[Boavista]

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

Thanks in advanced folks.

 

[Boavista]

go figure. Dont know where i read 4 box's max... some were on original specs.
Just read on their site "You can hook up to 6 TVs with Fibe TV. All consoles are HD ready and support HD programming"

Guess you can close this thread lol

 

[Boavista]

ok.. FYI DEFINITELY SWITCHING TO FIBE TV. They unlike bell tv offer the Portuguese channels! RTP, Globo and FPTV FOR $10a month! Rogers charges 25. Thank god i read their channel list. Fibe tv here i come!

 

[Boavista]

got the bell tv canceled in about 2 minutes after getting a hold of a csr. To order fibetv i spent about 2 hours on the phone. First CSR took a long time then i got disconnected. Second call went smooth and everything has been ordered. 2 Year contract, 5 terminals, 9 themes+ Movies, and the Portuguese package for 153.90 a month. That includes the fibe 6 internet. They ask so many darn questions! but they explained everything very thoroughly. The first 2 consoles are installed free, and i will be installing the other 3. Just curious as to how they hook up.. i know its through coax but is it to the modem or to the PVR?

My install is for Monday between 8-12. ill let everyone know how it goes and how good the picture is and that good stuff. Im quite excited been with bell tv for so long and ive always wanted the Portuguese channels but they were only on rogers until now.

 

[Boavista]

Yea. All the box locations run RG6. the house was build a few years ago. All the cables run into the Furnace room where my current bell fibe internet modem is.

The house has 2 Ethernet runs.. One to my main bedroom and one to the family room. Neither of those cat 6 cables have connections on the ends though.. wonder if bell will put the ends on for me?

Is there any advantage in running those two Box's via Ethernet instead of coax?

I'm in Scarborough. danforth and Victoria park area. I was told right away from the both CSR's that i was electable for the service.. but then they explain everything to you in detail about the service and you end up spending 2 hours on the phone lol.

None the less its all booked. Looking forward to my new fibe tv

 

[Boavista]

Hmmm i guess ill be sure to instruct the installer to make sure he installs a splitter so i can hook up all 5 boxs because bell will be doing 2 ill be doing the other 3

 

[Boavista]

well you said rogers installed new cable for you already.. so you should be fine. If not id assume bell will install new coax or install cat 5/6 cable as needed or else you wouldn't have tv lol

 

[Boavista]

My parents are currently paying about 100 bucks a month for rogers 2-35 and the portuguese package along with 2 digital box's. Im thinking of switching them to the new fibe tv also. Now heres my question.

They dont have internet.. but im seeing if i can save them a few bucks.

They currently have bell home phone..
so if i got them fibe tv..
Choice Package $62, Portuguese pack $15,The free PVR and 2 additional consoles ( total 3 box's) and the basic fibe internet so they can actually get the service all on a 3 year term.. What total price would i be looking at monthly?

Im really confused on the pricing for them seeing as they dont have/need internet but its needed for the service so im wondering how much the price will jump.

If i can get it to around 100 or just a litte bit under id be willing to switch them no problem. I asked bell but all the CSR people r so confused on the new service. Thanks in advanced!

 

[Boavista]

there around Gerrard and greenwood. I ordered last night. got the starter plus pack.. $48 +15 for the portuguese. So 63 for tv + 31.95 for internet= 94.95 plus modem rental fee, before tax. $115.15 after tax. not bad Kind of hoped it would be less. I asked if i could buy the modem instead of rent and the CSR said no. i dont know if im going to go through with the install . With Rogers cable and bell home phone they pay $105 for cable and $65 for the phone making a total of 171.XX after tax. For the fibe tv ( with internet) and home phone they will pay 172.XX after tax.

Yea their getting internet with the fibe.. but my parents are old.. they dont have computers. The only advantage i can see with paying the extra few bucks for the fibe would be Their getting 3 Set top box's instead of only 2.. and the 32" LCD i got them for xmas will finally get an hd set top box.

Besides that technically they are paying more with bell ( their also getting more).

 

[Boavista]

hmm well im currently on the phone with bell.. idiots changed My own appointment date ( Not my parents)to Wednesday. i was told Monday and i booked the day off work so i can be home to have it installed. currently on hold.. some ones going to get an ear full. Gotta love bell!

 

[Boavista]

well being transferred to 7 different departments, Yelled at 2 people who gave me attitude.. and i finally got a hold of someone at fibe tv who knows what their stuff! . Gave me a $20 credit but i have to keep the Wednesday install date because the Monday was all booked.

What a head ache.. hope this is all worth it.

 

[Boavista]

Well got my fibe tv installed today
Install time was about 2.5 hours beginning to end. 2 was two installers.. they were EXTREMELY NICE! Wish they could all be like that. they went the extra mile for me and even did little extras that they had no obligation to do. I had some Cat 5 cable going from my Bedroom to the Main control room where i have all the Coax running to and he Installed a cat 5 jack on both ends so i can actually use the cable. He also replaced a cable i had on the kitchen TV because it was short.. he took it out, cut a proper sized one and cleanly installed it along the baseboard.
Words cant express how awesome these 2 guys where.

Now for fibe tv-
Picture is awesome. No doubt about it. Definitely better then Bell Satellite and Rogers. Virtually NO macro blocking. I'm definitely impressed. Now comes the part where im disappointed..

Whole reason of leaving Expressvu and going to fibe was that fibe carries the Portuguese channels. Well after getting the service setup n channel scrolling i noticed i was only getting 2/3 Portuguese channels. So i called up bell and much to my discontent i was told by 2 CSR's that they Are going to carry the channel, HOWEVER it is not Available yet! Like come on bell WTF.. how can they advertise a channel and even give the pricing for it on their site and even advertise the channel number, even in their programming brochures but not actually have the channel?! Like come on.. That really pissed me off. Hopefully it comes soon if not then it totally defeated the purpose of me switching to fibe.

More to come in about a week or two when i have more time to play around with the service.

 

[Boavista]

Did some playing around just now. I decided to Start recording 1 HD show on the pvr, While watching another HD Show on the same tv.. i then went down the the kitchen and turned onto another HD channel. ( total 3 HD streams running at once) It worked I then went and turned on another tv and put it on another hd channel. It did work but with heavy freezing (Only freezing on the 3rd tv that was using the 4th hd stream other tvs were still showing fine)all while my wife was watching an SD channel in another room. ( didnt freeze on that tv at all).

So looks like Depending on the bit rate of the channel you can Record an HD stream while watching 2 other HD channels + 1 SD channel.

I know Uverse recently updated there stream that allows i think 3 HD/ 2 SD at once.. so this proves that it can be done on bell to.

For the record when doing this "test" all the streams were on DIFFERENT channels. If you try it on the same channel the bandwidth usage is the same because its just using 1 stream and showing it on the various tv's.

 

[Boavista]

FYI.. heres my speedtest with all the tv's off.

 

[Boavista]

I was Watching a movie i ordered on VOD ( HD stream) and i was also recording Cake boss on TLC HD. I went over to the pc and watching 1 HD stream 1 SD stream and recording another HD stream heres my internet bandwidth...

Not bad

 

[Boavista]

so far so good. No complaints with the service. Called today to pick my programming ( have until sept.11). To my surprise i actually received an email from someone higher up at bell fibe tv explaining to me about the situation with the Portuguese Channel FPTV that they advertise but don't have yet. she explained to me in an email that their just working out the legalities of their agreement and the channel will launch on bell on either September 15 or 16. pretty cool to actually get an answer from bell on something for once!

 

[Boavista]

Well a few updates on my experiences. Internet is still great. on the tv side Still No FPTV ( portuguese) as well as no HDNet, and today i learned Sportsnet1 was added to bell tv.. however not to fibe tv.

Really upsetting. seams everytime i change services ( Cable, to Expressvu, to fibe) i always get to the provider when they get into the groove of NOT adding new channels. Great..

Also i changed my pvr from Coax to Cat5 and i notice none of the other units can see the pvr anymore.. I tried resetting the pvr but it changed nothing. Found that odd.

 

[Boavista]

@Almadacr- RTPi is the channel thats available via FTA. That channel as well as the brazilian channel is already available on fibe tv as i get both of them via fibe tv. The problem is they advertise FpTV witch is a toronto local portuguese channel but they dont carry the darn channel yet. Talk about false advertising.

 

[Boavista]

Not totally true.. with my messing around like i said depending on how many mbps you connection is.. i was able to watch 2 HD shows, Record 1 HD show and watch one SD show all at once.

 

[Boavista]

Noticed some changes today..

The Aquarium channel is now gone.. and i noticed they added the weather network under applications. Weather net app works almost identical to how it used to work on bell tv satellite when they had the Interactive weather channel