Free sexTV for spring Break!

Thanks to the Soleil today, we found out that a marketing wizard at Videotron decided to unblock the SexTV channel for Quebec city area viewers during the spring break week in Quebec also know as “La semaine de relache”. Also included for our Familly’s viewing pleasure they had also unblocked OutTV for this special week!

Well as it turns out once the newspaper called Isabelle Dessureault, VP of corporate affaires at videotron, these channels we once more blocked from the grid as they chould be during this week.

Kudos to Mme.Dessureault for having common sense and taking action. Its a shame that not all of Videotron’s employees are as smart.

Lets not forget that Videotron is also the company that earlier this year, played some pornography during the ever popular Coronation Street for some of their eastern township viewers…. another glitch in their system.

Canada’s best IPTV network… Sasktel!

Sasktel is claiming that they have the best Geographical Network in the world. This according to today’s Leader Post. They have put in place an incredibly fast network of Fibre-Optic cables throughout the province, thus enabling them to offer broadband services such as the much awaited IPTV.

They call their IPTV service Max Entertainement services. With 27 HD chanels this rivals all other offerings in Canada. They will be exporting this service to other provinces as soon as they work out some of the kinks. I personally am looking forward to IPTV, hoping that on demand local programing and personalized menus will make my viewing that much more enjoyable.

If anyone reading this as aleready tried out this service please let me know you thoughts.

Are you confused about HDTV?

In today’s Wall Street Journal Peter Grant wrote an interesting article highlighting American’s confusion over HDTV and those beautiful flat screen LCD and Plasma screens they just bought. It seems that half those who purchased HDTVs are not watching tv in high definition, and about 6million of those, don’T even know it.

To the tech savvy this may seem ridiculous, but if you take a moment and think back to about 10 years ago to the PC industry, most people had no idea as to what they could accomplish with a computer and therefor truly underutilized their computers and usually overpaid for hardware they really did not need. I write this because with HDTVs we are now embarking on the same kind  of  journey as we did with PCs 10 years ago.These new TVs have more in common with our PCs then our old analog tv sets. Most consumers don’t understand that TV is no longer plug and play… at least not for a while. Since makers are trying to make their Sets compatible with many types of technologies at the same time, we end up with too many settings and redundancies, much in the same way as Computer today, that most people just don’t understand.

The article mentions that Companies like best buy are trying hard to educate their clients about the technology, trying to reduce returns from disappointed clients, but I can tell you from experience that although they do have informed staffers on hand during critical times, most stores don,t have well qualified staff members that can simplify the technology since they dont really understand ti themselves.

Odds are, it’ll will get more complicated before it gets better, since as most of us know, that Computers still mystify about 50% of their owners and are nothing more then expensive email machines for a lot of consumers. And please… I don’t even want to get going on the problem of cabling these new TVs and our sound systems.

The future of television

We are seeing more and more media companies coming online and using the tools of the Internet to find new ways of communicating with audiences. Some of these have been online for a whiles, and others have finally given in to the reality. The cbc this week used google maps to show the audience where they found unsafe levels o mercury in Canned tuna and to what extent from brand to brand.

Although this is no big deal from an online point of view, this does go to show how the mainstream media is embracing new online tools. But the real future still remains the ever elussive integration between the online world and the television world. IPTV looks very promising in this regard, but needs lots of major improvements on the network end before this is feasable.

You also have companies like Joost looking to broadcast content online within its own proprietary environment. Viacom earlier this week announced deal where Joost would be broadcasting their properties. So we are seeing some movement towards the online world from our traditional tv broadcasters.

What we also need to consider from a Canadian perspective, is that most of our networks are basicaly re-broadcasting American content. Once we go online, will they keep us from accessing CBS, ABC or NBC directly from our Canadian IP addresses or will the Canadian industry actually have to start making some of its own content. For an example of this, log on the SURVIVOR in the usa and try to watch an archived show, or go to MTV and try their broadband section and see what happens… obviously this post only aplies to people living in Canada.

Hands up and drop that remote control!

RCMP officers raided a Montreal business that was selling illegal American satelite TV signals to Canadian residents. They have confirmed that they will be persuing the clients and pressing charges as this is an illegal activity in Canada. Although we can walk down to the corner magazine outlet an buy any newspaper we want, we are not aloud in Canada to subscribe to satelite services that do not hold a licence in Canada.

People in Canada have been stealling and or buying american signals since these the begining of time and have done so because the offering here in Canada seems a bit sparse when compared to our american neighbours. I am not going to get into a whole debate over the CRTC’s “raison d’être” but I am interested by the fact that, until now, what was a safe crime in Canada with little chance of prosecution, seems to have come to an end.

Before putting handcuffs on Grand-ma maybe it would make sense to let Canadians know that we won’t stand for this anymore.

What’s in a name….

Canadian viewers have Lost their way. If they could watch tv for 24 hours, what would they turn to? Would they use some of their intelligence and support our Canadian productions.

Canadians have global tastes, we like a good story, filled with heroes, and good storytelling. But what we must answer is this… If Canadians no longer watch Canadian television… who will tell us what it means to be Canadian…. Will our culture be a survivor of the 21st century… or will we become a statistic

Videotron… have you heard of Canada!

I like most montrealers use videotron as our cable operator. I used to be with Star Choice (Because I love TV) and even though I have been back with videotron for the past 7 months, I still miss my Albertan satalite service. Videotron seems to only care about its core clientel, which happens to be “Pure-Laine” quebecers and distinguishing itself from the satelite carriers by ignoring the rest of Canada in its chanel line up. For the same money, Star Choice delivered about 100 more chanels, by letting me time shift, and giving me access to a lot more specialty chanels then I have now.

I could accept this lack on Videotron’s part if it wasn’t fopr the fact that their signal seems to fade, the 5.1 suround sound that I paid for… only apears once in a while. Unlike Rogers, Videotron only gives you access to the nifty advanced functions of our digital cable box, such as viewing shows on demand if it happen to belong to TVA. Most cable operators can project three version of the same chanels on their bandwidth, and videotron only does it for their own material. Its become pretty evident that if you happen to be a so-called “allophone” of even worst english speaking, well they arn’t about to go after your business. Take a walk through any culturaly diversified neighbourhood in Montreal and look at the dominance of Bell ExpressVu in these neighbourhoods. I know that some of these have been pirated, but more and more people of all backgrounds are realising that satelite operators are offering you more.
Ok… thats the end of my rant… I do feell better.

Suzuki meet Mercer….

Canada’s best known environmentalist will be on Canada’s only superstar’s show, the Mercer Report, tonight on the CBC.

Rick Mercer is a force of nature, so I will be watching tinight’s show with my usual enthousiasm. For those of you who arn’t familliar with Rick, I stronlgy sugest that you read his blog, which you will find here.

HGTV’s Design INC.

What makes a tv show work where others have failed. It hard to say, there are many factors involved in order to have a hit. One of my all time favorite personalities on HGTV as long been Sarah Richardson of design Inc.

This series is a must see for anyone looking for an insider’s view into Canadian interior design. Its well filmed, with a very likable star and a crew that makes it worth watching. I personaly love sarahrichardsondesign.com and here estetic apeals to lots of urban profossionals who ultimatly ware he audiance that HGTV is looking to atract. In a sea of boring design shows, here is one that makes it worth your while and who seems to truly enjoy what they are doing.

Battlestar Galactica update…

This just in, Sho me sci fi today reported a direct to DVD movie, all about caprica 50 years before the current season…. have a read