Blink Entertainment

[Spazosaurus]

Does anyone have this service? Comments and opinions please.

[TriniXaeno]

what is this? some sort of TV service?

[Spazosaurus]

yip

http://www.blinkentertainment.tt/index.cfm/1,161,0,0,html/Entertainment

[AIDS]

I was wondering the same thing. It's relatively new but it looks interesting. I would love to see some reviews.

[W1nTry]

I checked out the page when it first launched. It was only available in the condos in West Morrings... ummm I don't know but I don't think anyone on the forum falls in that category XD so NO IDEA on how good it is or isn't. The fact that they haven't been on their usual mass marketing push about it though speaks volumes to me

[Spazosaurus]

I got home yesterday to find the service up and running on my TV and 2 others in the house. So let me give you guys a run down on how it works and first impressions.

There is currently a promotion where if u sign up by July the something'th you get 2 months free, so we took the premium package and will downgrade to the lite for $100 after that time passes.

It uses a dedicated telephone line that runs from the road. Best I can tell, its a broadband connection that is re-purposed for tv service.

So the rj11 plugs into the usual dsl filter which then goes into what is best described as a wireless router. This router then sends its signal to a wireless receiver which plugs into the set top box. The wireless router broadcasts to multiple receivers so in my case where there are 3 tv's, there is one router serving three wireless devices (which seems to run a version of Linux, cant rem the nameE) which then plugs into their respective stb.

From the stb, there are both coax and RCA outputs to go to your tv.

The picture is very clear on the channels, the on screen tv guide is sluggish to cycle through channels and is not nearly as fast as how Flow's guide cycles. I have seen a only a couple freezes in picture in about half hour of watching.  Basically, first impressions are that its OK, of course, only time will tell how it stands up.

[Fkacn_tt]

thought they would have used fiber as the wired medium not old school copper

[W1nTry]

Well now we know where capn living and how his rig so badass XD

Interesting... TV over IP... I mean sure multicast traffic, so one feed suites all... interesting stuff.... the lack of a proper hardware unit (from capn descriptions) might account for sluggish menus, having to pull data via the same connection rather than arbitrate the stream locally in hardware... who knows. Either way I does be beating my head about TSTT internet you REALLY think I trusting what little TV I watch to them too? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Spazosaurus]

LOL. They said that soon they supposed to be running fibre all along the street so I guess we'll see how it goes when that happens.

[Exar_Kun]

Greendot has a similar service isn't it? I assumed it would work the same way.

[TriniXaeno]

very interesting

Excellent discourse on the service. Can you take a picture of the devices in question? maybe even a shot of the screen with a channel showing and one with the tv guide?

Is it HD? or looking murky?

Like the idea of wireless (though I don't trust it) but it sure saves on running cables and makes relocating the TV easy.

[Spazosaurus]

I will certainly take the pics, wyatt. YES @ easy relocation. Just another point of note that the extra 2 pieces of equipment for each separate tv costs an extra $22 a month for rental.

This service is NOT hd, although on the website I see they have a HD stb pictured.

Picture is what you would expect from SD, not terrible, but it certainly wont impress a man/woman/horse with refined tastes.




The white funny thing on top is the wireless receiver, the box on the bottom is the set top box. Included is a blackberry for scaling purposes lol.







This is the main station, wireless router on top, stb below.






Backshot of router and stb.


And here's a video for your perusal. Note the annoying lag between channel changes and button presses in general. Picture is ok though, id say on-par with Flow's

[AIDS]

Nice indepth review. Still looks like a pass to me though.

[Preston786]

yea works great doesn't lag the net connection

menus a bit slow at the initial guide button press but gets normal abt 2 secs after