New ExpressVu 9 Day Guide

ExpressVu Logo The biggest complaint about the Bell ExpressVu PVR models was finally addressed today, all Bell ExpressVu receivers should now be capable of a 9 day program guide. I can’t confirm if this is the case for other reciever models first hand, but early reports and email tips show that this is the case.

The limitation of a 40 hour guide was by far the largest complaint of ExpressVu 9200 HD PVR owners, and owners of Bell’s earlier PVR models. ExpressVu had been quietly updating the firmware of their receivers over the summer, and just flipped the 9 day guide switch sometime today.

With the addition of the 9 day guide comes 9200 firmware version 150. I have not noticed any new enhancements other than the longer guide, but the extra days of information will be really useful for planning PVR recording timers.

Also, with the start of the fall TV season, Bell ExpressVu has discontinued Bell TV Magazine, replacing it with the new SHOW magazine. The new format is a welcome change, and likely tied to the conversion to a 9-day guide. The old magazine, which was a useless paper schedule has been replaced with a very readable useful magazine. SHOW magazine will launch their new website on September 1st.

Not the kind of news that we normally look forward to (new HD channels) but its a a win-win for ExpressVu customers, considering that after two years we did not expect to see a 9 day guide until MPEG-4 gets launched.

If you have noticed any new features with your ExpressVu 9200, please leave a comment below. If you do not see the 9 day guide yet, please power cycle your ExpressVu receiver to download and/or activate the new firmware.

Submit Article :- BlinkList + Blogmarks + Digg + Del.icio.us + Ekstreme Socializer + Feedmarker + Furl + Google Bookmarks + ma.gnolia + Netvouz + RawSugar + Reddit + Scuttle + Shadows + Simpy + Spurl + Technorati + Unalog + Wink

Posted in: 9200, 9220, HDTV, PVR, expressvu, home theatre, news, tech

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 7:31 pm and is filed under 9200, 9220, HDTV, PVR, expressvu, home theatre, news, tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “New ExpressVu 9 Day Guide”

Phil September 3rd, 2007 at 12:07 pm

Hi!

I’ve owned a 9200 since April ‘07, and was dissapointed about the v150 update.

Since installing a directional HD OTA antenna along with my satellite dish, I’ve benefited from pulling down some Canadian non HD broadcast channels (which I read the CBC is purposfully delaying conversion to HD, as a means of cranking up political pressure for more funding or changing from a “free to all Canadians” to a paying basis). No timetable has even been set for introducing HD “across Canada”.

I have also been able to pick up 6~10 FREE HD channels from Detroit, including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox…So I don’t bother with BEV’s HD subscription package.

When I connect the OTA antennae to my PVR’s Antenna input, I only get to manually record suberb HD content (OTA signal is uncompressed, sharper than BEV’s and most stations are full 1080)…

It seems that BEV’s 9200 PVR choses to ignore OTA HD programming info other than the channel identification, dropping the event’s name and other schedule info (start and stop time). This means you can’t program HD events automatically, only by manually starting and either stopping manually or letting the recording run 12 hours…

When the OTA antenna is connected directly to my TV, the guide info appears with all details…
So this is BEV’s way of trying to discourage subscribers from recording non-BEV HD programming, and keeping as many full paying HD subscribers as possible.

Shouldn’t BEV focus on offering the best all around product (making it a hit with it’s customers) instead of this short termed approach?

Phil

James September 23rd, 2007 at 4:50 pm

I’ve noticed that with this update some of the regular channels (non HD) have better image quality on my 1080i samsung hd tv. The only outstanding feature they are missing is the USB / external HDD capability!

Maxime Laplante September 28th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

2 things:

1. i don’t get audio via hdmi, only optical. is it normal ?

2. usb port for external storage still not activated ?

apeman September 29th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

@Phil - I can’t comment on the OTA issue since I have not used it, but I would agree with you that not having NBR for OTA recording would suck. I can see Bell’s side of the issue, and they do not control the guide data for OTA, so it would be hard for them to work out the logic needed to enable OTA NBR recording, and it would vary from city to city, channel to channel.

apeman September 29th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

@james -
I havn’t noticed a difference in 1080i image quality, but I have not been watching much TV lately. Although now that the fall season has started, I’ll have to keep an eye out. I agree, its too bad we do not have the external USB port yet!

apeman September 29th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

@Maxine

1. It is NOT normal to only get video via the HDMI port, you should definately get audo and video. I would make Bell aware of this after you have tried changing a few settings on the PVR and on your Television set.

2. The USB port has not been activated yet. Still no word from Bell ExpressVu when they plan to activate the port, if ever. I know that with more shows going HD this year we are going to be short on drive space with only 24hrs of HD capacity.

Maxime Laplante October 7th, 2007 at 8:17 am

@apeman

I don’t understand the hdmi audio problem.

My amplifier is an Harmon Kardon AVR247 and my ps3 is connected to it via hdmi and i receive audio and video on a single cable.

My 9200 receiver is connected the same way with identical hdmi cable and i don’t receive sound via hdmi, i have to set my amplifier to optical.

The only settings i see in the bell receiver is PCM/BitStream and rf/linein
I tried lot of different configurations without success.

Does somebody that receive audio AND video via HDMI on a 9200 bell expressvu receiver may help me or tell me his settings ?

Thanks.

apeman.org