My tour Inside the Bell TV Facilities

**Hugh** · 07-30-2010, 10:09 AM

I had the chance to tour the Bell TV facilities today.

My Tour Guide was Tim Dinesen, the VP of Technology and Operations at Bell TV.

In the past, I have had tours of CBC, Rogers Cable and a few other high tech operations and I have always enjoyed them. Today was no exception.

I got to see Master Control, Encoding devices, transmitters, system control, the HD testing rooms and a QC room where they had each type of satellite receiver ever sold by Bell in operation to make sure that its latest software release worked on that receiver.

The following are some pictures from the Bell Facility that were taken by Bell but I can attest that it looks just like the pictures.

Kudos to Tim and his staff on a very clean and well organized facility.

**Hugh** · 07-30-2010, 07:04 PM

The ExpressVu facilities are split into two areas, one area for 91 and one area for 82.

Inside are lots of rooms with lots of televisions. Here is a shot of master Control for the IPTV operation.

**Hugh** · 07-31-2010, 03:11 AM

Next we were off the encoding room. Each station has an encoder. Essentially receives the signals from every station either terrestrially or via satellite.

Once received, the stations are then encoded to 720p with encryption and then transmitted back up to 91 and 82

The following is the transmitter room.

**Hugh** · 07-31-2010, 05:34 AM

Next its back up to the sky via the transmitters.

This shot was taken in the winter but trust me it looks the same (minus the snow) today.

Looking out the Windows inside the Bell facility was pretty amazing since there were so many satellite dishes big and small.

**Hugh** · 07-31-2010, 10:21 AM

Next up was a tour of various rooms where I saw lots of satellite receivers.

In every one of the control rooms, including the one in post #2, every one of televisions is hooked up to a satellite receiver so I saw rooms of receivers!

One QC room also had several racks of all the Bell Receivers ever sold and one room had lots of monitors where employees could monitor HD signals received by Bell on many different televisions.

Fascinating stuff.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

07-31-2010, 06:57 PM

Very neat.

Is it true that they have an area devoted to piracy with every piece of illegal equipment imaginable? I guess they probably keep that room hidden

07-31-2010, 08:42 PM

Wow, that 1st photo you posted Hugh reminds me of the Matrix. That is quite the operation.

07-31-2010, 09:36 PM

Neato hugh, neat to see they grap alot of stuff on ku to rebroadcast. I wonder if they grab stuff from dishnetwork to do it. in the picture I see a few dishes that look like they are pointed at 110 and 119 spot' thanks for this. cheers

08-01-2010, 03:35 AM

Where is the BellTV facility? Was there snow around the dishes?

08-01-2010, 12:19 PM

Sorry, I have to ask. In the picture of all the channels (1st pic), were the porn channels on any of those sets? Always wondered if they had those channels displayed.

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