My Observations and Experience on FibeTV

[Tracker748]

I have had FIBE TV installed now for about 10 days.
I got the bundle Phone, Internet, FIBE.
They sent me an email the same day with all the details of what I ordered and when the service would be installed.
An email reminder came a couple of days before the installation.
The installer came on time and called about 20 minutes ahead to let us know he was on the way.

I have 3 TVs and previously used Rogers Cable. He was able to use the existing coax cable to setup the whole network.
The installation was smooth and took about 3 hours including installing a new interconnect box on the outside of the house, setting up my internet service and demonstrating how to program the Set Top Boxes and PVR.
He was able to isolate one pair of wires to feed the modem/connection hub leaving the rest of the house phones on a separate pair.
The whole home PVR is a dream to use and the HD picture quality is excellent!
As well, the SD picture quality for me is superior to what I had from Rogers anytime.
I have had no sound or pictures problems so far.
The internet speed is great.
Overall, the installation, performance, and Bell service get top marks.

[SunnySide]

I have had Fibe TV installed for about a month now and I love it but the only negative thing I have to say about the functionality is the channel guide customization that I don't find very practical. Here's an example.

Maybe I am missing something but the only way to block a channel is to go in the channel customization guide, scroll down to the channel and block it. The problem is if I am blocking a channel in the 1500's for example I have to scroll down almost 500 channels everytime to block it. This can get quite annoying when you have to do this a few times a day. I would have no issues with this if the scroll was fast but it takes forever to scroll down the list, it's so slow compared to what I had before..painfull! After to unlock the channel it is a piece of cake, while watching tv you can go on the channel itself and just enter a code to unlock it..super easy and quick! Why couldn't they have done it so when I am watching a certain channel I just have the option to block it right then and there. If there is a quicker and better way to this please someone enlighten me!

[Dr.Dave]

You can hold the "Channel Down" button down to skip pages in the channel list.

It's probably easier to customize the channels all at once - remove the ones you haven't subscribed to and the others you aren't interested in.

[SunnySide]

My channels are already customized, I just want to remove one of them when for when kids are around

[John769]

Oh... Just go Menu - Settings - Parental Controls and carry on from there.

[SunnySide]

The thing is with parental control it blocks all the channels with any adult content, but I only wish to block one specific channel that has x-rated adult content.

[John769]

The first option under Parental Controls is Parental Locking.

When you select Parental Locking, you are asked to enter your PIN

After you enter your PIN the first option is to select the CHANNELS you want locked...

If you haven't created a PIN, you get that option first...

[naysmitj]

Bell Fibe just became available in my area of Burlington Ontario. I live in a condo and could only have Cogeco up to now.
Ordered it last Friday and had it installed on both tvs yesterday.
Nothing but good things to day about the installers. Two guys who were extremely neat and took 3 hours to do a great install while I was at work a couple kilometers away. They set everything up including remotes matched to my tvs.
The picture quality is exceptional compared to Cogeco and there is a much greater channel selection available.
I already had a bell phone and so installed Fibe TV and interenet access replacing Cogeco.
Looks like about a $50.00 savings with more features and much better quality picture.
Cheers

[PhuFighter]

How did they do the install? Was it surface mount boxes? Did they run the cables behind the walls?

[naysmitj]

Our condo is new so they just used the exisiting phone line which is close to where our main tv is and then used the existing cable in the condo to connect the other tv.

[naysmitj]

As we just had this installed we are just getting used to the system. This morning we tried to access programs that are recorded on our main unit in the family room via the unit in the tv room.
None of the recorded programs showed up.
Is there a way to access the programs from both units, or are each independent?
Thanks

[betterthancable]

Restart your receivers so that they can sync up. You should then see the recordings on all of your boxes

[ratovan]

Ok, so it's one week later and I'm so glad I installed Fibe. The look and feel of the boxes is so much better than what I had with Videotron. The guide descriptions are meaningful, the search works really well, the text is easy to read(even on my SD 27" set). I really like the preview window when channel surfing via the banner. For those that complain that thy want to eliminate the channels you don't subscribe to, I get your point, but for me it's a non issue. The only reason I would want to remove them is so not to see a show that I can't actually watch. However, when surfing this way it is eat to know quickly if I subscribe or not. No preview, then I don't subscribe and on to the next channel.

Full disclosure here: I have had one major problem. On Monday I could no longer playback recordings that weren't from that day. Whenever I selected a recording from a previous day, the main pvr would reboot, even if I was using a remote box. I called support and was quickly escalated to someone who actually seemed to want to fix the problem. We tried a few things, but in the end he asked me to perform a procedure on each box that seemed to have the boxes reload the firmware. After doing this the problem went away and it's been rock solid ever since.

Bell installed one 2262 and 3 1200s. We have 50+ recordings, mostly in HD, and have used about 14% of the space.

We typically have 3 of the 4 tvs on at night watching HD and so far haven't had any messages about too many streams in use etc.

[zuker]

I had Fibe TV installed in Ajax about 2.5 weeks ago. So far I am mostly pleased with the service (after some initial problems getting my PVR functionality working). However, I am getting occasional freezing and pixilation. It doesn't happen all of the time. Sometimes I can watch TV all night and not have a problem, while at other times it can happen quite often. It is never to the point of being unwatchable, but it can get quite annoying. The freezing usually only lasts about a second.

I'm wondering if it is worthwhile calling technical support about this. Are they likely to send a guy out to look at it? If they do, he could sit here for quite a while watching TV and never see it because it is very random and sometimes is infrequent. I'd rather not waste half a day waiting for him and then not get the problem solved because he couldn't see anything.

Does anyone know what is likely to be causing this? Would it be the line coming into my house, or the modem/PVR/STB? I have a Sagemcom modem a VIP 2262 and a VIP 1200 connected via ethernet cables.

[MyMedia08]

Originally Posted by skel1973

So I finally got FIBETV installed, up and running.

Let me say this:

FIBETV blows Rogers out of the water in every way. I love this service. Here are my general impressions:

• The GUI looks like it was designed in the year 2011, not 1987 like Rogers.
• The menu is in HD, full screen, unlike Rogers.
• The navigation is way snappier than Rogers was. I had the best Rogers could offer, the $600 500GB PVR. It is a piece of crap compared to this, laggy and unintuitive.
• This just works. The user interface is intuitive, as is the button placement on the remote. This helps create a more relaxing, enjoyable, end-to-end experience.
• The menu, as well as looking slick, is very intuitive to use. It's easy to locate and record shows. It's fast.
• Whole Home PVR works and is amazing. I have access to all the shows I record from each terminal. I can watch anywhere, resume somewhere else.
• On-Demand - the On Demand service is much more elegantly designed than on Rogers, and loads quickly. (On Rogers it was so glitchy, you could sit there waiting for ages for something to load on the crappy menu only to have the whole hardware crash and require a force reboot)
• I have Facebook on this and it works well but I don't really use it. An avid Facebook user might enjoy it.
• I am paying $135/mnth compared to $210/mnth with Rogers for TV and internet.
• I am getting better download and upload speeds with this service than I was with Rogers' 'faster' ultra-high-speed service.
• Customer service - as frustrating as my installation process was, every time I called I got a human on the line quickly, and everyone was pretty on-the-ball trying to help. Every interaction I have had with Rogers customer service was absolutely infuriating, right down to the final interaction - returning a cable box. Every single time, calling Rogers would end up making my blood boil - glitches, problems, requests not recorded or processed correctly in the file.

Rogers must be freaking out because anyone who actually sees/uses this service would never choose Rogers over it.

I've seen their ads warning that FIBE works over telephone cable. Guess what? Who gives a crap what the cable looks like - it's all about performance, reliability, and user experience. This tech is state-of-the-art compared to Rogers – it is light-years ahead of what Rogers is offering.

I am very glad I made the switch.

If anyone has a question feel free to ask here, and I'll be glad to respond.

Your bullets describing Rogers are right on the money and quite entertaining!

Been with Rogers forever, own 3 boxes, but have lost all patience with them for the reasons you describe. Going through hell again upgrading my PVR. Even got it for free , but no joy. Its enough. I am about to pull the plug for a Bell Internet. FibeTV nd Phone package.

Reading through these posts and others, I recognize no service is perfect, but would appreciaate some 'reassurances' on the following:

Internet speed
Whats the real deal with loss of internet speed given the shairing of Internet and Fibe TV. Is this negative hype or a legit issue? Is this an issue at all times? just when recording? never?

I have two phone lines in the house - does this issue go away with Internet on one line and Fibe TV on the other (or do both services in fact need to share one line?

SD Channel Quality
Seen a few posts of user complaint of really poor quality on the SD channels. Some say they are fine. Is this only in certain areas? Hit and miss issue?

I am in the Thornhill area.