TELUS Optik TV Thread

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by PsnaP

ill send an email up the chain.

Don't Bell and Telus partner somehow on channels? I've heard this more than once. So if Bell dropped HDNet I don't see Telus picking it up.

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

I thought the channel went down hill when it became the Girls Gone Wild channel. I like boobs and everything but I have this thing called the internet. The movies and concerts were good. This channel is hardly worth sticking with "behind the times" Shaw though.

Well, it is for me. That and simsubbing are the two reasons why I stay with Shaw. GGW is fun to watch sometimes when there is nothing better on. I like having the option to watch it at least.

[wooohooo]

I change my mind. I hate Telus. Their TV service is good, but paired with internet it's the ****iest thing ever. At certain times of the day my internet was so damn slow I couldn't even watch a youtube clip or load up the news. I called them and they ran speed tests and so it went back to normal, but then it slowed down again and called in and same thing until it slowed down. Was on the phone with the tech for over an hour and a half and he kept running the same damn speedtest over and over again. Finally he just said this is the way it is, it's acceptable to us. So he told me to turn the TV's off and the speeds made it so internet was acceptable. But I shouldn't watch TV and internet at the same time. EXCUSE ME? Are you telling me I can't do both at once? I told him I have 3 TV's and 5 family members, and that's not acceptable. He told me 'that's the way our network is'. Great.... asked to cancel as I just signed for 2 years and I would have to pay a fee.

I really really hate telus. I don't care how much I save, I've never talked to such ######ed tech support and had such bad service.

[THE SCUD]

How do I find out if / when my hood has been upgraded to the 26MBps profile? I want the full meal deal!

[THE SCUD]

Also:

Is anyone else's Optik service stuttering / dropping frames on the hockey games?

It reminds of the days of watching TSN hockey on Shaw - when too many people are watching, it would drop audio here and there. Optik doesn't drop the audio, but it's like they drop frames instead, so the tv gets annoying to watch. It's only been during playoff hockey, so I think it's akin to the Shaw issue with too many subscribers all watching the same channel.

Comments?

[FlamesKickAss]

Yeah I've noticed it a few times as well

[THE SCUD]

Originally Posted by FlamesKickAss

Yeah I've noticed it a few times as well

I figure it's the same as the shaw issue - god damn it's annoying.

[mykalberta]

I got Telus installed this week - TV/Phone/Internet. Here is my review.

1 - install was quick and painless once the building manager figured out where all the telephone riser rooms were.

2 - Internet seems no slower than the 15mbps service I was on with Shaw. Torrenting a 22gb file (high seeds) took less than a day.

3 - You have to use their modem router combo, I had purchased a dual band netgear a few months ago and now its pretty much redundant. On the router - its stndard fair except you cannot set DHCP range, no hot spot creation etc. Wirless seems fine, tested on 2 iphones and laptop at same time, no issues.

4 - TV - wowzers. I cant begin to say how much this system dwarfs Shaw. With the picture in picture guide browsing, the call display on the TV when someone calls so you can keep the phone on mute and only answer when you want, the fact I can customize what channels show on my guide so I dont have to scroll through the French channels every time, I can record 3 shows at once - etc etc etc.

5 - a few things I miss that was on shaw: Being able to set a reminder for a program when it comes on, being able to add a channel to favorites just by hitting info on the channel and choose set as favorite. Now both of those might be doable, I just havent been able to find how to do that.

6 - a few issues - on Thursday night durring the game the internet/TV cut out for about 2 minutes - hasnt happened since so not sure if it was a one time thing or might be more frequent.

A few things to realize if you are making the switch - the installers are contractors, not Telus employees, not a huge deal but if you were expecting a clean cut older fellow in a telus 1 piece to show up - nope. To use the existing cable connection in your home, you need to plug the cable connection into the modem. For me currently out of the modem is going a CAT5 Cable, phone cable, Coax cable to use existing cable connection.

One thing that is kind of a bummer, so far the Telus CIS430 PVR doesnt have the right setup for Harmony Remotes.

[Madman]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

A few things to realize if you are making the switch - the installers are contractors, not Telus employees, not a huge deal but if you were expecting a clean cut older fellow in a telus 1 piece to show up - nope.

You should only run into that on weekends and holidays when the high paid fancy Telus guys are enjoying their time off.

I agree on the show reminder feature - I miss that from Bell as well.

[PsnaP]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

the installers are contractors, not Telus employees, not a huge deal but if you were expecting a clean cut older fellow in a telus 1 piece to show up - nope.

Originally Posted by Madman

You should only run into that on weekends and holidays when the high paid fancy Telus guys are enjoying their time off.

Sorry to say but you are both wrong. Its hit and miss on which installer you will get. Both work companies work weekends (in the city). But more contractors work weekends and may have a day or 2 off during the week. So you may get a TELUS employee and you may get a contractor.

[J Diddy]

I made the switch from Bell TV and Shaw phones and internet to Telus in March. I have 1 PVR and 2 HD STBs with 2HD/1SD. Basic phone and 15Mbps internet.

Here is my review if you are interested.

The installer - He was quick, clean, friendly and on time. He got the job done in no time but he had everything he needed in the right places. He gave me his card and told me to call him if I ran into any issues in the next couple of days...and then after that to go through Telus.

The deal I got:
I did 1 month of "month to month service" just to see if the service was any good before I locked in. It seems pretty good so after 1 month I locked into a 3 year contract and they gave me:
1 HD PVR rental for free for 3 years
2 HD STB rentals for free for 3 years
6 month discount pricing...basically half price for all the services for the first 6 months.


Pros of the services:
Cheap! - I am paying a little less for all three services with Telus then what I was paying for just TV from Bell. I have the You pick HD package with the movie channels and a couple of individual channels. After 6 months the cost of all three services with Telus will still be less then when I had Bell and Shaw services.

PVRanywhere - I had my house back fed with my Bell receiver so I am use to PVRanywhere but this is still the best feature as I should be able to watch what I want in whatever room I want.

Remote PVR - I do not use this feature a lot but it is nice to have. Telus' Remote PVR is much better than Bell's remote PVR as far as speed and interface go.

HD picture quality is equal or better when compared to Bell. Hard to tell fore sure as I don't have both services side by side.

You can use coaxial or cat5 cable for TV. I have a mixture so it was nice not to have to run any new wiring.

The interface is 17895447857843 times better than the Shaw interface. Clean and crisp...easy to navigate.


Cons:
Glitchy or jerky picture at times...like what you get when watching a movie on your computer. Have even had a few recordings jump ahead a few seconds.

I never missed a show I had scheduled with my Bell PVR in the 6 years I had the service. With Telus I missed a whole weeks worth of recordings. I didn't catch this as I was busy watching playoff hockey and not worrying about the shows I had set to record. A simple restart of the PVR fixed everything but extremely annoying and what are the chances that this will never happen again?

The remotes for the STBs are well laid out...better than Shaw's horrid remote but not as nice as the Bell remote...but they need to be pointed directly at the STB in order to work. I am use to my Bell remote that can be pointed anywhere...could be in another room...could be under 20 blankets and still work.

The STBs are slow to respond to the remote when they are first turned on. I'm guessing this is because they are like mini computers and everything needs to be loaded into memory or whatever. Once they have been on for a few minutes the remotes are more responsive and the GUI interface is quicker.

Internet speeds are a little disappointing. I am getting less than the 15mbps that I am paying for. I maybe get 12mpbs with the TVs off and around 9mbps when I am recording. I haven't seen anything over 12mbps yet. Definitely not getting the same quality of service as I was with Shaw internet. If I was to do it again I would have stayed with Shaw internet and did Telus phone and TV.

I can't remember ever having to reset my Shaw modem or ever having internet problems with Shaw. With Telus I have had to reset my router at least 3 times already because either the internet speeds were horrid (wires and wireless) or my laptop wasn't talking to the router anymore.

The router is very basic and missing a few common things that I would like to be able to do...like give out static IP's. Not a huge issue.

[Travis Munroe]

^^^ great review and I agree with most of it.
My net speeds are quicker and I missed some PVR but assumed I did something wrong.
My biggest complaint is the reaction time of the remote. I have not had to reset my modem once since I made the switch either. Other than that, I am still confident that my life is easier and cheaper than when I was with shaw.

[Mightyfire89]

nm

[Hemi-Cuda]

so i just switched to Telus from Shaw and am pretty happy so far. internet speeds are exactly as advertised and the TV interface is quite a jump from Shaw. the one thing i don't like though is the remote, i find Shaw's remote to be far superior and wish i could just program it to control the Cisco CIS430 box since it has all the required buttons, but that doesn't seem possible. so on that note, can anyone recommend a good universal remote that will work with the Telus PVR? i've heard of a lot of issues with the Harmony remote and the Cisco box, so is there a better alternative out there?

oh and one more thing i really miss, a damn clock on the digital box. didn't realize just how much i relied on that to tell me the time until i no longer had it

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

so i just switched to Telus from Shaw and am pretty happy so far. internet speeds are exactly as advertised and the TV interface is quite a jump from Shaw. the one thing i don't like though is the remote, i find Shaw's remote to be far superior and wish i could just program it to control the Cisco CIS430 box since it has all the required buttons, but that doesn't seem possible. so on that note, can anyone recommend a good universal remote that will work with the Telus PVR? i've heard of a lot of issues with the Harmony remote and the Cisco box, so is there a better alternative out there?

oh and one more thing i really miss, a damn clock on the digital box. didn't realize just how much i relied on that to tell me the time until i no longer had it

What kind of deal are you getting?

[rd_aaron]

I have had Telus Optik TV/Internet for the last year or so. I like it a lot. Never had a problem with internet speed and I like the TV interface.

Two problems I have with it though:

1) They updated the firmware maybe 4 or 5 months ago and since then the remote response has become extremely delayed. I'll push the guide button and it takes 4 or 5 seconds for the guide to show up. Before it was very smooth and almost instantaneous. Hopefully they come out with another update to alleviate that.

2) It comes with the Telus wireless router which is fine and all, but in the condo I'm living in, it's mounted in my closet (all the units in my building had Telus pre-installed). This is also fine since we just have laptops, and there is a plugin where my TV is. However, I want to be able to plug in both my Xbox and Cable into the one ethernet jack, so I figured I'll just plug my own router in there and then plug both Cable and Xbox into the router. Unfortunately the TV becomes choppy when it's on the 2nd router so I have to switch the cable back and forth. Maybe this has more to do with a router plugged into a router, or maybe the wrong router settings. I'm sure someone else has run into this though?

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by rd_aaron

2) It comes with the Telus wireless router which is fine and all, but in the condo I'm living in, it's mounted in my closet (all the units in my building had Telus pre-installed). This is also fine since we just have laptops, and there is a plugin where my TV is. However, I want to be able to plug in both my Xbox and Cable into the one ethernet jack, so I figured I'll just plug my own router in there and then plug both Cable and Xbox into the router. Unfortunately the TV becomes choppy when it's on the 2nd router so I have to switch the cable back and forth. Maybe this has more to do with a router plugged into a router, or maybe the wrong router settings. I'm sure someone else has run into this though?

If I understand you correctly, you are using a second router between the Cable box and the Telus router. You cannot use a router (or if you do you need to turn off DHCP and the firewall on the router to prevent problems), an easier solution is put a network switch, I use a couple of these in my network with out any Optik problems: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...5%28ME%29.aspx

Also do you know you can run Optik on the XBOX? It will save you the hassle of having two devices running and the expense of a switch.

[FlamesKickAss]

^ that option is still $5.00 a month though for licensing so after 10 months that switch is paid for

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by FlamesKickAss

^ that option is still $5.00 a month though for licensing so after 10 months that switch is paid for

Telus no longer charges the $5.00 fee.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by oilyfan

Telus no longer charges the $5.00 fee.

Wow, really? That's actually pretty awesome. Are they still gving out free ones for an Internet contract?

My Shaw credits are up in August and the price of Shaw's new Gateway is absolutely ridiculous so I will most likely be switching then.