Question for you guys

mattshock wrote:You plug your tv in one end, internet in the other, and you can log in from anywhere and stream/control your tv over the internet.

CI Online is more expensive than regular CI I think, and I'd get all of my dad's regular programming.

Win/win.

ah ok... But so it's to watch TV on your computer right? or whatever portable device you have? yeah that's neat, but I don't really need that, I just want to be able to record everything! LOL

Man... the PVR changed my life. Seriously. This is one of the few devices that I would not be able to do without. Those of you with kids will be able to understand. First off, there's no way my wife and I have time to watch our TV shows live in "real time". The PVR grabs all our shows during the week and we watch them later when we can, ripping through the ads with ease. The only thing I watch live is sports as I can't seem to get up for watching a game after it's done unless it was a crazy game. Sometimes I'll start to watch a game 15-20 minutes after it's started and catch up by ripping through commercials along the way.

The PVR's built in feature of "recording everything your watching at the time" is sweet and let's you pause live TV and rewind back and check something out (ie: Janet Jackson's slip up at the Super Bowl half time show) provided it's still in the buffer.

If you don't have one, get one.

You can add more capacity to the Rogers PVRs by attaching an external SATA drive. This is good if everything you record is in HD as it does chew up a lot of space. A few HD movies, hockey games, a weeks worth of shows... and it adds up.

Yeah, it doesn't work on iPhones (jailbroken ones are ok), as it's not on the Apple Apps Store, and you need proprietary software to stream the feeds. I know my buddy has it working on his Nokia n95.

I move every four months, and don't have a tv, so the computer streaming works great for me.

shabbs wrote:Man... the PVR changed my life. Seriously. This is one of the few devices that I would not be able to do without. Those of you with kids will be able to understand. First off, there's no way my wife and I have time to watch our TV shows live in "real time". The PVR grabs all our shows during the week and we watch them later when we can, ripping through the ads with ease. The only thing I watch live is sports as I can't seem to get up for watching a game after it's done unless it was a crazy game. Sometimes I'll start to watch a game 15-20 minutes after it's started and catch up by ripping through commercials along the way.

The PVR's built in feature of "recording everything your watching at the time" is sweet and let's you pause live TV and rewind back and check something out (ie: Janet Jackson's slip up at the Super Bowl half time show) provided it's still in the buffer.

If you don't have one, get one.

You can add more capacity to the Rogers PVRs by attaching an external SATA drive. This is good if everything you record is in HD as it does chew up a lot of space. A few HD movies, hockey games, a weeks worth of shows... and it adds up.

Did you just get it straight through Rogers? I'm trying to find one, don't need HD as i don't have an HD TV yet... Do you know how much they go for??

First born is a fair price. They are as amazing as shabbs claims.

smash88 wrote:

shabbs wrote:Man... the PVR changed my life. Seriously. This is one of the few devices that I would not be able to do without. Those of you with kids will be able to understand. First off, there's no way my wife and I have time to watch our TV shows live in "real time". The PVR grabs all our shows during the week and we watch them later when we can, ripping through the ads with ease. The only thing I watch live is sports as I can't seem to get up for watching a game after it's done unless it was a crazy game. Sometimes I'll start to watch a game 15-20 minutes after it's started and catch up by ripping through commercials along the way.

The PVR's built in feature of "recording everything your watching at the time" is sweet and let's you pause live TV and rewind back and check something out (ie: Janet Jackson's slip up at the Super Bowl half time show) provided it's still in the buffer.

If you don't have one, get one.

You can add more capacity to the Rogers PVRs by attaching an external SATA drive. This is good if everything you record is in HD as it does chew up a lot of space. A few HD movies, hockey games, a weeks worth of shows... and it adds up.

Did you just get it straight through Rogers? I'm trying to find one, don't need HD as i don't have an HD TV yet... Do you know how much they go for??

I've got mine through Bell. The wife loves it because she can watch her shows after the kid goes to bed. Mine only cost 150 from Bell and its not HD.

Phoenix30 wrote:

smash88 wrote:

shabbs wrote:Man... the PVR changed my life. Seriously. This is one of the few devices that I would not be able to do without. Those of you with kids will be able to understand. First off, there's no way my wife and I have time to watch our TV shows live in "real time". The PVR grabs all our shows during the week and we watch them later when we can, ripping through the ads with ease. The only thing I watch live is sports as I can't seem to get up for watching a game after it's done unless it was a crazy game. Sometimes I'll start to watch a game 15-20 minutes after it's started and catch up by ripping through commercials along the way.

The PVR's built in feature of "recording everything your watching at the time" is sweet and let's you pause live TV and rewind back and check something out (ie: Janet Jackson's slip up at the Super Bowl half time show) provided it's still in the buffer.

If you don't have one, get one.

You can add more capacity to the Rogers PVRs by attaching an external SATA drive. This is good if everything you record is in HD as it does chew up a lot of space. A few HD movies, hockey games, a weeks worth of shows... and it adds up.

Did you just get it straight through Rogers? I'm trying to find one, don't need HD as i don't have an HD TV yet... Do you know how much they go for??

I've got mine through Bell. The wife loves it because she can watch her shows after the kid goes to bed. Mine only cost 150 from Bell and its not HD.

$150 is reasonable... Hopefully Rogers is around the same! Thanks!

smash88 wrote:Did you just get it straight through Rogers? I'm trying to find one, don't need HD as i don't have an HD TV yet... Do you know how much they go for??

I rent mine through Rogers. A few have had issues... when you rent, you can just swap it out. If you buy one, you need to send it back to get repaired etc...

I've had to replace my PVR three times in total so far so I don't mind renting and having the flexibility of swapping it out easily.

shabbs wrote:

smash88 wrote:Did you just get it straight through Rogers? I'm trying to find one, don't need HD as i don't have an HD TV yet... Do you know how much they go for??

I rent mine through Rogers. A few have had issues... when you rent, you can just swap it out. If you buy one, you need to send it back to get repaired etc...

I've had to replace my PVR three times in total so far so I don't mind renting and having the flexibility of swapping it out easily.

Do you know what the charge is per month??

mattshock wrote:First born is a fair price. They are as amazing as shabbs claims.

HA HA HA! So true. Life before the PVR was so dark and bleak...

smash88 wrote:Do you know what the charge is per month??

I think the HD PVR's base charge is $24.95/month. There are discounts for VIP members and bundling that bring it down.

shabbs wrote:

smash88 wrote:Do you know what the charge is per month??

I think the HD PVR's base charge is $24.95/month. There are discounts for VIP members and bundling that bring it down.

Sweet thanks.. I'll look into it...

smash88 wrote:

Phoenix30 wrote:

smash88 wrote:

shabbs wrote:Man... the PVR changed my life. Seriously. This is one of the few devices that I would not be able to do without. Those of you with kids will be able to understand. First off, there's no way my wife and I have time to watch our TV shows live in "real time". The PVR grabs all our shows during the week and we watch them later when we can, ripping through the ads with ease. The only thing I watch live is sports as I can't seem to get up for watching a game after it's done unless it was a crazy game. Sometimes I'll start to watch a game 15-20 minutes after it's started and catch up by ripping through commercials along the way.

The PVR's built in feature of "recording everything your watching at the time" is sweet and let's you pause live TV and rewind back and check something out (ie: Janet Jackson's slip up at the Super Bowl half time show) provided it's still in the buffer.

If you don't have one, get one.

You can add more capacity to the Rogers PVRs by attaching an external SATA drive. This is good if everything you record is in HD as it does chew up a lot of space. A few HD movies, hockey games, a weeks worth of shows... and it adds up.

Did you just get it straight through Rogers? I'm trying to find one, don't need HD as i don't have an HD TV yet... Do you know how much they go for??

I've got mine through Bell. The wife loves it because she can watch her shows after the kid goes to bed. Mine only cost 150 from Bell and its not HD.

$150 is reasonable... Hopefully Rogers is around the same! Thanks!

OH sorry, the 150 was an incentive for new members. My contract was expired and argued that rate should have been extended to exsisting members or I would take my business elsewhere. So after reviewing all the issues that were on file they extended the price. Now I have to get a Center Ice issue addressed. AHH gotta love bell.

smash88 wrote:
Sweet thanks.. I'll look into it...

Couple more things to consider:

1. If you are a Rogers customer already, you could try to weasel out a rent-free deal from BEV (and vice versa). Both periodically run 12 month deals. With a little pushing (and calling up the chain) you should be able to get 12 months anytime (even if no deal is currently being advertised) or even 24 months. Swap every 2 years to maximize the freebies.

2. While the PVR is an excellent idea, we're stuck with the current implementations, which are not perfect. I have only had first-hand experience with Rogers (8300-HD from Scientific Atlanta) and there are severl large annoyances. They are all s/w related, but I've been waiting 3 years and in that time there was one f/w update which did not address any of the top issues for customers. Off the top of my head:
- No way to pad weekly recordings (padding means adding a minute or few at the start or end to record the overruns; for recurring shows, it only pads what it can find in the Guide, which is limited to one week)
- No way to get rid of the smut titles in your EPG
- No way to filter out unsubscribed channels in your EPG (the page view; it correctly skips them when you are channel surfing via the one-line line at the bottom)
- Scheduled recordings are based on program title (including all add-ons like "(HD)" or "(5.1)"; I have 4 versions of Terminator now, since the program title has changed three times this season already
- No way to "bookmark" your location to start watching where you left off (here I was thinking I could erase up to the point where I stopped to keep the disk from filling up, they don't even do simple bookmarks)
- No way to skip to a specific time in a recording (have to FF from start or REW from end)

I know that the program name change only seeme to affect Rogers. They get their EPG data from TVGuide Canada, so it's partially at that end. It seems a simple s/w fix would do it, but I guess no-one seems to care.

As for the rest, I know from personal experience that BEV receivers let you filter out unsubscribed channells from your EPG, and I don't remember smut being so prevalent. Maybe BEV did a better job to segregate the adult programming from the rest? The PPV area is ridiculously interspersed on Rogers.

End rant. Check DigitalHome.ca for their forums on Rogers (subforum on the 8300) and BEV. There's a ton of info there.

wprager wrote:Couple more things to consider:

*snip*

Indeed. There are a lot of quirks you mentioned that can be annoying. In talking to my friends, I'd say the Bell PVR and Guide is much better and flexible than the Rogers equivalent.

The only other option is to roll your own PVR using an HTPC.

shabbs wrote:

wprager wrote:Couple more things to consider:

*snip*

Indeed. There are a lot of quirks you mentioned that can be annoying. In talking to my friends, I'd say the Bell PVR and Guide is much better and flexible than the Rogers equivalent.

The only other option is to roll your own PVR using an HTPC.

Easier said than done when using digital cable; pretty much impossible if you want high-def. As far as I know the only technology currently available for that would be CableCARD, but that's not being used by any MSO in Canada as far as I know (and it may not be in the US for much longer, what with Tru2Way being pushed by everyone).

wprager wrote:Easier said than done when using digital cable; pretty much impossible if you want high-def. As far as I know the only technology currently available for that would be CableCARD, but that's not being used by any MSO in Canada as far as I know (and it may not be in the US for much longer, what with Tru2Way being pushed by everyone).

You'd need to go OTA with a tuner card to get the HD.

shabbs wrote:

wprager wrote:Easier said than done when using digital cable; pretty much impossible if you want high-def. As far as I know the only technology currently available for that would be CableCARD, but that's not being used by any MSO in Canada as far as I know (and it may not be in the US for much longer, what with Tru2Way being pushed by everyone).

You'd need to go OTA with a tuner card to get the HD.

Well, I could tell from that answer (without looking at your profile) that you're not from the Ottawa area Not much OTA around these parts. Just CBC-HD at Camp Fortune and possibly a PBS-HD, with a tower, perhaps.