Fibe, Questions..

Thanks Rogue, I figured that was the idea for the combined channels. We will be getting Fibe on Saturday (fingers crossed).. kinda excited. Especially for the PVR since I'm kinda new to the whole live PVR thing. Plus, I only hear good things about the anglophone selection with Bell.. while Videotron's selection has been poor.

I have some more questions..
Does anyone know when we choose the 30 channels? Does it happen during installation or after?
Do we get a free preview of all the channels for 24 hours? (Like Videotron)

Finally, in regard to recorded shows. If I am watching a recorded show from the non-PVR receiver, is it streaming the content?.. if so, I'm assuming that its using my data space?

Thanks

No, the signal from the whole-home PVR is sent to the non-PVR decoder, and does not consume from your monthly Gb cap, if that is what you meant by 'data space'. As an aside, a recorded high quality HD show has a spectacular image on a secondary SD only TV...near magical circuitry!

Yes, that's exactly what I meant! Thanks for the answer. Great to know.. will save tons on my download cap since before, I would have to download or stream my shows that I missed. Now I can just record! Perfect.

Thanks, Pauline. This house at one time had Cogeco, then StarChoice, then Expressvu before we bought it 4 years ago. So, your experience is encouraging.

Rich

Vonage

Rich:

I think you had asked earlier in this thread about Vonage and Fibe TV/Fibe Internet. I also have vonage and am about to the get the Fibe service installed hear on the Hamilton Mountain

I spoke to the experts at Bell on their Internet Service and they assured me that Vonage will work without issue on Bell Fibe TV/Fibe Internet

Scooter62

Just to reassure those planning to use Vonage or other VoIP services along with Bell Fibe TV and Bell Internet, this combination works just fine. We've used a BYOD VoIP service for quite awhile, originally with Fibe 25 service, and now with the Fibe 16+/TV service. No issues at all.

Pauline

Thinking of making the switch but...

So we are thinking of making the switch to Fibe TV, we are currently on Bell ExpressVu on Hamilton Mountain. Originally we were going to wait it out for Shaw to roll out their EXO network and gateway boxes, but I have been getting the sense that the Fibe TV experience is a bit more polished as far as glitches and programming problems are concerned, but we don't want to have to subscribe to Fibe internet. Right now our internet is Shaw's BB100, so I have absolutely zero interest in being forced into signing up with a DSL service as well.

Now I've also been reading that apparently they recently started letting people sign up for Fibe TV with $0 internet, and I was wondering if anyone else on Hamilton Mountain has had to go through a similar experience with getting Fibe TV. It should be noted that we do have Bell Home Phone currently, we're actually ex-Fibe25 customers.

@QuantumFluxx, your exact location in southern Ontario shouldn't matter, as long as Fibe TV is available for your home. If you are having trouble ordering Fibe TV without Internet, try mentioning "Zero-rated" Internet, since that's the way Bell seem to refer to it.

Let us know in the FibeTV without Internet Add-on thread if you are successful or not.

Edit by 57. Please post comments/questions regarding the "Zero-Rate" Internet in the linked thread above to keep that topic separate. Thanks.

I have 4 separate questions:

1. I have read that the number of streams can impact your internet speed. If you are watching a pre-recorded program is this considered a stream which will impact internet speed?

2. I understand that the max. recording at one time is 2 HD and 2 SD stations. If you have 4 TVs and the appropriate number of TV boxes can you be recording 4 programs and watching 4 pre-recored shows at the same time?

3. Can you start watching from the start a program which is still recording?

4. We frequently record baseball games. On Expressview I can extent the recording time up to 90 minutes. Is this possible on Fibre TV?

TV picture quality - live and recorded

I'm considering switching from Videotron to Bell's Fibe package.

The only thing holding me back is Bell's picture quality on HDTV.

Can someone with hands-on experience with Videotron and Bell HDTV give me an assessment of image quality? Are the video streams highly compressed, is there blockiness or noise in the image? Are there a lot of video artifacts in high motion scenes? What about PVR-recorded shows?

I've been very pleased with the picture quality on Videotron HD. Channels like NBC are sharp with vivid colors, no visible compression artifacts. The same goes for recorded shows on the Cisco PVR which I assume doesn't recompress the streams.

Thanks.

Cacou -- I do not have Videotron experience but switched from Bell Satellite to Fibe TV one week ago.

I was very happy with Satellite. The main reason I switched was outages during storms and a lagging behind of HD content.

Where pixilation was not uncommon on occassion on Satellite, I have had no pixilation at all on Fibe. PQ is superb, and most people who have posted here who have had good quality installation technicians would agree, I think.

So far as I can tell, the quality on recorded shows is identical to the original.

Rich

Cacou

I switched to Fibe about 3 weeks ago from Videotron. I kept Videotron active for a few days so that I could do some comparisons.
The bottom line is that Videotron definitely has a better HD quality, and I noticed it right away. The differences vary from channel to channel, though. For example, I could not see differences when I was looking at Radio-Canada. But TVA is much softer on Fibe. I also suscribe to Golf Channel, which was really nice at Videotron. Not so on Fibe.

I was doing my tests on the same TV, on two identically calibrated HDMI inputs.

But for me, the benefits (Whole Home PVR, 50mbps, less $$) outweighed the loss in quality. I've heard rumors that in the near future Bell are supposed to reduce the compression for clients that are on FTTH like in Quebec City. I'm hoping this is true, 'cause sometimes the over-compression can become quite annoying.

How were you able to keep both services?

But it's true that there are some channels that look nicer on one service and others on the other service.. NBC hockey for example seems a little pixelated on Fibe, I didn't have much problem with that channel on Videotron.. so far, all other channels have been superior on Fibe for me.. (Just a personal opinion).. Even if I dont watch SD too much, SD looks great on Fibe... was nearly unwatchable on Videotron.

In terms of the complete package... Fibe wins for TV.. IMO. The only thing I dont like is there is a limit to TV viewing. We have 5 receivers here, a big household.. and when everyone goes to their seperate rooms near bed time.. TV viewing is a little problem if two are watching HD.

Gary,

To do my comparisons, I used a RJ-45 connection on the Fibe terminal while I kept the coax on my Videotron terminal. Does this answer your question?

I rarely watch SD, and I didn't do any direct SD comparisons between Bell and Videotron... but yes, I think SD looks better on Fibe.

Thanks Bestman, yep it does. Sorry if I seemed like a snob on that post!

I didn't know we could use an ethernet cable for that. I'm a noob when it comes to the deeper technology of these things.. Learning something new on this forum every day. Is signal better with the RJ45? It's nearly impossible for me to use that though, since all my receivers are far from the modem.

Is signal better with the RJ45?

Click to expand...

It's a digital signal, so as long as the bits are delivered the picture will look the same. If there was a problem with the cable connections and the bits can't be delivered, you would see dropouts and/or macro blocking.

Just had a question that I keep getting different answers from bell, Ill be switching over from videotron, ill be getting the free hd pvr and renting 3 hd receivers. its going to be ftth, what model receivers do they give in this type of situation? what did you guys get?

also, does anyone have any specs on the modems router capabilities? I currently have a linksys e3200 and want to compare.

A quick one for those already on Fibe TV ... does Fibe TV have free kids shows on demand ?

I'm on Videotron and I have a two year old little monster that absolutely loves Tchoupi & Doudou and she'd be sad to see it go as we switch.

Thanks !

skads_187;
If you get a Sagemcom, it's just as good as the e3200, it's missing the 5Ghz band, but spec for spec, it works great other than that. I have my e4200 configured as an access point to continue to use the 5Ghz, but it's router functions are disabled.

Alex007qc, there's quite a bit of on demand, but you need to subscribe to it, you'll see on page 3 of the programming guide, Family gets you Family on demand and Disney as well, although you need to subscribe to Disney, Treehouse, will also get you Treehouse on demand, YTV, gets YTV on demand.