Bell Expressvu PVR External Hard Drive

Why buy the Expressvu 9242 PVR Plus Receiver $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.

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 1-week prior to my Disney 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.