Future of Bell's PVR?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

OK - I'm a little confused and worried about the future of my new 5100 (pvr). Knock on wood, I've had no problems with my unit so far but I understand that its days may be numbered. I have been frequenting DBSforums.com (pvr discussion) and have the general impression that once the Dishnetwork / Directv merger occurs, the is a strong chance that the "buggy" technology of Echostar will be dumped in favour of the solid workings of Directv Tivo (despite security issues). The are reports on dbsforums.com that Echostar has admitted that the 5100 (501) has problems and that the 721 is nothing more than vapourware (waiting to see if the merger is approved before releasing something that may have to be scrapped). My question is, what happens to our 5100? Tivo does not support Canada so a swap out of 5100's with Tivo based technology will not work for Bell. Since Bell relies on Echostar for its technology (receivers), is the future of PVR in Canada in danger?

Sorry for the long post - I just love the PVR and would hate to lose it.

Thanks.

[Filthy]

I would think that if Echostar changed their receivers to DirectTV standards, thus making them not-compatible with Evu, then Evu would have to find another supplier of receivers or would have to change all their subs receivers (not just the 5100) with new receivers. Don't worry about anything, your 5100 will work with Evu for many many years!

[noelk]

I'd say the BEV 5100 will be supported until at least 2005. One big reason is because BCE has invested serious resources ($$$, reputation, investor confidence) in its 'ComboBox' - a significantly revamped E* 721 that will include a huge PVR and high-speed internet access. The ComboBox will be a test of BCE's convergence strategy - it's too close to completion for them to let it fail.

Noel

[hammer32]

I've read (tivocommunity forums) that IF the merger happens, and IF they decided to go with TiVo that the TiVo could be modified in software to use the Dish signal. It seems to me that there are only three things lacking then from making the DirecTiVo work with EVU, if Dish decides to go with it and use Dish software. The first is guide data, since Tribune (the source of guide data for stand alone TiVo's) now has Canadian listings this shouldn't be a problem, they would just have to modify the 'zip code' field in set-up to allow postal codes. DirecTiVo's get their guide data from the sat, so this would not be a problem for them. The second issue might be local numbers for the TiVo's to dial in to. I think a lot of Canadian cities have local UUB numbers (the service TiVo uses) so this might only be an issue for smaller towns (as it is in some smaller US towns, the user either has to suck up long distance charges, or there was once (maybe still is?) a 1-800 number for them to use). The final problem would be making the menu and show descriptions available in French. This would be trivial for the TiVo interface, but I'm not sure that show descriptions would be available (though maybe only the French channels would need this and maybe they already are in French?).

In all the articles I've read about possible hardware swithouts it seems that there would be no charge to the consumer, that receivers would be replaced with new ones 'on par' with what you had before (of course they decide what 'on par' is).

Does that cloud the issue any more /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[MikefromCanmore]

In the case of a Dish/DTV merger; the free equipment swapouts could be done due the savings that would result from elimination of duplicate transponders, back offices, etc. In the case of Expressvu, there would be only costs, no savings from hardware change.

Since Nagravision has put $1B into Echostar; I would bet that the DTV would go if the merger occurs. However, it also follows that at some point, the other system would have to be changed out for the same reason.

It should all be much clearer after the US gov't overview is complete. If you are wondering to spend money or not, you could always do what Sony & Philips are doing - spending no money until the decisions are finalized.