Telus Optik TV

[nodeal]

They should let you, but Telus has always been this way. In the past they used to give you a discount for ordering themes individually. But they got rid of that when they introduced Mediaroom.

Do you recall which themes you are allowed to swap from the Medium bundle?

[starchoice]

I believe that for Medium, it was just Family that could be swapped out. I remember this one because it was the only one.

I had the others written down but tossed it because I found this so ridiculous that I wasn't even going to bother.

[HiDefBob]

Starting about 2 weeks ago my Telus CIS 430 HDPVR began acting up. Suddenly there was a loud screaching noise coming from the unit. The picture froze. All controls locked up. The only way to resolve the problem was to unplug the unit to reboot. It sounded like the hard drive suddenly sped up to a very high speed for some reason. The unit worked fine after the reboot. Since then it has happened about 3 or 4 times - never when playing back recording on the unit, once when recording and the other times when just watching TV.
So, yesterday I put in a call to Telus. They set up an appointment with a technician for today.
Before arriving I got a call from the tech with an estimated time of arrival. He asked for a detailed description of the problem which I gave. He said the unit would have to be replacedand that I would therefore lose any recording since there is no way to transfer the recordings to the replacement unit. I indicated that this loss of recordings would be resolved if the PVR had the option of adding an external hard drive. He said Telus does not allow that capability due to copyright laws. I asked him then why does both Bell TV and Shaw Direct satellite services allow that feature. He could not give me an answer. I then decided to cancel the appointment as I have unwatched programming on my 430.
When Telus called to set up a new appointment I said that I would call back I was ready and had watched all recordings. I indicated my frustration about losing the recordings due to the lack of capability to transfer recordings to a new unit or an external hard drive and asked that those frustrations be reported to management. I indicated that the copyright infringement excuse did not make any sense as 1. other providers provide that capability and have done so for some time and 2. if copyright infringement was a problem then how is it that we are allowed to record programming in the first place!!! Thoughts?

[HiDefBob]

I talked to Telus management today about why you cannot an external hard driven to their Optik TV CIS 430 HDPVR. Unlike satellite and cable TV, Optik TV is internet driven, powered by Microsoft. They say adding a hard drive would compromise internet security. So that option will never be available for Telus Optik TV.

[meshmellow]

You can add an "expander" with Shaw Cable's PVR. However, it mates with the PVR and if the PVR gets replaced, you cannot view the material you've already recorded on the replacement. You have to reformat and start again. That happened to me, so when my current Expander dies, I doubt I will ever replace it. I try to watch recorded programs more promptly now to avoid a huge backlog that could get "lost".