Bell Express View or Cable??

Cable all the way!! Bell is more expensive, have a customer service that sucks (aren't they all?) and you loose signal when the weather is bad.

At least with cable, you still have an analog signal wher decoder isn't required.

Videotron

GTA refugee said:

I recently moved here from Toronto, I would like to know what is the better choice in Montreal as far as television services go. Bell expressview or Videotron. I seem to remember years ago there were other ice providers offering premium television services. Are they worth considering?

Click to expand...

Videotron hands down but they do have a history of labour disruptions.

Bell sucks!

I was watching their video for new customers where they want you to have your satellite receiver hooked up to a phone line at all times. They then go on and tell you how you can purchase a wireless phone jack sender/reciever if your satellite reciever is not near a phone jack. All this at your cost instead of them building the wireless phone jack into their receiver.

When the weather is bad your reception can be dicey too, and let us not forget about the annoying delay every time your change the channel.

Pay for the minimum package available on cable and get a "testing" Bell receiver. This way, if the test receiver goes down either due to ECM or due to weather issues, you are still able to watch the channels you want on regular cable. When the test receiver works, watch all the channels you want.

I have cable for: TV (no hd but basic package with RDS for hockey), phone, and extrem highspeed internet. Total monthly bill: around 90-100$....

And I have viewsat (google if you dont know wtf is that) for ppv, hd, numeric etc...

FTA all the way

Videotron is one of the most disorganized, poorly run, customer-unfriendly companies of all time. Apparently they are very employee-unfriendly too, but I guess that's a separate issue. In my experience every (phone, cable, internet) company is terrible but right now Bell seems to be lesser evil. They might cost a bit more, but their willingness and ability to provide customer service is much better. In 2007, I only lost reception once (when I was watching, I guess) for about 1 hour on the satelitte and it did fade in and out during 2 big storms, but only for a minute or two here and there. I had much more frequent and longer lasting outages with cable.

BD

I agree with BD, I've had it with videotron. Will definitely be moving to expressvu, if only to save with the bundling packages. I'm also thinking about picking up DirectTV across the border and have them bill to a US address. Has anyone had any experience with DirectTV in Montreal?

Well here is how I look at it, if you know a bit on how a Television works, it draws a line from left to right of your screen, and it has a number of Pixels that it draws the picture from… more the amount of the Pixs, better looking picture you get!
Videotron –> 260 Pix per line
.
HD Videotron -> About 450 Pix per line
.
Normal DVD -> 540 Pix per line, Not sure about BlueRay – I think it’s 1280 Pix
.
Bell Express Vu -> 360 Pix per line “They have to re-wire your house, because Videotron Cable is not good enough, the size of the inside cable is 3 times bigger”
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Bell Express VU – HD and 5.1 Sound -> 1024 Pix per line which makes the quality of HD 6 times more than Videotron in there terms + You get 5 different sounds coming out of your 5 speakers for those who have surround 5.1 sound. The .1 is the sub-wolffer.
.
Now here is my 2 Cents,…. It really does not matter if you have Videotron or Bell Express Vu if you have a Television under 36”,.. you can’t see a difference.

But like I have a 50” and more, HELL!!! Videotron sucks Point Blank!, you can see all the grains in your picture. Yuck

It’s like taking a picture with a 2.1 Megpix and blowing it to be a 14” Picture, It will look like hell.
.
Johnny

I've had both, and BY FAR, the one that I prefered was Bell. The display is great, the image is amazing, and customer service isn't great but Videotron's is 10x worse. I live in an area with not too many trees, so even when the weather is ad, i rarely lose signal. Put it this way: during all the snow storms we had this year, I lost the signals once, and that was during the last one, for about 5-10min. Then it came but no problem. If you want HD, I recommand you get the HD-PVR recorder from Bell, it's amazing and works prefectly!

I look at those services as a complete package (TV, Internet & Phone).

Videotron's offer is quite good for me with all those services.

Internet speed - No contest
I have the High Speed 7Mbps service (Not the Extreme package)
Do the test for yourself: http://www.speedtest.net/
Click on the Toronto pyramid and you'll get your score.
My score : Download speed: 6585 Kb/s
Upload : 682 Kb/s

For the skeptics, here's my results: http://www.speedtest.net/result/258909502.png

Phone
No issues, using their service for more than 3 years now, just cheaper with more options. Free long distance between Videotron phone subscribers, $0.07 per minute within North America.

TV
No issues for availability of service what ever the weather or unattractive dish on the side of the house. I have illico service with HD service with 30 add channels. I have an LG 44" DLP with an HD DVR connected through Component video and it looks great to me. Dolby 5.1 available on some channels/shows as transmitted by the individual broadcasters (ABC, CBS, etc)

Customer service
The only time I had to use it is when I signed up and they were responsive and courtious. The best customer service is when you don't need them.

Total monthly bill for all this: $123

What more can I say, Bell can't compete with what I have.