Thumbing through a Crutchfield catalog, I noticed some fine print on the text for one of the DVRs: "Tivo service not available in Canada."

It's also my understanding (someone correct me if I'm wrong), that the DirecTV service is also unavailable there, at least not legally. From what I remember, there are plenty of residents of the Great White North who can receive decent signals from the DirecTV birds, but because they live on the other side of some arbitrary imaginary line, must use hacked keycards if they want to see the pictures.

My questions are... Assuming that I've got my facts straight... Does anyone know why this is the case? Why would Hughes and Tivo deliberately just ignore a large potential market?

Tangential question... What about Alaska and Hawaii? Can they see the birds, too, or are they too far away?

There's two parts to your question: the DirecTV part, and the TiVo part.

Part 1: DirecTV. I'll bet that DirecTV would love to sell service to the Canucks, but the issue there is that they aren't allowed by the Canadian government. The Canadian version of the FCC has some pretty keen ideas about keeping Canadians watching Canadian content. If DirecTV were to provide service, they couldn't just sell the same service they sell to the Merkins. They'd have to sell a special version of the service that was at least a certain percentage of Canadian content (some Canadian can surely jump in here with actual numbers). However, my guess would be that they still wouldn't be allowed to sell into that market because the Canadian FCC (CRTC?) has already issued licenses for Canadian companies to do direct broadcast satellite services, and since they're so very territorial and protectionist...

As far as the TiVo thing goes, that one seems like a case of limited resources, and not wanting to expend them on a little market like the Great White North, since selling into Canada would require a lot of up front costs like setting up sales and distribution deals, finding a good source for guide data for all that aforementioned Canadian programming, etc.

Of course, this is all my ignorant American perspective. I've only spent a grand total of a few hours in Canada, so an actual Canadian might be able to shed some more light on the subject.

As far as Alaska and Hawaii, I remember something about one of those states petitioning the FCC to not renew a license for one of the DBS companies unless they would start providing the same service there that they did to the continental US. Seems that they forgot that the planet's round. I do know that at least one of the DBS companies has a separate bird pointing at Hawaii to offer some limited service, and I've heard tales of Alaskans with really big dishes pointed at the horizon to get their signals.

XM and Sirius have the same problem the government doesn't want Canadians to access it. I know with the satellite radio services people illegially subscribe to them anyway but I don't know about TV. I guess it would be harder to hide a dish than an XM antenna.

Technically, it isn't illegal since DirecTV has no license to beam the signal into Canada.

I heard that DirecTV is finally going to "fix" this. The main problem is that it's legal to make those hacked cards in Canada and oh so easy to get them to the USA where they are illegal. So, even if DirecTV doesn't mind losing potential revenue in Canada, it is hurting from Canadians selling the hacked cards to people in the US.

The "fix" might be to make the cards illegal in Canada rather than getting a license to broadcast there.

Your description of the regulating of CANCON (Canadian Content) is close enough. I've also heard the same thoughts regarding TiVo's expansion in to Canada. Though I don't know how much research they've put into the cost estimates. Their data provider, Tribune Media Services does carry full Canadian listings, for all Cable, Satelite and "other" providers up here. I also know what the monthly costs are (because I've talked to TMS sales people a number of times). They're not insignificant, but quite a bit lower than for the US. I imagine they could cover them with enough Canadian subscribers in short order with little advertising expenditure. Pretty much just letting Canadians know that TiVo is available - because a large number of us already know what they are. A large number of us actually have them.

Tony, the other way Canadians access DirecTV with TiVo is to subscribe with a US address. Right now it's the only way because Direc changed their stream data earlier this year making all hacked cards completely useless. Stand-alone usage requires supplying your own guide data to the TiVo box (way more complicated than Direc setup).

The stand-alone DVR market is wide open in Canada. There is currently not even one company offering such a product. Integrated units (sat or cable) are available from respective operators but they're generaly crap compard to TiVo (using Scientific Atlanta and Echostar boxes). I'm sure Bell, Rogers, et al have no desire to see TiVo in any shape or form up here. They need all the help they can get to keep their own products moving.

Bruno

What about Alaska and Hawaii? Can they see the birds, too, or are they too far away?



No problem receiving DirecTV in Alaska -- at least, as far north as Fairbanks. I can't vouch for further north than that.

You would think it odd, however, to see the satellite dishes pointing much closer to the horizon than you are used to...

tanstaafl.

So if Alaska can get DirecTV, then the reasons for Canada not having it are purely political and not geographical. Gotcha.

I've also read that many northern locations including Alaska / Hawaii benefit from a much larger DirecTV satellite antenna to get a more reliable signal through weather conditions. I've seen some places offer 3' and 4' size dishes to help maximize signal strength (vs. the standard 18" size that we use here on the mainland)...

I've been a DirecTV customer for over 6 years now. While not perfect, the picture quality is so much better than the cable signal I was getting, it was an easy decision to switch. The difference in quality is especially noticeable with larger TVs...

Randy