Shaw Gateway whole-home PVR

[WarDog]

Treat yourself and get an HDTV!

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by scherzo

They can already see the writing on the wall that everyone is going to on demand and they have to compete. Notice how your "cable" portion of your bill is getting cheaper but your data or internet part of your bill is slowly creeping up.

They are afraid of Apple TV and XBOX where you can get your content any time, any way you can. That is probably why Shaw bought Global TV. It gives them the opportunity to maybe be an exclusive provider of Global TV content in the future.

Maybe in 5-10 years we'll be saying --- "Remember the PVR? How archaic! We had to wait for weeks for an entire season! Now I just buy the show I want to watch and I watch it when I want, and where I want ... just like reading a book"

Someone's making money ... and it ain't me!

You're on the right track here, the big cable/phone providers have had it pretty easy for many years & they are fat. With any luck it won't take 5-10 years for them to smarten up, but I'm sure they've got a pile of money tucked away and as you mention, the large providers are buying up TV networks! It's a monopoly & a racket. The good old boys at the CRTC are finally starting to allow more competition, as shown by the opening up of wireless phone provider market.

I'm on Shaw but don't have a PVR, don't really need one. I've long had an issue with the fact that even the old Motorola HD box I have from them has a 1394 FireWire connection but they don't provide any info or support on how to use that because they'd rather sell you a bigger better HD box with hard drive PVR inside that will quickly become obsolete. With the 1394 and a cable you could hook any computer to the cable box and record shows same as a built in PVR. You need to do a bit of searching on the net or have the know how to do it though.

Anyhow, it's moot since I don't use the feature. There's really nothing to record with the basic digital service I subscribe to and I'm not getting nickel & dimed to death for each additonal 'package' or channel that I'm really interested in. 95% of what's offered on TV today I consider crap, reality shows & infomercials. I can't believe I'm paying the cable company to watch shows with advertising? When did that happen? I'm seriously contemplating cancelling the TV portion of my Shaw service entirely & simply watching over the air HDTV which is now available if you have a newer TV with built in tuner. Not many channels here in the Okanagan yet, but I think I could live with that + using one of the on demand services like Netflix. This way I can still watch the local news with the over-the-air, free by the way, and order the shows I want to watch for a few $$s a month. You folks in the larger cities, especially near the US border already have access to plenty of the same HD channels over the air for free that you're currently paying for with basic digital cable service.

I need to get a new TV first though & at the rate they keep coming up with new features like 3D, 120hz, motion activated command & new data formats such as MPEG4, it's hard to know when to pull the trigger.

And as you're happily spending the big $$s on new digital boxes for every room in your house that are MPEG4 compatible, rest assured there's already a newer format in the pipe that will require retooling in a few more years.

[monocus]

t v rots the brain.i never watch it anymore unless i have extreme ennui .if i want to watch anything i go on my computer ,type in primewire,and can watch anything i want-minus the comercials

[paddyob]

7 tvs? Wow. Must not miss anything. Lol. I'm glad my wife snd I can share one!

Aka... She won't let me put tv in all the bedrooms.

I love shaw cable. My 3yr old box is hdpvr and gets all channels. How old are the other ones?

Oh yea. My box was only 99.00. Not sure the hard drive size but I never miss anything.