Videotron HD: finding the HD channels

(Location: Montreal. Provider: Videotron)

I feel a bit embarrassed about this, but my girlfriend and I set ourselves up with a nice HD setup last January (Sharp Aquos 46" LC46D92U, Blu-ray disk player, Illico HD PVR, etc.). Since we'd been using an Illico SD PVR for years, it was a no brainer to set up the HD one.

Here's where it gets stupid: We assumed that the HD channels (e.g., CBC) would show up in the same location as they did on the SD terminal. I've never been to anyone's house with an HD setup where they showed me the details, so I was going on instinct, and my instinct said "SD terminal shows CBC on channel 6, so when you get an HD terminal it will shoot the HD signal to channel 6.)

Fine. We got the setup mostly for watching DVDs and Blu-rays, so TV was a second consideration. We were never very happy with the picture, but we wrote it off as being just a crappy "not quite HD but passing for HD thing." But still...

Twice we called Videotron to confirm we were really getting HD, and both times they confirmed it after hearing our complaint. We even had a Videotron technician who was in the house (he was changing the modem -- unrelated) look at it and he just shrugged and said it was HD.

Finally, several months after getting the set and the terminal, we tried again. The technician said the usual, and finally checked with his supervisor. The supervisor said to put it on channel 612 (I think) and to report what we saw. Bingo! HD!

Here's the thing: NOTHING in the Illico packaging, NOTHING from the sales guy, and NOTHING from the support people said anything about HD being way the heck up in the 600s. Even that last support guy didn't know until the supervisor told him.

Am I just extremely stupid, or is this something that HD noobs just instinctively know? I'm usually pretty good about this stuff. Heck, I write technical instructions for a living! But if nothing is said, how are you supposed to know?

(Recently we've seen a very tiny mention of the 600 channels on the Videotron Web site, but I think that's very new.)

Have any of you heard of anyone else having this problem?

I tell the whole story on my blog, where I also have a poll set up to survey readers as to whether or not they already new. So far a number of people claim to have only learned about the 600s by reading the blog post!

Please let me know if you've had this experience, or if you know of someone else who has. Reply here, and/or on the blog (where you can participate in the poll).

Blog post is here:

http://www.blork.org/blorkblog/2008/07/08/how-to-get-high-definition-tv-with-videotron/

Thanks!

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That is way too long of a story, that I have heard before. I know a couple people who bought HDTV, but do not have a true HD box, because they do not think it is needed. You do not seem that stupid. Old school analog channels are typically 2 through 99. Even if your cable company is sending digital of those channels to you, there is still likely analog out there for others. None of the HD channels will be below 100. You seem to have figured that the HD channels are completely different than the SD channels. In the fifties they switched from black and white to color. They made sure that the old TV would get black and white of the new color signals. The switch from analog to digital will not work like that. It is different, or there would be no improvement. Browse your TV guide. Familiarize yourself with the channels. Look for duplicates. There will be relatively few true HD. Cable channels will likely say HD in the name. Antennae channels will say D at the end. On my system a few say the same name for both the SD and HD. Should not be too hard to figure out which is which. Good luck, hope this helps.

All Videotron Illico clients have the ability to access the channel GUIDE.

All HD channel names have HD as their last 2 call letters (one exception, with Illico, is channel 662).

Some STB's, like the DVR SA8300HD, show the current resolution coming from the STB and 480i cannot be HD.

...I will not comment any further other than to say that in all my years reading posts in HDTV Forums in Canada, I have never encountered a post from someone who could not find HD channels from a provider. If this occurred to me, I would certainly not make a Forum post out of it. Sorry!

mfabien we should welcome newbies, and be helpful, friendly. Everybody needs help sometimes. Everybody is a newbie at first. I had to learn a few things, and it took me a while to get it right. blork I hope you enjoy your HDTV.

You may be right. I read that a great number of people have purchased a wide screen TV (16:9), were never told what needs to be done to access HD channels via OTA, satellite or cable and are still watching SD TV with their new machine!

But in this case, the chap has a SA8300HD and all he had to do is explore the channel/programming Guide to find the whole series of HD channels grouped in the 600 series. He would have found his CBCHD channel as the 606 channel. I mean the Guide lists channels from 1 to 900, why did he not go further than channel 6 beats me.

Please let me know if you've had this experience, or if you know of someone else who has. Reply here, and/or on the blog (where you can participate in the poll).

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Hi Blork,

I also use Illico HD but unlike you the store where I bought my HDTV (Pioneer Elite plasma 50") also sold me the illico box and they actually did the setup at my home. After the phone call with the Videotron rep. everything was tested by the techs that delivered the TV. By now you must have figured out that I did not buy my HDTV at Future Shop or Best Buy, hence the excellent service.
During the setup they actually told us that HD channels started at the 600 range.

My only beef with some cable broadcasters is they slap on an "HD" at the end of their name, example TVAHD, but when you tune in to watch a new show, not an old re-run, they run it in 4:3 format. I'm also not very pleased that Videotron is not offering us MFestHD or MPixHD.

But getting back to your story, I am not surprised that the tech for your modem did not know (or did not care) to give you a satisfactory answer. Most of them, if not all, don't work for Videotron. They're just sub-contractors.

Thanks for the replies, although some were not exactly helpful.

Mfabien, I don't know where you got the impression I never go beyond channel 6. Before I got the HD setup I'd been using a SD digital STB for five years. There were several hundred channels there. Most of the ones I watched were between 100 and about 230.

After that it was just dozens and dozens of movie and porn channels that I don't subscribe to. Those went well into the 300s. Then there was the 500s, which were all just audio, and after that just a lot of empty channels all the way up to 999.

So I get the HD STB and guess what? Exact same channel lineup I've been seeing for five years. I don't know how you entertain yourself, but for me the idea of scanning through 700 empty channels hoping something will magically appear does not sound like a really good time.

Think of it this way. Lets say you have a crappy radio, and one day you go out and buy a better radio, one that's capable of STEREO. So you tune in to your favorite station 99.5 Whoopie or whatever, but it doesn't sound like stereo. Would you think to look elsewhere for 99.5 whoopie?

If nobody throughout the entire shopping process told you that to get Whoopie in stereo you have to go to 111.5, would it occur to you look elsewhere, even though your Whoopie is coming through on 99.5 and all the other stations you're used to are all in their known locations?

It only takes a minute to scan a radio dial, but 700 or 800 channels, that for the past five years have been blank; why would I look there? I expected the HD versions of the channels to show up in the SAME LOCATIONS as the SD versions; the signal you get depends on the STB you use.

...so, are you now enjoying viewing HD channels?

Note: I get the sense that you were expecting to have HD for all channels because you now had an HD PVR. I say this because not once did you ask Videotron or the technicians «what channel should I tune to get HD». By the way, the "Page +, Page -" button on the remote gets you to peruse the Guide much faster.

At least Forums such as this can be of help. Most of the time I'm quite respectful as all members of this Forum are. If you have other questions please do not hesitate and I'll be happy to be one who could assist you when I can.

It sounds like a pretty major disconnect between what I'm saying and what you're hearing.

It's as simple as this: I always knew that some channels were available in HD and some not. I was totally familiar with the channel lineup on the SD box. However, I mistakenly assumed that with an HD box, the HD channels would show up at the same locations as their SD counterparts on SD boxes. So National Geographic is on channel 125 in SD, and it is available in HD, then with an HD box you get National Geographic HD on channel 125. I assumed the system was intelligent enough to do that kind of signal swapping.

Given that no one anywhere along the way, including the TV retailer, the HD box retailer, and the service provider, said otherwise, and none of them said "oh hey, you have to look in a completely OTHER location to find the channels, NOT where you intuitively expect to find them," then I don't think that was such an unreasonable assumption.

And yes I am LOVING the HD channels! Man, the Olympics are awesome in HD!

For the next 2 weeks, we will have the US Open tennis championship (starts Monday on TSNHD, 660). Picture is great and so is sound in 5.1... ball hitting sounds are in the right place, especially on CBSHD during the weekends.