Tivo Comes to Canada?

Gotcha by a minute...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=375316

 

Wow and it only took 9 and a half years!!!!!

Better late than never. Too bad there's no cablecard mandate here.

I'm surprised they are not also selling the S3s. They are still useful for OTA HD recording.

...Dale

 

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Alot of big box stores have been told not to push ota at all.

 

Well, and the fact that Tribune & TiVo still haven't got their act together to get OTA HD guide data into the system. All the OTA analogue info is there - its 100% identical, yet somehow Tribune can't seem to figure out how to include the digital version. Perhaps once that seemingly unsurmountable task is mounted, the S3s will officially be sold here.

In the mean time, using a Niagra Falls NY zip code works just fine for Toronto (assuming you don't need to record from the Canadian HD channels - and other than Hockey Night in Canada, who does?) But after I said that, it would be nice to record the HD movies on City TV. Now I can only do that via manual recordings.

...Dale

 

I found this on the tivo website recently,
http://www.tivo.com/promo/canada.html
but couldn't figure out why none of the listed retailers actually had any Tivos on their website. I guess I was assuming that Tivos were already being sold in Canada.

 

Check this out:

http://www.thebrick.com/Application...6798BB41,72A05AED-79C6-43EB-82A6-A5875F7E6956

The Brick has it online.

 

Doubt it ;(

 

I don't pay GST/PST on my TiVo bill, but pay a currency exchange fee, and a card maintenance fee for the credit card I have almost exclusively for the TiVo service.

TiVos are scheduled to go on sale Dec 1. I don't think there are rebates yet, until TiVo makes their rebate system Canadian friendly.

A Series 3/THD is practically useless to most users, hence it not being for sale.

 

Link is broken. I've had TIVO for 4+ years and pay based on the going exchange rate each month.

 

The instance expired.
Try:
http://typengo.frontlogic.com/newbrick/brick-en.cgi?terms=tivo

 

PVR Source is carrying them as well with no PST.
http://www.thepvrsource.com

 

It amazes me how some are in the dark about pvrs.I am in this debate where these people say there canadian pvr from there cable company more or less blows the tivo out of the water.

 

If you've never tried it you have no idea what you're missing. You have to try Tivo to get a feel for what it's really like and understand why it is so much better than a pvr from a cable provider. People just don't know what they're missing.

 

Hello everyone, I'm a new member here.

I am sooo upset because I just purchased a Tivo HD Series3 PVR last weekend during the Black Friday sales when I went down to Buffalo, NY to spend time with my family for the American Thanksgiving weekend and now I find out that I won't be able to use it because we don't have CableCards here in Canada. Tivo's website never specified that, they never said only the Series2 model worked in Canada, and up until Monday November 26, 2007 you couldn't even purchase a Tivo in Canada so I didn't know I was making a mistake. Does anyone know if Bell Expressvu uses CableCards? I would really like to have an HD PVR but if it won't work here in Canada for all of my digital cable channels then I will have to go back sometime soon and return it, then purchase the new Series2 now selling here in Canada at The Brick. *sigh* Not cool Tivo, not cool...

So you mean that I can keep my HD Series3 Tivo and use it here in Toronto, Canada for OTA channels from Niagara Falls, NY or Buffalo, NY? So which channels would I get, all of the American channels I get on digital cable or only a few channels, like the Big Three.

 

I was just wondering... I live in Quebec, and it's mentionned that I will not be able to use the Tivo in Quebec. But I can purchase the tivo and the plan online from The brick. If I do, will I be able to use it?

 

I'm reluctant to say too much with certainty, but I can give you some for-sure information to start.

1. Your "TiVo HD" or "Series3 TiVo" (They're two separate products.), will work for over-the-air reception anywhere in Canada, either for analogue (NTSC) or digital (ATSC) broadcasts.

2. The TiVo will only work well if it has programming guide data for your area. You can enter your postal code here to find out if those data are available for TiVo to access. What I'm not sure about is how well TiVo really supports Canadian broadcasts. That is, even if zap2it.com has your local guide data, whether TiVo imports all of that data into its database. (Geeky translation: Zap2it having the data is necessary, but not sufficient, for TiVo to have the data.) [Edit to add: Please see the next post, Dajad's. TiVo does not import the data for Canada's digital stations into its database.]

If TiVo doesn't have the guide data for your area, your TiVo can behave like a VCR recording manually by time and channel, but that's hardly like being a TiVo at all.

Does anyone have some thoughts on TiVo avoiding the Québec market? Are they only avoiding Québec's Bill 101? It seems that they're still bound by Federal bilingual laws, since they're selling in bilingual areas like New Brunswick, eastern Ontario, and ... (ummm?) Winnipeg.

 

Click on my "using Series 3 in Canada" link below for everything you need to know. It's a tad old but everything is still accurate. In Toronto I receive every major U.S. network (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, WB etc.). The guide data is all there if you use the closest U.S. zip code to your home - but check zipcodes with zap2it.com.

As I said, ALL the info needed to serve up Toronto postal codes is in the Tribune database, they've just chosen not to populate the data for Canadian postal codes for OTA-digital. It's all there for OTA-analogue. By going this route you cannot use the S3 to record analogue off your cable (as you would have been able to do had you been able to use a Canadian postal code).

I have literally begged, emailed, phoned and left messages with SEVERAL people at TiVo, several sources at Tribune and several contacts at zap2it and none of them have EVER responded, let alone answered the question of when we can expect OTA-digital guide data for Canada. And neither TiVoPony nor any other TiVo representative has answered the same question that I've posted on this forum at least 3 or 4 times. So, its a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma. My guess is it has something to do with fear of running afoul of cross-border broadcasting regs. Who knows.

In the mean time the ONLY way to use an S3 in Canada with a cable service is to have both an S3 and an S2 (which I do). The first for OTA-digital and the S2 for everything else.

...Dale

...Dale

 

I had thought TiVo's worked just fine in Quebec. It is clearly a matter of not wanting to have to serve the French market with French customer support and unique Quebec laws etc. I believe you can still use a TiVo purchase in Ontario or in the U.S. with a Quebec based cable provider.

...Dale