Simsubs

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SuperCM

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Thinking of changing to Bell TV, currently with Cogeco Cable. With Cogeco, they will simsub the east, but my west coast feeds are originals.

How does Bell TV do simsubs? Is it both coasts so I will always have them or is it like Cogeco where they won't touch the west?
 
In my experience they not only touch the west they destroy it. Simsubbing is alive and well on the wet coast.
 
Is that because you're in the west? Like if you watch an east coast feed is it also simsubbed there?

I figure because Cogeco doesn't carry Global West or CTV West maybe that's why they don't simsub. So if Bell does, then I guess they can overlay both coasts. That sucks.
 
Bell TV peforms simsubs at the uplink, so they are seen nationally regardless of location. Normally you'll be subbed with a Toronto or Vancouver feed.
They lack the technology to do simsubs at the receiver level.
 
I wonder if Bell can send down a firmware update to only have to simsub the appropriate areas?
 
They can't. Unlike cable, the signal Bell broadcasts is the same nationwide. Selective simsubbing would mean they would need to broadcast both subbed and unsubbed signals at the same time, which makes no sense for them to do.
 
What? Please reread your message.

Selective sim-subbing is done on the receiver (like Shaw Direct).

For example, two customers watch an American show by tuning in CBS:
- customer A in Toronto gets CTV Toronto (the receiver shows CTV Toronto when on channel 282)
- customer B in Flin Flon gets CBS Boston

Simple as that, with simsub list updated every 30 minutes. Fixable in software. Just like being able to watch OTA when there's no satellite signal coming in because of a storm...

-gmd
 
Huh? Bell does NOT sim-sub at the receiver level. If CBS is sim-subbed by CTV Toronto, everybody in the country will get the sim-sub, including Flin Flon.
 
So with Shaw Direct, it would be like how Cogeco Cable does it? My east feeds would get simsub'd but if I watch the west feeds later they would be originals?
 
Shaw Direct has different technology that allows them to SimSub (by postal code I believe). BTV can only do by region.
 
I recall that during the 2008 Superbowl, BellTV managed to do something to avoid simsubbing in Quebec.

Since they simsub from the uplink, everybody received the simsubbed Superbowl.

However, they somehow allowed a re-map of the original American Superbowl feed to a new channel number and allowed acccess to this channel only to certain regions (perhaps by city or province).

I was able to watch the un-simsubbed version of the US network on a different channel, while the original channel position was showing the simsubbed version.

CRTC told BellTv they could not do this for the Superbowl only (for future years) because it was not BellTVs current practice to do this type of re-map. Perhaps if they would do this year-round and make it a common practice, it would not be seen negatively by the CRTC.

Anyhow, it just goes to show that there are ways Bell TV could do this (at least in Quebec where they do not carry Montreal CTV or Global in HD). I am sure there are plenty of other cities in the country that could benefit from this way of doing things.
 
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