Canadian PVR Survey

[craiger316]

Hi, we welcome you to participate in a survey for a Canadian PVR product. This survey will help identify the features and price which suit our potential users best.

http://infopoll.net/live/surveys/s22830.htm

You can respond to this thread for futher comments/questions or email us at info@onshore.ca

Thanks,

Craig.

[jmeeks]

Let me get this straight, your using another companies forum to gather data for your company that is panning on developing a competing product?

Did you get permission from Frey to do this?

[craiger316]

Hi jmeeks, yes we did get Frey's permission to post.

Thanks,

Craig.

[jmeeks]

Just trying to protect my buds.......

[craiger316]

And so you should! Frey has an excellent product and has been very hospitable to us. I should have mentioned right off the bat that we had permission from them to post. Sorry about that.

Thanks,

Craig.

[dkardatzke]

Sorry for any confusion, I've discussed this with Craig and would present an interesting opportunity for our Canadian customers...

[pawn]

Originally posted by dkardatzke
Sorry for any confusion, I've discussed this with Craig and would present an interesting opportunity for our Canadian customers...

What option, exactly, would that be?

PVR technology is sadly (and inexplicably) lacking in Canada, but possible benefit could Frey Tech. see in helping a possible competitor?

Dan, in the extremely unlikely scenario that you're hoping some other entity will help with providing a complete solution for your Canadian customers, I offer this advice:

Don't overlook a technical savvy market, 32M people strong, that almost precisely matches your own.

[dkardatzke]

I've now realize I should've made a post before Craig, because it's got everybody asking questions as to why we would want a potential competitor posting a survey on our forums. Here's the background:

We are well aware of the need for PC-based PVR in the Canadian market. Craig approached me regarding an idea and we are using this survey to gauge a feeling on the PVR marketspace in Canada. That's all I'll say for now but this would introduce a PVR application for Canada with similar functionality to SageTV and an EPG with data provided by Tribune for our Canadian customers.

Thanks,
Dan

[craiger316]

We definitely need more Canadians to complete the survey! I've tried my best to distribute it, Canadian usenet groups were my primary focus but you get so much flack for posting to usenet groups and a lot of people just write you off as spam or email harvesters.

I've found word of mouth is way better. If you are interested it seeing a PVR solution for the Canadian market please get your friends/family/coworkers to complete the survey! The more participants we get, the easier it is to understand the market. The only restriction would be that they are from Canada or someone who has access to Canadian television (we won't narc you out) And of course that they answer the survey questions honestly.

If you do not want to devulge your email address on the survey you may type "NO THANKS" in the email field, we totally respect that. If at some point you are interested in becoming a beta tester and you did not enter your email address on the survey, you may email us at info@onshore.ca and we will add your name to the list.

Thank you!

Craig.

[pawn]

I'm not trying to discourage you, but anyone reading this on Fey's forums has invested money and time into their software.

Personally, I am a huge fan of SageTV and until I feel otherwise, I'm really not interested in another solution. I suspect you'd get a similar answer from most people in here.

But, like I said, I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just offering a possible reason as to the lack of reponse.

[olyar15]

I don't mind competition, and I think it is the best for consumers. However, I also agree with pawn. Most here are quite happy with SageTV, apart from having to use XMLTV for getting EPG data (and even that isn't so bad).

You may also want to post this in the AVS forum, in the HTPC section.

[dkardatzke]

Time for more clarification, in essence this solution will be a rebranded SageTV. We will recommend our Canadian customers use this product in order to get full EPG support for Canada. Eventually this version may have a different "look and feel" but the technology behind it will be all SageTV.

Hope that helps and I recommend that if you are an existing SageTV user living in Canada that you sign up for the beta test so Craig can get your feedback using the Tribune data for EPG support. We want to expand our coverage of the SageTV technology and also support the Canadian market in more detail. This is where Craig and Onshore come into play.

Dan

[craiger316]

Originally posted by olyar15

You may also want to post this in the AVS forum, in the HTPC section.

Other forums where you think this survey would be received well just send the URL of the forum to info@onshore.ca, or post them to this thread.

We only have about 1/4 the amount of responses we need, so again have your friends/family/co-workers fill it out! Tell them to pass it on!

Thank you!

Craig.