apeman.org » PVR

Don’t over pay for an HDMI cable

apeman — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:17:26 +0000

The Mint.com blog offers up a great info-graphic explaining why you don’t need that $250 monster cable to go with that PS3 and HDTV. Its succinct and to the point, and if you have recently purchased an expensive cable, you need to take it back and buy the cheapest HDMI cable that you can find.

Budget Planner – Mint.com

CRTC allows Canadian broadcasters to show unlimited commercials

apeman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:30:28 +0000

Hot on the heels of the 1.5% tax that consumers will have to pay to the Local Programming Improvement Fund, and fee for carriage that is sure to see our Cable and Satellite bills ballon even further, the CRTC has stuck it to the consumer once again. Effective September 1st, Canadian broadcasters are now allowed to air as many commercials as they want, previously, broadcasters were limited to 15 minutes per hour of advertising. I have a feeling that this slipped past the media as two of the Canadian broadcasters, Global and CTV own the newspaper and TV news outlets.

So as a consumer what are you paying for when you support your local station? Not much, your going to have to pay to recieve those signals into your home, saving the broadcasters from having to build out more broadcast towers, and since you are paying for it, you will be force fed as many commercials as they feel like giving you. That means we’ll likely see the typical 90 minute movie cut down to one hour and slotted into a two hour time slot.

Its time for Canadian consumers to stand up and write the CRTC asking them to allow us to pick and choose which stations we want! I don’t want to pay for Global, or CTV if they are going to force me to hit fast-forward on my DVR more than I already do. I’m tempted to dump my cable service entirely! As consumers we are paying more and more every month for less and less service.

ExpressVu 9200 Firmware V222 is out

apeman — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:27:57 +0000

Today I noticed that my ExpressVu 9200 PVR now has software version V222. Changes besides updating to the new “Bell” logo include:

HD logo on items in the PVR list.
Grouping feature to group episodes of the same show together in the PVR window
HD subtext on the HD channels in the Guide.
Pressing the “Guide” button will now cycle through “All Sub”, “All Channels”, and “All HD”.

I’m sure that I have missed something here, so if you find something that I have missed, please leave a comment and I will update the list.

If you are noticing any bugs that have cropped up with the new firmware, try rebooting your receiever to see if it helps, as this will load the new fimware. If you are still having problems, please post a comment below and I will do my best to help.