TiVo Community Forums Archives - What's the best PVR in Canada?

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What's the best PVR in Canada?
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Posted by: pwsteele

My brother lives in Canada and so my raves about TiVo don't impress him too much. What's the best option for a PVR system in Canada? He's currently a digital cable customer and something that works with that of course would be preferable, but if there's a good dual tuner satellite PVR system available that just might convince him to switch.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Posted by: jones07

Look for:

The Bell 5800 PVR
The Personal Video Recorder (PVR)

$549.95
Take control of your TV with Bell ExpressVu's Personal Video Recorder - Pause and Instant replay live TV or record up to 55 hrs!

http://www.bell.ca

Posted by: Dajad

Well, since Bell ExpressVu's is the ONLY PVR available in Canada I'd have to say it is the best PVR in Canada ... assuming you subscribe to Bell ExpressVu (or want to).

I currently use my Series 1 TiVo with Rogers digital service and it works fine - but I am limited to manual recordings only ... that said, I'd use it over a VCR any day and it is only marginally less useful to me than the full TiVo service. But, it is more difficult to use in manual mode.

Make sure if you buy a used Series 1 to get one that shipped with version 1.3 or earlier on it ... or it won't work even in manual recording mode. Or buy a used Series 1 or Series 2 that is still subbed with a lifetime subscription. You obviously won't be able to use that subscription but at least it will record shows manually.

...Dale

Posted by: FatherTed

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
Well, since Bell ExpressVu's is the ONLY PVR available in Canada I'd have to say it is the best PVR in Canada ... assuming you subscribe to Bell ExpressVu (or want to).

Dang. You beat me to it.

Posted by: dr_mal

It's not easy, but a SA TiVo can be made to work in Canada. Completely. TiVo refuses to provide service, but you can roll your own. For obvious reasons, the methods aren't widely publicized here, but if you're willing to search, you should find what you need.

Posted by: Dajad

Yes, I've gone to the TiVo Yahoo Canada board to look it up but, my God, it appears that you need to be willing to put in hours of work each week in order to feed data into your TiVo ... sorry, but manual recording is good enough for me ... I don't have the time to massage & clean my own data weeks after week. I'm actually surprised anyone does that!

Now, if someone could offer that as a service that I could subscribe to in Canada ... that might get me interested.

...Dale

Posted by: Dajad

Another PVR-like option in Canada is to get a high end PC with the latest ATI Radion cards ... they will allow you to record and watch shows from your PC ... and you could plug a PC out to your TV ... but ATI's 'solution' does not provide for Season's passes, nor, surprisingly, does it allow you to even set up repeating manual seasons passes ... that allone makes it almost useless. But if you don't mind setting up your recordings over and over each week, you can get some PVR like functionality out of it with guide data for Canada.

...Dale

Posted by: dr_mal

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
Yes, I've gone to the TiVo Yahoo Canada board to look it up but, my God, it appears that you need to be willing to put in hours of work each week in order to feed data into your TiVo ... sorry, but manual recording is good enough for me ... I don't have the time to massage & clean my own data weeks after week. I'm actually surprised anyone does that!

Now, if someone could offer that as a service that I could subscribe to in Canada ... that might get me interested.

...Dale

I'll grant you that it's not entirely intuitive to set up. But ongoing maintenance is virtually nil (thanks to the magic of cron jobs or Windows Scheduler)

It's way too much effort for the negligible TiVo service fee available to those of us in the States, but it's definitely worth the trouble in areas that TiVo refuses to take subscribers' money.

Posted by: stace

WinTV PVR card is probably a good option in Canada if you don't have ExpressVu. I wonder if Windows XP Media edition works well there.

Posted by: Dajad

dr_mal, your post is news to me ... the last I had read I'd have to actively work at cleaning the data every week ... care to post a link to a description of how to set this up? If I could set it up and it would work forever after, I'd be willing to put in a Saturday to the chore ... but if I have to do that AND put in an hour or so of work week after week (heck, 10 minutes week after week) I wouldn't bother.

...Dale

Posted by: dr_mal

Sent you a PM.

Posted by: Attila

Could you post a link to a description of how to set this up, I would like to read into it a bit more too.

Posted by: sync

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
I currently use my Series 1 TiVo with Rogers digital service and it works fine - but I am limited to manual recordings only ... that said, I'd use it over a VCR any day and it is only marginally less useful to me than the full TiVo service. But, it is more difficult to use in manual mode.
...Dale

What do you do about the issue of clock drift?

How do you handle the initial setup?

Posted by: Dajad

Since my TiVo is subbed, I get my TiVo to call in every couple months to reset the clock. Regrettably since I only use a cell phone at home I have to bother my friendly neighbors to trapse over there with my TiVo to do this ... but it is working for now.

As for initial set-up ... there is a local Toronto call in number (that was a surprise to me) ... then just pick any digital cable system on the Eastern Sea board to make sure your clock will be right and that TiVo knows you can get LOTS of channels with three digits.

You'll have guide data that is WRONG for 11 days ... after that you are back to manual recording.

Unfortunately I can't get my TiVo to record Movie Channel 201 because this is a digital HBO station on the Buffalo cable network I said I was on and for some reason, even when there is no guide data, TiVo records channel 30 something which is the analogue Buffalo HBO station. I've done everything I can, including deselecting ALL my channel line up to stop this but no matter what I do TiVo keeps doing the old switcheroo ... I had a similar problem in San Francisco ... but, I can get movie Channels 202 to 205 to record and almost everything on Channel 201 comes on 202 to 205 at some point so, while a peeve, it isn't debilitating.

...Dale

Posted by: chris frolic

I've been using my subbed Tivo in Toronto for the last 2 years. I use a Buffalo Zip code (Anametrics Cable of Ameherst NY 14221) for a cable operator that shares many of the same channels as Toronto cable (including Canadian ones, cbc, ctv, global etc..). I remapped those shared channels with Tivoweb (and remapper module) and then manually record any channel I don't get.

I'm effectively paying for ~70% functionality but it's been a hassle free way of using the Tivo up here and hardly any hacking involved!

Posted by: highwire

quote:
Originally posted by pwsteele
My brother lives in Canada and so my raves about TiVo don't impress him too much. What's the best option for a PVR system in Canada? He's currently a digital cable customer and something that works with that of course would be preferable, but if there's a good dual tuner satellite PVR system available that just might convince him to switch.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Another option is to buy a standalone DVD recorder with hard drive, like the Pioneer DVR-510H-S. You can use the 80Gb as a simple PVR, and it also has the DVD recorder too, in case you want to use it.

I use mine like this:
1) Connect the output of my ExpressVu 4700 box to input 1 on the Pioneer.
2) I set up my ExpressVu model 4700 with timers of the programs I want to watch, and I leave it turned off, which kills the outgoing video signal. I use another ExpressVu box for real-time television viewing.
3) I set up the Pioneer so that when it detects a video signal on input 1, it automatically starts recording.
4) When the timer pops on the ExpressVu box, it turns on, and starts outputting a video signal; this causes the program to be recorder onto the Pioneer's hard drive.
5) If I want to keep the program, I enter a title for the program, which makes it easy to find the program later.

It's crude, but it works.

Posted by: Dajad

Thanks to Samo for pointing out that RCA may be making a cable-ready PVR available in Canada. See:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/show...threadid=324807

And the manual is here:

http://www.rca.com/documents/16166240_701853_25.pdf

...Dale