My tour Inside the Bell TV Facilities

H

Hugh

New member
I had the chance to tour the Bell TV facilities today.

My Tour Guide was Tim Dinesen, the VP of Technology and Operations at Bell TV.

In the past, I have had tours of CBC, Rogers Cable and a few other high tech operations and I have always enjoyed them. Today was no exception.

I got to see Master Control, Encoding devices, transmitters, system control, the HD testing rooms and a QC room where they had each type of satellite receiver ever sold by Bell in operation to make sure that its latest software release worked on that receiver.

The following are some pictures from the Bell Facility that were taken by Bell but I can attest that it looks just like the pictures.

Kudos to Tim and his staff on a very clean and well organized facility.
 
The ExpressVu facilities are split into two areas, one area for 91 and one area for 82.

Inside are lots of rooms with lots of televisions. Here is a shot of master Control for the IPTV operation.

picture.php
 
Next we were off the encoding room. Each station has an encoder. Essentially receives the signals from every station either terrestrially or via satellite.

Once received, the stations are then encoded to 720p with encryption and then transmitted back up to 91 and 82

The following is the transmitter room.

picture.php
 
Next its back up to the sky via the transmitters.

This shot was taken in the winter but trust me it looks the same (minus the snow) today.

Looking out the Windows inside the Bell facility was pretty amazing since there were so many satellite dishes big and small.

picture.php
 
Next up was a tour of various rooms where I saw lots of satellite receivers.

In every one of the control rooms, including the one in post #2, every one of televisions is hooked up to a satellite receiver so I saw rooms of receivers!

One QC room also had several racks of all the Bell Receivers ever sold and one room had lots of monitors where employees could monitor HD signals received by Bell on many different televisions.

Fascinating stuff.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.
 
Very neat.

Is it true that they have an area devoted to piracy with every piece of illegal equipment imaginable? I guess they probably keep that room hidden :)
 
Wow, that 1st photo you posted Hugh reminds me of the Matrix. That is quite the operation.
 
Neato hugh, neat to see they grap alot of stuff on ku to rebroadcast. I wonder if they grab stuff from dishnetwork to do it. in the picture I see a few dishes that look like they are pointed at 110 and 119 spot' thanks for this. cheers
 
Sorry, I have to ask. In the picture of all the channels (1st pic), were the porn channels on any of those sets? Always wondered if they had those channels displayed.
 
as I noted, the pictures were taken by Bell, not me, but that is what I saw today (minus the snow of course)

P.S. deleted a bunch of posts about today's announcements. This thread is about my facilities tour. If you wish to discuss announcements see respective threads
 
Wow...those people in the first photo actually get payed for being there...I need to win the lottery...that looks like heaven.
 
Pretty boring actually. All you really see is a massive number of tv screens which are individually quite small and without sound.

Can't really watch a show
 
Did they mention if there are any differences in the Sat vs the IPTV feeds?

Are they using the same encoders? Assume not since I assume IPTV is mpeg4 vs 2 (currently) for the sats.

Any plans for new sats or other products hinted at?
 
That's pretty cool.

I think I'd go blind trying to keep track of all those TV screens.
 
Wasn't able to get much out of them regarding IPTV. As you noted, the encoders would have to be different

The only thing I got was that IPTV is ready to go from that location. That master control room is actually the IPTV room. Their are three MC rooms, one for 91, one for 82 and one for IPTV. The ones for 91 and 82 are very similar looking but slightly smaller with some older monitors.

The next step in IPTV is the last mile (which requires huge capital investments) and then of course the marketing of the product.
 
If you ever are watching Bell and they lose the source signal from one of the channels, you'll see a looped video explaining that they are aware of the issue and are working to rectify the situation. During the video you'll see footage of one of the control rooms. Didn't make out any porn on the small screens :)
 
Thanks for the pics. Nice.

Hope to see more of the equipment rooms (and equipments) though (I'm a tech junkie so that's why).
 
I have been through the Rogers facilities several times, through the CBC facilities, mainframe facilities and several server farms. What was interesting was how clean and neat the Bell facilities were. No cables laying around, floors were clear, no dangling wires. Very impressive.
 
Back
Top