View Full Version : Star Choice and their lack services
I am for two years now and the service has been all right, but it hasn't been great. At every turn in the road Star Choice has been out shined by its rich cousin Bell Expressvu. First of all I have been dissapointed with Star Choice's lack bring anything to the table in terms of new recievers, meanwhile bellsubs have been ranting and raving on their new gizmo's and gadgets ie. PVR's and 3100's with interactive ability. Secondly I have been really disapointed with their lack of programing. I though the whole idea of getting a new satellite was to be able to deliver more channels and features, but by my calculations Bell with their 1 satellite and 31 transponders(32 minus 1 for Direct PC) has out-performed Star Choice with their 2 satellites and 36.5 transponders(30 on F1 and 6 west and 7 east on E2). I have also noticed that *choice could add about 50-60 channels(2-5 pr transponder) before they reach the transponder saturation point that bell currently has. I would personally like to see some of that space go to PPV sports offering such as NHL Centre Ice and NFL sunday Ticket as well as the channels they neglected to pick up last fall. In my humble opinion Star Choice has fallen behind Bell in more ways then just subs.
If someone gave me the option to jump ship for Bell with a dish and reciever(s), I would do it in a second. I remember before F1 when everyone had high hopes about all the possibilities they lay ahead for Star Choice anyone would have invisioned this.
I obtained all my info from lyngsat.
Anybody please correct me if am wrong on any of my information.
Post deleted by Aspencade
Arthur
03-28-2002, 9:04 AM
"And therein lies a key. This is science... the more channels, the higher the compression, the lower the picture quality.
Thanks, but I'll take picture quality over 200 PPV channels any day."
I agree, the less channels per tp the better.
"Oh ya.. as well, most Star Choice receivers can be interactive capable as well. Watch for some Open TV applications coming down the pipe."
how many carrots can be dangled on the end of a stick before the string breaks? /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
tomcat
03-28-2002, 10:58 AM
I have to agree with JRB, I would move to Bev in a heartbeat if an even swap of my two receivers were to take effect because of options like CI. JMHO.
Other than weather reports ....what other interactive features are they raving about on the 3100 ??? Have they added the kiddie games yet ?
jconnor
03-28-2002, 12:32 PM
To the original point BEV has a pretty good record on delivering on promises. *C customers are still waiting for the PVR that they were advertising in 2000.
I've been enjoying my 5100 for seven months now and it still amazes me how cool it is.
jconnor
03-28-2002, 12:33 PM
>Thanks, but I'll take picture quality over 200 PPV channels any day
Do I have access to 200 PPV channels? Where are they?
**DONOTDELETE**
03-28-2002, 12:57 PM
I have DirecTV which has better receiver toys than BEV and I will tell you all that stuff gets old after a while. In the end, you really want good programming and picture quality. SC needs improving, but I still like it better than BEV.
SatMike
03-28-2002, 2:56 PM
Depends on whether it's actually a string or a rope. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
**DONOTDELETE**
03-28-2002, 4:56 PM
What I like when I read your comment's régarding StarChoice they are alway's just near to do this or that and now the new one they are also interactive capable and that for most receiver..first time I read such comment regarding Interactive capatility for SC units.. anyway willsee what
comming down the pipe if it not going down the drain.. sometime it make me LOL
**DONOTDELETE**
03-28-2002, 6:23 PM
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I have also noticed that *choice could add about 50-60 channels(2-5 pr transponder) before they reach the transponder saturation point that bell currently has. I would personally like to see some of that space go to PPV sports offering such as NHL Centre Ice and NFL sunday Ticket as well as the channels they neglected to pick up last fall.
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The fact of the matter is that Starchoice cannot add more channels on F1 because they have an average of 8 channels on most of the transponders. Starchoice has contracts to supply progranmming to not just residential subs but cable headends as well and as a result they are unable to cram 10+ channels on each transponder. The cable headends need a clean signal with as little noise as possible to supply their own clients. You can imagine what kind of crappy signal the cable subs would get if Starchoice was to increase their compression. To see what "lovely" picture quality you can get by overcompressing a signal please check out Dishnetwork. It looks like [censored].
Shadedmuse
03-28-2002, 7:23 PM
Well I fired off another email to SC regarding Court TV Canada now that its U.S counter part has to be sounged from Sc. let us see what kind of response I get, I also CC Court TV Canada and will FWD the reponse on to them as well as let you know what the response was, I say everyone else should post their response to see what storey or line SC uses on you.
Post deleted by Aspencade
I like the picture quality on most of Star Choice's channels but as far as I am concerned I don't think adding 10-20 NHL Centre Ice and NFL Sunday ticket would have that big of an impact on picture quality seeing as they would only be broadcasting during the season(8-9 months maximum) some of which would only be used on Sunday(NFL Sunday ticket) and others like NHL Centre Ice would only broadcast at certain times of the day. When you really look at the numbers Star Choice would only have to add between 10 to 15 channels to accomadate both Centre Ice and Sunday Ticket. I understand that Star Choice delivers signals to cable headends but Star Choice is a DTH/DBS provider first. Over half a million Canadians have bought Star Choice so they could skip cable but as it turns out even though we have all gotton rid of cable we still have to live with it's rules.
Thats my opinion not yours,
JRB
MCIBUS
03-28-2002, 9:38 PM
Well, since I got both systems I can see what each offers.
As for the local & the orginal speciality channels(the one before Sept. ie-SPACE,TSN,MM,ETC ETC)there basicaly there the same. For the channels launched after Sept. yes BEV has more, but Rogers has more than BEV. I'm not sure what the other cable companies offer ie- SHAW/VIDEOTRON/and so on.
As to why SC doesn't offer these service that are either avaible through BEV or Rogers is beyond me. You tend to wonder if SHAW real wants to be in the DTH field. The funny thing here is the channels own by Shaw wouldn't cost Shaw Cable or SC to carry them as their own by the same owner.
I honestly don't see SC doing anything until N2 is launched and in service. I honestly believe SC/Shaw will wait and see what BEV does, what services they add, and what channels and prices they may introduce. I could be wrong on this as I'm not in this type of field to have the expertise in such matters, but I'm just taking a guess at this.
PEACE UP TOM /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
travisc
03-28-2002, 10:12 PM
Cancom has a 5-year contract running until 2005 with a lot of cable companies. It's lucrative for them, especially since they're charging twice as much as ExpressVu, who is trying to get into the game.
jconnor
03-28-2002, 10:35 PM
Thanks for the English lesson, MrVH. In fact I was waiting for just such a comment. I am quite aware that there is a great deal of hyperbole on this board. While it's sometimes entertaining, it can also be mis-leading. I try to stick to facts, as much as possible. The facts are that BEV has some features that Star Choice does not. Some may be trival others may be significant. However one has convinced me that one provider has a significant advantage in picture quality. I am not able to run *C on my TV to A & B compare, but the *C installations that I have seen have been good but nothing that screams "holy clarity, batman! my BEV doesn't look that good". So, you see, I am suspicious of hyperbole. It tends to identify the more "enthusiastic" of owners tending to the (useless) my picture's better than yours nonsense that really doesn't add value to this board (IMHO).
snoman
03-28-2002, 10:55 PM
PQ on both is comparable,some channels are better on BEV and some on SC.
Post deleted by Aspencade at original posters request
jconnor
03-29-2002, 1:52 AM
>PQ on both is comparable,some channels are better on BEV and some on SC.
Thanks sno. That's what I've believed from the start.
jconnor
03-29-2002, 1:59 AM
>Do not paint all hyperbole with the same brush.
Fair enough. Subtlety is often lost in plain text and it's possible that some people will infer that "PQ on insert your favorite service here is bad because they have 200 PPVs".
But I agree with you. I didn't switch to satellite to get five gazillion channels, I just wanted to get better quality on the few that I do watch. Both BEV and *C can deliver on that. The point of the original post was comparing the hardware options and features that were offered by one provider over the other. The issue of PQ was not the point.
Filthy
03-29-2002, 3:28 PM
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>
by MrVH:
Oh ya.. as well, most Star Choice receivers can be interactive capable as well. Watch for some Open TV applications coming down the pipe.
<hr></blockquote>
I believe you said the same thing about SC's PVR back in 2000 right?
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