Telus TV and High speed) vs. Bell vs. Shaw

[Chilly Water]

I just moved to Vancouver and had Bell Express Vu HD in the past as well as Sky HD in the UK. I found the latter 2 comparable. I think Bell has a great interface and is very reliable. I do not particularly enjoy the Shaw interface and Telus is a bit of a wild card. Am leaning toward Telus (TV - in a Vancouver condo and cannot get Bell).

Can someone outline the pros/cons of telus vs the other 2 for HD TV?

I have not heard great things about the Telus Internet so I am leaning towards Shaw or Novus - which is super fast.

Any thought?
Thanks

[C Goon]

Originally Posted by Chilly Water

I just moved to Vancouver and had Bell Express Vu HD in the past as well as Sky HD in the UK. I found the latter 2 comparable. I think Bell has a great interface and is very reliable. I do not particularly enjoy the Shaw interface and Telus is a bit of a wild card. Am leaning toward Telus (TV - in a Vancouver condo and cannot get Bell).

Can someone outline the pros/cons of telus vs the other 2 for HD TV?

I have not heard great things about the Telus Internet so I am leaning towards Shaw or Novus - which is super fast.

Any thought?
Thanks

I currently running Bell TV and Telus TV side by side and apart from less HD content the Telus TV is comparing quite favourably to Bell TV. I'm finding so far that the flexibility of the Telus TV PVR anywhere feature is making up for a lack of some HD content. I'm going to run them together for a month and then pick a winner.

The Telus Turbo internet service is pretty good when not running the TV's I'm getting over 14mbps down and 770kbps up. and with all three tv streams going I don't think my speed has dropped below 3mbps down.

[Chilly Water]

Thanks for the reply.
Can you expand on how the PVR anywhere works. Meaning 1 tuner and signal on multiple TVs or ability to control multiple tvs on one tuner?

Did you avoid Shaw on purpose?

Thanks again.

[ctown6412]

PVR anywhere is a triple tuner system. One HD pvr that is shared over the home network and one box per tv. You can have a total of 3 live streams at any one time and/or up to 6 separate pvr playbacks within the house at the same time.

It is by far the best tv solution out there for us here in alberta/Bc! Picture is outstanding and the system is virtually perfect

[C Goon]

Originally Posted by Chilly Water

Thanks for the reply.
Can you expand on how the PVR anywhere works. Meaning 1 tuner and signal on multiple TVs or ability to control multiple tvs on one tuner?

Did you avoid Shaw on purpose?

Thanks again.

ctown6412 explained it much better than I ever would have.

No I didn't avoid Shaw purposefully. I was just intrigued by the PVR Anywhere concept of being able to access recorded content from any STB on the network. I currently run a Bell 9200 pvr downstairs on our main plasma and a 9241 on the smaller LCD in the kitchen-diner area. I was always lamenting the fact that I couldn't watch recorded content from either PVR on any tv other than the one it was recorded on. After that I just had to make sure that if I was going to dump Bell that the PQ was close or equal and that having just three streams available was going to be sufficient after having 4 HD streams available on the 2 Bell PVR's. After a week of running them concurrently I think Bell isn't long for my world. The only regret is that I am losing a number of HD channels but none that is a deal breaker it's just nice to have the choice. Hopefully Telus will narrow the gap over time.

[Chilly Water]

Thanks.
Have you had recording limitations with Telus? I had an install the other day and am having recording challenges. Does Telus limit recording on certain HD channels (Movie Channel, HBO etc)?

That would defeat the point, but I have my suspicion.

Thanks

[Dr.Dave]

Chilly Water, now that you have finished your comparison of providers, the best place to discuss Telus TV features is in the forum we have specifically for Telus TV.

To answer your question, I don't believe there is any restriction on recording any channels including Movie Central and HBO as long as you're a subscriber . If you are having a problem, you can try scheduling the recording directly on the PVR and see if that makes a difference. This thread may help.

[ghettoiam]

A quick observation.

I had Optik installed a few days ago. I still have my Shaw running side-by-side on a different input for comparison.

Optik is over HDMI
Shaw is over Component

- Optik appears to offer a slightly "softer" image than Shaw does. This is very evident on SD channels and is somewhat noticable on HD channels. Shaw seems to provide a slightly sharper image. (This is easily noticeable on edges of small static content like the tall edge of a "K" on a solid background. Shaw has a clean edge, Telus appears blurry).

- HD content on Shaw appears slightly sharper, but pixelates more frequently. Telus has a much smoother image all-around, but my eyes suspect its lacking the fidelity.

My suspicion:

Telus is streaming channels at a slightly sub-hd quality and upscaling them. I have no proof, but their appears to carry these hallmarks.

[57]

They don't do any upscaling, however, the bandwidth is not the same, hence the difference. Also, if you don't have the same connection type and a calibrated TV, the comparison is unfair.

I'm not sure about this, but I believe Telus also gets its signals from Bell, who change all the channels to 720P, for a softer picture.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76129

[ghettoiam]

I know Telus TV (the satellite version) was through Bell. I don't believe their IPTV offering (Optik) is from Bell.

One other note, my Shaw box has component which is supposedly inferior (though some same comparable) to HDMI. Even with the component hook-ups, the Shaw picture still looks better.

I'll post pictures of what I'm talking about, perhaps in a new thread.

[IanJames]

I just returned from Oakridge Mall in Vancouver and viewed what was supposed to be OPTIK TV.

Oh my it looked HORRIBLE. Pixilation in HD all over the place. I tuned in several different channels from Oprah to a live baseball game on WGN, all supposedly HD. YIKE!!

I couldn't believe that they were running their demo on a 27" crappy LG LCD TV. It's possible this was at least PART of the problem, but I'm not so sure.

!!CORRECTION: THE STORE HAD NOT UPGRADED TO OPTIK YET!!

I currently have BELL and it is very good. I'm not switching because of quality issues with Bell. I'm just trying to reduce my ENORMOUS media bill (phone and internet through SHAW, TV through Bell)

To my eyes SHAW HD is unacceptable. Not to mention their SD programming up to about channel 50 is embarrassing.

Does anyone have real-world experience with OPTIK v BELL yet? Is there a store in the lower mainland that has a large, high quality demo set up? Oh and I'm all ready sold on the any room PVR and I know the menus are sexy, so please only comment on PURE PICTURE QUALITY.

I'm worried I may have to pull the plug on the switchover.

Thanks in advance everyone!!

[ghostrider06]

I looked at the OPTIK mobile van display a couple weeks ago downtown Vancouver. They were tuned in to the worldcup in HD. I also thought it looked horrible. You could see all of the pixels and it isnt sharp pictue either I noticed. Istill prefer shaw HD qualit I think it is very good PQ. OPTIK is not impressive at all and is nothing but a gimmik to me.

[Hilman]

It is far from a gimmick, the features are amazing and my picture quality is better than I had with Shaw Direct.

[schizz]

I just want to second Hilman's experience. I had starchoice before and just switched 2 weeks ago and have nothing but a great experience. I still have starchoice set up and I switch back and forth and honestly if I could tell a difference between the two, I would say that telus is better....actually less pixelated...that was the most surprising thing for me...I was expecting worse quality but better features and more channels...and now I get all three. The best part....of course...is the 30$ per month I am saving while getting a better product and more channels.

[Dr.Dave]

ghostrider06, I saw some of the World Cup in a specialty video store and the HD picture was terrible (it wasn't Telus). The salesman thought the game was shot in PAL (European) format and then converted in real-time to American format.

We used other HD channels for the demo.