Whole Home PVR in Rogers Atlantic

[habskilla]

FibreOp better and best bundles include one PVR. Additional non-pvr set top boxes are $4.95. With Whole Home PVR, you'll only need one PVR.

[ve9arb]

I have thought of that idea and believe me if FiberOp was an option for me I think I would have jumped at it probably by now. However Bell-Aliant fiber is available in East Saint John and straight out Hickey Road but the APartment buildings I live in Aliant is not willing to install it unless more people want it. So i'm stuck either way, but I would have at least thought that Rogers might have had a buy back option for "their equipemnt" Seeing as I can not take my moto 6416's to any other provider in North America! A supervisor on the phone last night advised me that the rental boxes that i was renting flipped to cx owned didn't mean I invested in Rogers as he stated the $$$ went back to moto. Really???? I don't think so, Rogers wouldn't have leased boxes from moto to rent or sell, therefore the money I invested into Rogers went back to rogers. Still nothing I can do. But the great news is I am not on a contract and therefore could tell them I am leaving for Bell and see what happens next.

[737]

I am the only one who finds the name "Whole Home PVR" silly. Whatever happened to multi-room PVR?

[ve9arb]

It was my understanding that Shaw and Eastlink was using the 6416's for multi-room pvr but I guess Rogers didn't want to go that way. So unless I rent the new 3400 series boxes I am left in the cold. I will certenly not ever buy their equipment just for this reason. Oh well guess I'm beating a already dead topic for which nothing will be done about it anyway. Cheers Danster, I know this may be off topic and can post else where an answer, but anything new coming down the line in HD? I miss our card game lol.

[lajohn27]

You *can* sell your Rogers boxes to another Roger's customer via a local classifieds/selling site and make sure your Rogers account is paid up and authorize a hardware transition to the new owners....

Before you make any decisions about another provider -- do check the signal quality at an installed location. EVERY installation of FibreOP I've seen to date is soft/fuzzy -- they are compressing the HD channels way more than Rogers and on a full 1080 TV bigger than 32" .. it shows up plain as day for my eyes.

That's the ONLY reason I'm still with Rogers.

[woodsie]

I agree w/LaJohn on this one. Rogers has the best PQ by far here in NB and is also the only reason I keep them as my TV service. I do however have Bell Aliant's 15/15MB FibreOP Internet and LOVE it!

Here's my take on them as a new competitor to Rogers:

I believe that once their roll out is completed in the major centres and their new subscriptions start to plateau you'll likely see them start to turn down the compression. I think they are being better safe than sorry right now during the roll out period until they get a "whole picture" of the bandwidth use in the cores before they make any changes to the compression.

Anyhow, I'd stick with your 2 x 6416s for awhile unless its a real game breaker. Then shop around when things settle down. That's what I am going to do...

Cheers!

[JohnnyCanuck]

Originally Posted by ve9arb

It was my understanding that Shaw and Eastlink was using the 6416's for multi-room pvr but I guess Rogers didn't want to go that way.

Shaw is not using any Motorola hardware for multi-room. They are using Arris hardware (a stand-alone gateway and portals at each viewing location) for whole home viewing.

Shaw may enable MoCA on its Motorola hardware in the future, but not 6xxx series.

[Danster]

Well I have my own 6416 and won't replace them until they go poof or something. Too bad they can't be re-programmed to work like the whole home PVR. Oh well, at least they do what they are meant to do.

And no ve9, I haven't heard any news about new HD channels. Wondering why we even went SDV if it's not being used to expand our lineup. Maybe my little bird can tell me why...

[ve9arb]

Thanks Dan, I haven't been around for a while busier than a one leg man in a butt kicking contest. lol Anyway my 2 6416's work just fine and won't part with them either as you said they do the work they were intented to do just a shame I can't use them for the new service. Btw is there a hell-of difference with the new one vs what we have now other than the Whole home PVR? And what's up with SDV anyway? Wasn't that going to open the doors to more content, I know getting off topic. Sorry

[Danster]

Aside from doing whole house access, I don't think there are too many extra features. Like every box that we use, we are down graded as far as feature goes. Just think about the 30 sec skip feature we used to have.

As for SDV, nothing is being said or heard as far as I can tell so what is in our future except a new round of card playing in our favorite corner?

[lajohn27]

If I had my guess on the holdup on new channels in Atlantic it's probably something to do with bandwidth issues on whatever means (fibre?) they're using to route the channels from wherever to here.

Who knows.

34xx has a few guide options and a very obvious 'network info' option which .. when configured for WH-PVR, shows the main PVR unit and any other responding 700 boxes in the same home.. In terms of functionality, the FF and RW speeds seem slightly faster on the top end.. A little more responsive on channel changes and such.. that's about it.

[Danster]

Can you forward skip a program with these new boxes like we used to be able to with the 6408?

[lajohn27]

I can't but near as I can tell Dan - I can't program the remote for it .. as i was able to program the Atlas style remotes ... and that's the failover point. I've been meaning to get a more 'flexible' remote..

But then I'll see something else in my recorded programs and sit down to watch it.. And I forget.

I would dearly love to get that feature back. You've inspired me to dig into it.

[Danster]

My 6416 has been getting hit by 3 updates this week. Did your new machines get updated as well? I know my 2500 didn't get anything.

[flinstoner]

For anyone who's inquired with Rogers, or who has the new machines - how big is the hard drive? In ON they have 3 different options - up to a 500 GB drive. Also, any word if the HD space is expandable via external hard drives?

Thanks.