[Dr.Dave]

New!!! My Picks on MTS Ultimate TV - Channel 1017.

My Picks will allow you to create and save up to five unique My Picks for $1.99 a month.
For each My Pick you can select:

• Layout
• Channels to included in your My Pick and
• Channel Order

My Picks is available as a free preview from September 1 to December 8, 2010.

Go to www.mts.ca/ultimatetv/picks for details.

 

[Dr.Dave]

My Picks Options

You can have up to 5 named "My Picks" and each pick can contain up to 30 channels arranged in the order you choose. Once a pick is created, it can be used on any STB in the home.

Layout Options:

• Catalogue - 6 channels in a 3x2 grid.
• Viewer Layout - 1 main channel and a choice of 3, 4 or 5 channels on the right side.
• Full Screen with a movable PIP.

You can change the name, the channels or rearrange the order, but you can't change the layout of an individual "My Pick".

 

[Dr.Dave]

Ultimate Picks - Channel 1016

Ultimate Picks allows a viewer to keep track of up to six (6) channels at one time on one screen. Channel selection and channel order is pre-determined by MTS.

The predefined picks are Kids, Sports, HD, Movies and Premium Movies.

This appears to be a free version of the "My Picks" feature (which can't be customized.

 

[hugh]

Ultimate Picks lets television viewers watch up to six channels from a predetermined number of popular channels while My Picks allows customers to customize up to five of their own picks.

Ultimate Picks (Channel 1016) and My Picks (Channel 1017) launched today and are available to MTS Ultimate TV Customers.

Ultimate Picks will be available a no additional charge. My Picks will cost $1.99 per month after a free 90 day previe.

 

[SomeRandomGuy]

OK this is actually pretty cool. I created my own pick for News, with the 4 PIPs along the side with 8 or the news channels in it. It was pretty easy to do, once I figured out you highlight the arrows to move to the next step. It works really well.

The Picture in Picture is also very cool. (only seems to work with the template that has only PIPs on the screen). Would be nice if the PIP swapped, but still very usable. Again pretty intuitive controls, but if you need help press the "A" button to get help.

 

[Dr.Dave]

I'm very impressed with the MTS app developers, though I wish they had included a News pick in the Ultimate Picks. This beats anything else I've seen.

I noticed that the catalogue option also gives you a movable PIP when you go full screen. You can go back to the grid by pressing the back button

 

[CoryB]

One thing I noticed with the Ultimate Picks is if you do not subscribe to the channel you get a black box in its place, which makes sense.

So if you do not have Movie Central/Super Channel the entire Premium list on Ultimate picks will be blank.

 

[Dr.Dave]

Here are a few tips I found while playing with this yesterday:

• In the viewer layout, press RECORD to record the main window.
• In the catalogue layout, press RECORD on any channel in the grid to record that channel.
• If you're using My Picks on the TV connected to the PVR, you can control the playback - PAUSE, PLAY, FF, REW, REPLAY and SKIP.
• On the PVR you can watch a channel that is recording, switch away from the channel, switch back and REWIND to where you left off.

 

[Vader]

Don't see 1016 or 1017 in my guide anywhere (and yes I reviewed all channels and not just my saved guide)... is this being rolled out to separate areas of the city?

 

[SomeRandomGuy]

Vader,

try resetting you set top box, If I remember correctly, go to the menu then settings then reset set top.

 

[Vader]

Thanks, I did a reset by holding down the power button and that worked, everything shows up now. Interesting that I did not have to do that for the slave boxes in the house, 1016 and 1017 showed up without me having to do anything.

 

[Viper550]

Its a cute feature, while I hope SaskTel's Mediaroom rollout will have mosaics like this, I don't think it would be worth paying for such a basic feature.

 

[Dr.Dave]

@Vader, I didn't have to reboot at all - the feature was there even before the press release came out.

@Viper550, the basic feature is free - MTS calls it Ultimate Picks. The fully customizable feature is the one that costs extra. I find the extra cost annoying and I haven't decided if I will subscribe to it after the preview.

On the other hand, it's a feature that none of the competition has. All of the mosaic management doesn't detract from the number of channels you can record.

 

[Dr.Dave]

My Picks will be FREE

I noticed MTS changed their site and while I was browsing I saw this:

My Picks - now included when you subscribe to MTS Ultimate TV.

I'm glad MTS decided to rethink their plan to charge for this feature. I've set up a "news" pick with all my news-related channels so I can easily monitor them. I use it occasionally, but not enough to justify paying for it.