• Over 300 channels including new movie channels, sports, music, news, children's and much more.
• 10 Viewers Choice pay per view on demand movie and event channels plus the Vancouver Canucks PPV channel.
• 25 HDTV Channels with more on the way!
• Over 90 Satellite music stations.
• The Interactive program guide that comes with your digital receiver will allow you to scroll listings 3 days in advance, sort, schedule program reminders, organize your favorite channels, order pay-per-view movies and events, password protect channels and censor by program ratings.
• Personal Video Recorders "PVR" let you pause, rewind and fast forward live TV.
  (Check out the Top 5 reasons to have a PVR)
• Choose individual channels, build your own theme packages or choose from one of ours.
• Save $$$ on your High Speed Internet service when you bundle with cableMAX Digital Cable.
• Service and Support are Free.
• Equipment repairs are Free.

Top 5 Reasons to Have a PVR

PVR's, such as the 6416 HD PVR shown here, can best be described as a very advanced digital VCR with three critical differences.

The primary difference is a PVR stores recorded television programs on a hard disc drive that is contained inside the device rather than on videotape.

The second major difference is that every PVR has an onscreen television guide that allows users to search for programming and record a television program at the touch of a button. The on-screen guide is available on some VCR’s but typically the functionality is not as robust or as easy to use as it is with a personal video recorder.

Finally, a PVR possesses sophisticated software, which can be updated, that gives its owner a tremendous number of features not available to VCR owners such as the ability to: pause live TV, rewind the show you are watching for up to 60 minutes, replay just viewed scenes and much more.

The term PVR initially referred to devices such as ReplayTV or TIVO, which connected to an analog cable feed and record programs to a hard drive, however over the years the term has taken on a wider meaning.

Currently a PVR or DVR refers to any consumer electronics device that includes an on-screen program guide and records video signals to either a hard disk drive or DVD disc.

Top 5 Reasons to Buy a PVR

Reason #1: You’ll always have something to watch

How many times have you sat down to watch television, flipped through all the channels and found there was “nothing on”? With a PVR, you can search out programs to record or you can set it record your favorite program every week, even if you’re on vacation or away on a business trip.

The result is you can build up a library of your favorite shows, movies and interesting programs, stored on the PVR’s hard drive, which you can view the next time you turn on the tube.

For many PVR owners, the biggest problem becomes “what to watch next”?

Reason #2: Skip 20,000 commercials a year

Research has found that the average Canadian adult watches over 55 television commercials a day which translates into over 20,000 commercials a year!

The total amount of time spent watching those 20,000 commercials is about 166 hours a year or how much time you spend at work in a month. With a PVR, you can simply skip or fast forward through those commercials and free up 166 hours of your time a year!

With those extra hours saved by not watching commercials, you could start that exercise program, go for a walk or spend some time with the kids.

In addition to freeing up time, you’ll also be able to watch an hour of television in about 45 minutes. An average hour of commercial television has between 12 minutes and 16 minutes of commercials, therefore with a PVR you can skip the commercials and watch an hour long show such as Law and Order or CSI in about 45 minutes!

Reason #3: Skip the Boring Parts

If saving 166 hours a year of your time watching commercials is not enough then use your PVR to skip through all the boring parts of a show.

Sure the Academy Awards and the Emmy Awards are fun but wouldn’t be great to skip some of the bad musical numbers and boring acceptance speeches? With a PVR, you can still find out who all the winners are and watch the awards show in half the time.

If you’re a football fan, then just pause the show at the beginning. Come back an hour later and as you watch the game, simply fast forward through those endless coaches challenges, time-outs and half-time shows. The result is you can watch a football game in an about hour and a half instead of the normal three or three and half hours.

Reason #4: Never Miss a Favorite Show

Late getting home from work or maybe you had to take the kids out to a ball game? Just set your PVR up to record all your favorites and watch them when you get home. Sure you can do this with a VCR but who wants to deal with Video tape, and all those codes.

Reason #5: Watch your Favorite Show when you want

Admit it, you love watching The Young and the Restless but you work during the day or maybe Entertainment Weekly is more your style but by the time dinner is over so is the show.

With a PVR, you can timeshift. This just means that you can record a show that runs earlier in the day or week and watch it later on when it’s convenient for you.

Some would argue that this is possible with a VCR but with most people, setting up your VCR to tape shows and play them back was a lot of work. The one-button recording capabilities of the PVR, along with advanced recording and playback features take the pain out of recording and make it easy to watch what you want, when you want.

Reason #6: Pause Live Action

Mascon Cable loves to under promise and over deliver so we’ll give you some extra reasons to buy a PVR.

Imagine, you’re at the climax of your favorite television show and the hero is about to announce who the killer is and the doorbell rings. Do you: Pretend like your not home or miss the best part? With a PVR, you don’t have to, simply press pause and the show stops and the hard drive continues to record.

Once you’ve gotten off the phone with your annoying mother-in-law or shooed the guy trying to sell you something from your doorstep, you simply press play and finish watching your show.

Summary

We can come up with many more reasons to own a PVR, such as the ability to watch one show and record another, or we can tell you how it can improve the overall quality of television you watch but we’ve gone past our five reasons.

In our opinion, the ability to skip those 20,000 commercials a year and being able to build up a library of programming is well worth the cost of a personal video recorder.

PVRs are available for as low as $249 and with the cold winter months approaching, the amount of television most Canadians will watch will increase therefore do yourself a favor and buy a PVR today.