Satellite TV Forum

[leopold]

Why buy the Expressvu 9242 PVR Plus Receiver for $699 when you can buy the much cheaper Expressvu 6141 HD Receiver for $299 and turn it into a PVR for under $100. Let me explain.

Bell TV (expressvu) 6141 HD Receiver

expressvu-6141-hd-receiver.jpg (18.23 KiB) Viewed 3216 times

During one of the Boxing Day sales I purchased a 46″ Sony Bravia 1080P HDTV and upgraded my Bell Expressvu Satellite receiver to a Bell Expressvu 6141 HD receiver. My choices in Expressvu HD Receivers were limited at the time to the 6141 HD Receiver or for $299 or the or 9242 HD PVR Plus receiver for $699. While I truly wanted to experience HDTV with my Bell Satellite system and was truly searching for a Bell Expressvu PVR Plus HD receiver, the price of $699 was not attractive. In fact, the $299 price tag for the standard Bell Expressvu HD Satellite Receiver was still a little steep. If I was a new customer, I could have purchased these Bell Expressvu HD Satellite Receivers for $100 less than they were being advertised for existing customers. Aproximately one week prior to my vacation, Expressvu had a promotion offering $100 off all satellite receivers and I picked up the Bell Expressvu 6141 HD receiver for $199, which included a free dish upgrade. To my surprise, this receiver allowed me to add an external hard disk drive!

I purchased a 500 GB external Hard Drive for $90 and plugged it into the Expressvu 6141 HD receiver and within 10 minutes I had the full function of the PVR Plus. Turning the Expressvu 6141 HD Receiver into a PVR Plus was easy and I can now record up to 66 hours of HD programming and over 450 hours of regular programming on the external hard drive I had purchased, and all for under $300! If you are planning on turning your Bell Expressvu 6141 HD Receiver into a PVR, you must purchase an external hard drive that has the following specifications:

* 7200 RPM rotation speed
* 40 GB . 750 GB capacity
* Single hard disk drive in the enclosure (2 drives are not supported)
* USB 2.0
* External AC Power Supply
* No Sleep Mode (cannot power down when idle)

When this drive is plugged into the Expressvu 6141 HD Receiver, the system detects that the storage device has been plugged into the satellite receiver and asks if you want to enable the PVR features of the receiver. It checks for compatibility of the hard disk drive and asks you to format the device.

Once the Expressvu 6141 HD Receiver formats the external hard drive, the satellite receiver reboots and the PVR features are now enabled.

[Mikers99]

Well, I went to Walmart in Moncton, NB and there was no no brand names left... there were ECD/DVD roms tho.

I went and bought a Free Agent Desk from Seagate 1 TB and it works like a charm for the past few hours. The only thing that is funny is that it goes to sleep and then you have to wake it up so you have to click on it twice but that is no big deal (SO FAR). Let's keep fingers crossed.

[gilberto]

If any body knows if once the hard disc has been connected to the 6141 still can be used in other devices such as laptop so I can use it as well as other media back up.

Thanks.

[Dave]

if once the hard disc has been connected to the 6141 still can be used in other devices such as laptop

I tried it and soon as you plug it into the receiver, the receiver does a complete format, wipes it clean and installs their program. I lost everything on the drive. Maybe some one can tell you more, that's what happened to me.

[Dave]

I bought a Seagate Free agent 1TB, installed on the 6141 receiver, worked great. But the hard drive will not power down after I turn the receiver off. I think this will be hard on the hard drive, may shorten the life on it. To me there is a software problem with Bell. I unplug the hard drive, but this is a pain going behind my system. Can you give me some incite on this?
Thanks
Dave

[kwazoo]

FYI.. the Bell 6131/6141 HD PVR receiver was being blown out at FShop/BestBuy over Boxing day for $99. I added one to my account and a Seagate 500G portable HD. The Bell box formats the hard drive with Linyx partitioning and can not be used with a PC for transferring files etc. unless it is reformatted for PC use by a PC. Then you lose all data from the PVR. It's best to use it exclusively for Satellite TV. So don't break the bank on an expensive external HDD unless you spend a lot of time PVR-ing HD content.

Go Canada !!!

[leopold]

I bought a Seagate Free agent 1TB, installed on the 6141 receiver, worked great. But the hard drive will not power down after I turn the receiver off. I think this will be hard on the hard drive, may shorten the life on it. To me there is a software problem with Bell.

Dave, that is the problem with the free agent HDD. They have "sleep mode" or "power save" mode which causes them to power down. Bell doesn't recommend drives with this feature.

[EYEINTHESKY]

Hi guys, I just connected my 1TB Seagate hard drive to my Bell HD receiver this morning. I must admit I was quite impressed with how simple the entire process was. Does anyone know if it would be possible to connect and burn movies with an external DVR?

[Helpme]

I bought and hooked up a Seagate 1TB external hard drive for my Bell 6141 receiver. Worked great for a month and a half but now in playback it freezes up. I just now found in my many searches on the good old internet it doesn't like sleep mode so I hooked it up to my computer and changed it to never. Plugged it back into the receiver recorded a show to see if that would 'fix' it and it still sticks on playback. Help...

[Gloria]

I replaced my 3100 with a 6131, and like you, upgraded to PVR with an external hard drive (and loving it). Here is my question:

I want to be able to attach my hard drive to the old 3100 in order to watch recorded movies, but the 3100 has no USB. Is there an adaptor that would work? Or is there another way to accomplish this? I tried using my laptop as a receiver but that didn't work, due to difference in file types, I was told.

Please keep your answer simple, as I am a tech-dummy. Thanks!

[Jay]

I bought a 1 TB Ultra Speed brand external Hard Drive from Walmart for $88 +tax and hooked it to Bell 6131 HD receiver and it works fine. But it does not power down even after the receiver is switched off.

If the hard drive is left ON all the time then this will shorten the life of it. Also there is an ON/OFF switch at the back of the hard drive, is it wise to just switch it OFF from there? Your comments on these issue will be very much appreciated.

[Del]

it does not power down even after the receiver is switched off.

If the hard drive is left ON all the time then this will shorten the life of it. Also there is an ON/OFF switch at the back of the hard drive, is it wise to just switch it OFF from there?

You should be able to turn off the external drive without an issue, as long as you are not archiving or playing back from it at the time. A message will come up that a multimedia device was disconnected. Carry on as normal. When you switch on the external drive, a message will come up stating a multimedia device has been found and if you want to access it. I have been switching the external drive off and on for months without any issues at all.

[John]

To answer Gloria's question, the expressvu3100 receiver does not support PVR which is why it doesn't have a USB port. As such you cannot connect the hard drive from your 6131.

However, I have a similar question along those lines. I would like to take the HDD with recorded programs from one 6131 and plug it into different 6131 receiver. Does anyone know if the encrypted content is unique to each receiver

I don't have a 2nd 6131 but would like to get one if this is possible so that I can watch programs in a different room.

[Heather]

Hello,
I am in the process of deciding what to do: PVR or external hard drive?
I was wondering if it is possible to get an external hard drive that is MAC friendly, so I could watch the recording on my computer? Is that even possible? Thank you for your time.
Heather