know ill call 5 times n get 5 different answers so i always come here first :cool:

Thanks in advanced folks.
 
#79 ·
2 weeks so far...

Well, 3 weeks ago Bell rang me up to let me know that Fibe was available (Woodbine/Danforth area), and it just coincided with our basement reno and upgrade from SDTV's so we decided to give it a go. Better to get them to run their cabling before the drywall goes up.

Seems like the same deal as most, 2 years PVR, $200 off installation, Fibe 12, etc.. we have home phone and our cell phones with bell as well, so I'm sure some more discounts will kick in as well.

Called Rogers to cancel, I explained where I'm going, and they pretty well said "Oh.. well, sorry to hear that. We'll send out your final bill for the remainder of the 30 days, have a nice day. Not a single attempt from the retention department to get me back, despite me looking to upgrade to HD and new internet. Easiest cancellation ever.

The installer was great, new line from across the street all the way in (DSLAM is at the end of my street), new coax everywhere through the basement and upstairs (drilling holes through concrete), poor bugger was here for over 8 hours straight.. heheh.. got my $59 installation's worth.

At the moment we just had a 26" LCD, and a 32" CRT. The picture was amazing on both, even the CRT.. way better than Rogers in terms of clarity.

This just pushed us into buying a 37" LCD last week to replace the 32", as the tube is starting to go (black dot in the middle of the screen). The guide interface is really great (takes up the whole screen!), everything's crystal clear, the Search function and PVR usage on any TV is priceless, and the internet is blazing at 1.5MB/s, even over wireless G and N.

And just in time to see the last 2 episodes of the Walking Dead in HD.. :D

The only qualms are...
Channel setup is different than Rogers, which my wife is not impressed about, as we've been used to that for years.. Thankfully I can program a favourite channel list to represent the original Rogers 60 or so channels, and customize the main list to take out channels we'll never use. However, I do love that if you are watching a SD channel, just add a 1 to the beginning of the channel number to get its HD equivalent. Makes the transition so much easier.

I think the PVR is acting up, I've had to reboot it 3 times for different reasons..
  • One day I told it to record a show, it says "Recording" but nothing shows up in the show list. Going to the guide, it tells me it "Will Record". Rebooting reveals the show, finally, recorded up to that point. This was just after I cancelled two recordings of the same show (one in SD, one in HD) so it might have gotten confused a bit.
  • We were watching CTV news one night, and it froze. I could go to other channels and they worked, but going back to CTV froze that channel's screen. I could go into the guide, and it showed CTV playing in the PIP box it had. Rebooting fixed it.
  • One night the audio and video started pausing/skipping every 5 seconds or so, regardless of the channel. Rebooting fixed it.
I called Bell, who advised me to keep an eye on it, and if more issues crop up they'll replace the PVR.

At least talking to the Bell rep has been pleasant, I'm sure they want to keep as many new customers happy while they boost the Fibe TV product around the neighbourhood. The installer told me that they're not as busy installing FibeTV as they'd like.

I for one am loving it, no regrets here. The provided remote is a great universal.. control my stereo for sound, TV for screen settings, all the while controlling the PVR. I have a programmable Harmony 550, but I've ended up using it very little lately.
 
#80 ·
Jam-ehz said:
I for one am loving it, no regrets here. The provided remote is a great universal.. control my stereo for sound, TV for screen settings, all the while controlling the PVR. I have a programmable Harmony 550, but I've ended up using it very little lately.
exact same experience here - I had planned on setting up my Harmony, but I like the Bell remote ... esp the +30 sec & -7 sec buttons!
 
#81 ·
Can you run a secondary FibeTV STB off a wireless bridge?

Hello all,

I'm wondering if anyone has tried running a secondary fibetv receiver (not the main PVR) off a wireless bridge. I'd like to be able to use a TV in my bedroom with fibetv - currently it runs off a wireless RCA video broadcaster and the bell 9242's secondary tv port - but I don't have coax or ethernet running through my house. The wireless is 802.11n, of course.
 
#82 ·
Few Questions on Fibe TV

A few Questions

1) What are the demensions of the receiver and what colour is it(pics?)?

2) Are the receivers Dual tuner?(am aware they're HD)

3) If so to Q#3, do you need two coaxal cables to feed the receiver?

4) Is there a diagram showing how the receiveis hooked up from the receiver to where ever the conection is to the line from the Pole?

Tried searching but couldn't find the answer?

:confused:
 
#83 ·
@MCIBUS
  1. Pictures of the receivers are at http://fibetv.bell.ca/en/receivers/. A search of this forum for "dimensions" (spelled correctly) shows this:
    VIP1232 PVR - 12" x 11" x 2.75"
    VIP1200 STB - 10" x 8.5" x 2.2"
  2. Fibe TV is IPTV and doesn't use tuners. It is similar to downloading several files on your computer. You can record and/or watch up to 4 channels at once (max of 2 HD at this time).
  3. Fibe TV is connected to a special internet modem/router and can use either coax or Cat5 cables inside your home. Only one cable per box.
  4. Fibe TV uses your existing telephone wiring.
 
#84 ·
Hey MCIBUS

A few answers...

1)a) Motorola VIP 1232 HDPVR - 12"W x 11"D x 2.75"H

b) Motorola VIP 1200 HD - 10"W x 8.5"D x 2.2"H
The STB's have been re-branded by Bell and they look exactly like this(Click).

2)No

3)Here is a link for the "Fibe TV Reference Guide" you get from Bell after the install. There are detailed pictures of the front and back of the 1232 in said .pdf

4)Each STB gets connected to the modem supplied by bell which is attached to your phone line

I noticed that someone already answered as I was writing, but more information is always good, sorry about that Dr.Dave.
 
#85 ·
Thanks guys.

I'm tring to make out but it looks a liitle confusing.

Do you get more then on r just one modem and is conected by phone line jack(like when you have BTV hooked up for PPV ordering) or does a cable run down to the modem?

So if the modem is in the basement is it conect to all the phone jacks there or do you need to runn cable from the modem to each receiver like if you where using Cablevision(Rogers) from a spliter?

Sotrry for the questions, but the way the show it in the PDF it doesn't show how its hooked up to each receiver?
 
#86 ·
MCIBUS, there are a number of variations for the installation of the modem/router and cabling. You only get one modem. If you have it installed in the basement, a coax cable could be connected to your existing coax cables if you are using Rogers or Bell Sat.

The phone line is split at the demarcation point where it enters the house using a filter so that the voice frequencies go to the existing phone jacks and the data frequencies go to the modem.
 
#87 ·
MCIBUS

Each STB gets connected directly to the modem either through coax or cat5 cable.
There is one coax output and 5(could be 4,I'm not near the modem) cat5 outputs on the modem.
The only traditional phone line in use is the one that goes to the modem.

When they come for the install, they will go through the options and see what wiring you already have available and use it, or they will run new cable

If you only have coax in your home, they can split it.

The technicians that come to install FibeTV are surprisingly really good.
 
#88 ·
Thanks guys

Now I get it.

From the phone jack(where line comes in from outside) gets wired into the modem and from there its connecting coax or what have you to each receiver.

If thats the case thats exactly what I wanted to know.

So basically if you have Cable or sat they use the same cable instead of connecting it to a cable spitter or SW44 switch they're just connect to the modem at one end and the Bell Fibe receiver at the other instead of a Rogers por BTV receiver.

If so then its pretty simple.

Thanks

Now only if Bell Fibe TV was available in Ottawa. Hopefully in two years, when my Rogers contract runs out.
 
#92 ·
Is Fibe internet the gateway drug to Fibe TV?

Those of you getting the Fibe TV deals via Bell marketers, did you all already have Fibe internet? I just signed up for Fibe 25/7 internet access as part of a Bell promotion and I wonder if that's one of their ways of targeting potential Fibe TV customers: those who have good confirmed Fibe access are potential targets for Fibe TV.

In any case, I've been on Rogers for just about forever, and own 2 HD PVRs and 1 HD box, but I'm still tempted by the concept of Fibe TV. It's particularly because of the fast channel change, search, networked playback, and most importantly, the relative lack of macroblocking.

BTW, the IP over coax support they provide, what is it? 200 Mbps? Just wondering.
 
#94 ·
For the first question, I was wondering how many people are simply not capable of getting Fibe 25. Is the technology immature enough that some people in certain neighbourhoods may have lines only capable of Fibe 12 or 16, or is pretty much any place with advertised Fibe 25 support capable of getting 25 Mbps?

ie. Is it analogous to ADSL in any way? In my case "Up to 5 Mbps" for DSL meant 2.5 Mbps (with a profile of 3 Mbps).

For the second question, I was just wondering what is the technology they are using for providing networking over coaxial cable in the home, and at what speed it is capable. This is just for my own interest.
 
#95 ·
@eug - since you are asking questions about Fibe 25 and other Bell internet services, you might try the "Bell High Speed Internet" thread. That thread might have specific answers about the data side of things.

With Fibe TV you get a Alacatel Lucent Cellpipe 7130 which supports VDSL2 (Wikipedia has a very good explanation of VDSL2 vs ADSL2)

IP over coax uses HPNA - again, wikipedia has a good explanation.
 
#99 ·
@steelrat, I'm not sure about static IPs. My experience on MTS may be different than Bell's, but my IP address hasn't changed since I had Mediaroom installed a year ago.

Fibe TV requires Fibe internet. See this post.

Bell doesn't have unlimited internet. The various plans, speeds and caps are listed on the Fibe site. Bell's new overage charges are discussed here.

Unlimited DSL from third-party providers will be discontinued. Check out the "General Internet and Landline Phone" forum for "UBB".
 
#101 ·
question about FibeTV PVR

hello everyone

i have been a bell sat sub for a very long time and the fibeOP looks good but i got too much sat equipment like i have 2 3100 a 9200 using both tuners and a 6131 and using it as another PVR. now i checked fibeOP website and it said you are only able to have 1 PVR and i think are only able to get HDTV on 2 TV's? (can't remember right now). now if i am only able to get 1 PVR would i be able to control it using the other receivers? like telus PVR anywhere feature?

sorry if this sounds confusing
 
#102 · (Edited)
Welcome McPatrick. Bell Fibe TV and Telus Optik TV both use Microsoft Mediaroom and have the same core features including the Whole Home PVR feature.

You will need a VIP1232 PVR and 3 VIP1200 STBs to replace your 4 satellite boxes. All the Fibe boxes are HD capable and will downgrade the signal for SD TVs if necessary.

You can record or watch up to 4 channels at once, but only 2 can be HD. Any of the TVs can play recorded programs (including pause, rewind, etc.), erase programs and schedule future recordings. The only thing the VIP1200s can't do is pause live TV - that feature will be available when Bell upgrades to Mediaroom 2.0.

Most people set up series recordings and use time-shifting on the networks or repeats on the specialty channels to avoid conflicts. You can watch recorded HD programs on all 4 of your TVs without affecting the number of streams you are recording.
 
#104 ·
It's also worth pointing out, however, that the 2 HD stream limit is for different streams. You can watch the same HD programming on all of your TVs as only one stream is being received in this case.

I have three TVs here in a three-person household and have almost never run into the HD limitations -- there are still enough non-HD channels out there that it's rarely become an issue that all three of us want to watch something different in HD at the same time (to be fair, the third person is my toddler, so she only watches what we put on for her, and with the exception of PBS, all the kids' channels are only SD anyway :) ).
 
#105 · (Edited by Moderator)
FibeTV questions

I am going to order FibeTV next week, so I just want to double-check some assumtions. Please let me know if my info is correct or if I'm missing something:

1. Fibe Internet is required to with FibeTV. I was planning to get Fibe 16 - does it make sense or are there any caveats? I am not sure how internet shares bandwith with TV though - will I get what Fibe 16 promises only when TV is off (not recording) or all the time? Also, I've read somewhere that with FibeTV you get same internet speed no matter what internet package you ordered (supposedly, what's unused by TV) - that does not make sense to me. Is it true?

2. Internet modem can be on a different floor of the house than receivers, right?

3. Each receiver has an Ethernet port - does it connect to internet and or house LAN?

I'd want to use receivers and internet modem as hubs for home network to switch from wireless to wired and have the fastest possible internet connection. Is that possible?

Thanks a lot!
 
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