Hey kids in the Great White North!

Any thoughts on the best satellite service in Canada? I live in Winnipeg, MB. I know I can get Starchoice and Bell Expressvu.

Bell looks quite a bit better than Starchoice. Any suggestions on which dish/receiver to get and why?

Anything to watch out for with either of those services or any other ones you suggest?

Greg :-)

Get Satrchoice. They have just launch a second satelite that will be operational soon and is the most powerfull commercial sat in the sky. This means stronger signal but more important is that ALL channels will be available National wide rather than split up by east/west regions. That's almost 400 channels. They also use MPEG2 compression which gives a better picture than MPEG1.5 which is what ExpressVu uses.

Hi fellow Canuck. Try this link: [Link: kusat.com]

Lots of good info, mixed with "mine is better than yours" stuff. Many people who post are dealers and installers. All Canadian. I found it useful when deciding between *C and BEV. Picked *C by the way.

The deciding factor for me was the outputs when comparing the basic receivers. No AC3 on the basic BEV - not an issue yet, but soon. The new *C satellite isn't up yet but it's supposed to go up in a few weeks so programming and signal will be very similar in the new year. Customer service complaints seem to be more of an issue with BEV. The stacked LNBF on the *C 401 package was also a plus for me because I need multiple receivers (teenagers).

Also try:
[Link: virtualhelpelectronics.com]

Hope this helps.

Swag and JD!!!! Thanks a million. Just the type of info I'm looking for!!! ... Greg :-)

Scary. I just went to JD's link at KuSat, and came across a number of postings from a guy I know right here in Ottawa... in fact, worked with for two years. I never even knew he had a HomeTheatre jones....

Darn......... no XXX programming on StarChoice! What's up? ... Greg ;-)

Sure there is Greg, 24hr XXX ppv movies as well as the Playboy channel.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm..... well, their website sucks as far as explaining the programming.

Aside from pic qualit, etc., who has the best overall programming interface?

Greg

I don't know that Star Choice offers the NFL Sunday Ticket or NHL Centre Ice package, which Express Vu does.

I could be wrong.

Come on, people. There must be more of you that have one or the other service. Which receiver do you have? What size dish? How do you like it? How is the performance?

Greg :-)

Starchoice!! They are teaming up with TiVo so you will probably be able to get a combo box (like DirecTiVo) soon!! And yes MPEG2 should be better too!

Checking out the StarChoice website reveals that they are still stupidly, horrendously, ignorantly incapable of understanding or caring what customers want, which is a further indication that companies like this are driven by nothing more than corporate greed.

Why do I say this? When one steps through their "programming" selections to choose channels and pricing, all you get, apart from listing the 'specialty' channels, is a package name and a price. No indication at all of what channels the package contains.

For example: Total Choice Bronze
Provides you with local programming like news, sports and weather, Canadian and U.S. Network programming as well as 30 channels of CD quality music.

and:

Total Choice Gold
Allows you to add 7 Your Choice/Votre Choix programming options to the basic Total Choice Bronze line-up for just $36.99 per month. That's a savings of up to $28.93 per month!

Sorry, guys, but this tells me nothing. I want satellite programming and Hi-Def as much as the next guy here, but this isn't the way to convince me. BTW, they also ballyhoo HDTV broadcasting available "right now", and then they make you find a list of "retailers in your area" for further information. Retailers like Future Shop and Radio Shack.... when have you known a salesperson at either of these places to have a clue about what HDTV signals might be available?

This just furthers my resolve to thoroughly check out the U.S. feeds first, before investing in yet another slack-minded money-grabber... after all, I'm already signed on with one of those (Rogers). ... Mike

Does Canadian sats get any European channels?

I live in Winnipeg Manitoba, and I choose Express vu, after looking over the 2 web sites, and talking to several people. The Express vu website was very imformative, and their service is exceptinal. No complaints.

Does ne one know which service carries american signals (eg. HBO, USA, MTV)? My friend got some guy to install 2 express vu dished on his house and one gets canadian and one gets american signals. His reciver is a model 2700, and when he checks the proggramming guid instread of Express vu is says DISH NETWORK. He says he has a fake smart card?

I have Bell Expressvu and also the NHL center ice pkg. It is great. I have the model 6000 receiver in my Home Theater Room and model's 2700 in the other rooms that have Tv's. I get to watch basically ALL the Flyers games...its great!!!

I also live in Winnipeg.