Wow .. very cool new home media center

JPL

Italian, sorry, but I think you're wrong about this one. While it's true that 1TB is big enough for many consumers, I don't think it future-proofs the box at all. I never thought that I would care about more than having the 35GB DVR that I first got when I was with DirecTV. I was wrong. I'm FAR from a power user, and my 500 GB 7232 is routinely nearly 90% full. I have 5 kids and everyone has the shows they like to record. Also, with kids, you know darn well that parents don't 'watch and delete' shows. My kids can watch the same damn episodes of the same damn shows over and over and over again. When a 3-year-old gets stuck on a particular show, then quantity is REALLY important. Oh, you could play the same episode of Tiny Town (I think that's the name of the show my 3 year old is jonesing on now) over and over and over until your eyes bleed... my 3 year old can sit through the same episode repeatedly. But if you want to save your sanity, you save as many episodes of the same show as you can, so you have a list to play from when they ask for that show.

Next, this new box has 5 tuners. That's alot. Which means... more recording! You're getting to the point where the single box is going to start recording stuff at a faster rate than you can watch it. We routinely record things now that we don't watch for 3 months. Just the nature of it. There's a movie you've always wanted to see... HD Net Movies is showing it... so you record it. And at some point in the next couple months your schedule clears up enough that you can actually sit down and watch. The whole point of a DVR is so you can watch on YOUR schedule... not on the TV's schedule. I don't just watch and delete. Sometimes a movie will sit on my DVR for a year or more. And then there's the fact that everyone has their favorites that they never want to delete. That 'keep until I delete' function is a biggie in my house.

Finally, upping the drive from 1TB to 2TB will do virtually nothing to the cost. This isn't the same as just 'dropping coax' - why that's relevent to this discussion, I don't know - no one here is claiming that installs are easy, and adding a bigger harddrive to a DVR doesn't make it any harder to do an install. In fact, I could argue, that it could make tech support easier for Verizon. Why? Because if I want more than 1TB, what do I do. I put on my own external drive. What if it doesn't work right? What do I do? I call Verizon! Meaning that there's a possibility for error that doesn't exist if the bigger drive were already inside the DVR, which leads to a greater expense to Verizon in the end.

rbinck

If there was a PC tuner for Fios for use with Windows Media Center there could be multiple DVRs that work just like what you describe for Directv. Is there such a tuner for Fios?

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ITALIAN926

80Gb? Thats crazy. Well, now that there are 7232's and modfied 7216's with 500 Gb drives, that pretty much wipes out the ability to tell by model number.

ITALIAN926

Lets be serious here. If the cost would be the same, they would include a 2TB of memory or more. When I added my external, it was a piece of cake. Not a single hiccup since. I dont see a lot of people calling in for advice on that.

Should we make a list of all the extra equipment Verzion has to provide that their primary competitors, the cable co's, dont? The competitive disadvantage is enormous due to equipment, not to mention the extended labor time involved. While Verizon is doing 1 installation, cable techs are doing 3. Furthmore, Verizon is primarily unionized, the cable companies use contractors heavily. Now if they can save $50 per DVR, Im fairly certain theyll be using a B.Y.O.M mentality for the DVR "power users". Now we can argue what the price difference is, to increase it to 2Tb, and Motorola is cracking the whip on that one, but the truth is we dont know. You can rationalize "a tiny increase" all youd like, but Ive seen the price list for a lot of their equipment, and it would shock the hell out've you.

In addition, it is "predicted" that Verizon is on a slow transition to MPEG4 which would double the recording power, would it not?

You know what would have been cool with Home Media Server? If it was entirely IPTV delivery like Uverse. Their HD limitations would be lifted, and they could also bypass Local Franchise Agreements limiting their ability to offer TV in a lot of towns/cities.

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Shark2k

Any PC tuner will work with FiOS. FiOS TV works just like cable with the QAM structure. The Ceton InfiniTV and SiliconDust CableCard tuners allow you to receive all the channels and use WMC (I do this now).

-Shark2k

rbinck

Thanks for that info. I can't get Fios where I am, so don't have any first hand knowledge. Based on that it seems that a multiple WMCs would way outperform the whole house DVR, or what they are calling a media server. Of course the drawback is you have to buy the PCs. But many people have an X-box which can be used as an extender for some TVs. I use an old laptop as an extender in my living room.

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JPL

You do realize that you're using many of the same arguments that I did way back when we talked about you guys going on strike? You panned my comments that those union contracts (the benefits you guys get over equivalent installers for cable or DBS) put you guys at a competitive disadvantage. Back then all you talked about was how much money Verizon had in the bank. So, now competitive advantage is a driver? Interesting. BTW, I agree that it is, but I think you're missing it with this. The cost of buying an external 2TB drive is significantly higher than what Verizon would pay for such a drive. And it's a tiny fraction of the cost of the box.

The HD DVRs alone run Verizon something like $500 - $800, depending on the model. These new servers will likely be more than that. How much more does it cost them to make the drive 2TB instead of 1? $10? You really think that drives a bigger cost to the consumer in any meaningful way?

I'm not trying to attack you on this - I think economic decisions are key in deciding when to move into a new product/business. All companies have to balance the cost vs. the benefit. The thing is, they're spending ALOT of money in putting this new box out there. If you're going to do that, and you do it without a bigger drive, you stand to actually lose customers for this new service. Yes, there's a cost for providing it. But there's also a cost for NOT providing it (loss of customer revenue). This whole thing just strikes me as pinching pennies by Verizon. It strikes me as short-sighted. And again, I point to the example of the 7232. THEY drove the decision to have Motorola increase the size of the HD in that box.

I'm not saying that they should only cater to the top 1% of customers. But putting in a 2TB drive isn't what I would call catering to those customers. That's pretty standard these days for higher end boxes.

As for the self-install of the extender... that's interesting considering all the discussions we had about people running their own cable. You were very against that, because it may not work correctly (even though, if it didn't work correctly, you could just call Verizon and at worst you pay for a truck roll, which you would pay anyway if you called them right up front). I'm not saying the self-install for the extender is hard (haven't done it myself, but I can't imagine it's tough), but I do know people who have had issues with it, who have indeed called Verizon. Mainly because if it doesn't work, it's not necessarily anything on Verizon's end that's at fault. If I buy a drive that doesn't work for this extending capability, what do I do when I try it? I plug it in... and for some reason it doesn't work. It doesn't matter WHY it doesn't work at that point. All I know is that it doesn't. So, what do I first try? I call Verizon. I won't know that the drive I bought doesn't work for the setup until I go through some trouble-shooting steps with tech support first. So, even if the set up is a piece of cake, things can go wrong that have nothing to do with the difficulty of the set up.

JPL

Oh, and one last thing - where does UVerse NOT have this issue? Sure they do. You still store recordings locally. The ip streaming only affects how the signal gets to your house, and how the feeds are sent around your home (feed goes to your RG, that feeds out to your STBs/DVR). The DVR is still used to store programming.

ITALIAN926

Not understanding your question. I was making a statement regarding IPTV unrelated to the issue of hard-drive space. Edit, now I see, when I typed "HD" I was talking HIGH DEF, not Hard Drive

As far as your comments go with the 8/2011 union talk, I argued that Verizon made like 20 billion a year in profit, (I forgot the exact numbers). Sometime in the following 17 months, I happened to come across Verizons quartly report, and financial breakdown. After operating costs, of the 6 Billion that quarter, Verizon Wireless made like 99% of VZ's profits. Wireline, including FiOS, made a measly 40 MILLION. Since those discussions with you, Ive also come to realize how separate a company VZW actually is (Cellco Partnership with Vodafone). Since then, VZW (Cellco) has also made surprising deals with the Top Cable companies, Comcast, Time Warner, Brighthouse; which would be blatantly uncompetitive, IF VZW and VZ was one of the same, which its not.

I feel that 1Tb is more than adequate for most people. People can easily upgrade that to 2Tb (or more) if they want. The installation of the expander took like a whole 30 seconds. This is no comparison to people running their own coax. I have seen a hundred customers run their own wiring and completely screw it up. Even ignorant electricians think you can split an RF signal an unlimited amount of times.

You claim to upgrade to a 2Tb, it would cost Verizon $10. Its nothing but conjecture, none of us have that info.

ITALIAN926

PS, I would agree with you that 1Tb was short sighted if 1080p broadcast video was on the horizon. To me, this is a clue that they are nowhere near it. If they are , sure Verizon has screwed up.

rbinck

Which 1080p? The 1080p/24 takes less space than the 1080i/30. Maybe you mean 1080p/60? Don't see any sources for that anytime soon.

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ITALIAN926

Not sure if I'll ever get this straight. lol.

Would a recording in 1080i/24 require half the space needed for 1080p/24?

ugh

Shark2k

No problem. Ceton actually came out with an extender called the Echo back in November. It costs $179, but it is extremely small, uses less than 5 watts and gives you the complete WMC experience without the need for a PC on it. I'm actually using one and it works pretty well. And the nice thing is there is no fan so it's completely silent.

-Shark2k

ITALIAN926

I have an Xbox that no longer plays discs, anyone interested in it? lol

__________________
60" plasma- Pioneer PDP-6010FD
55" LCD Vizio E550VL
42" plasma Panasonic TH-42PX77U
~1500 DVD's , 90 HD-DVD's , yes chose the wrong format , , Toshiba HD DVD Player (HD-A20)
Xbox 360

Former FiOS technician
My Family Room Pic #1

My Family Room Pic #2

tkurkowski

We've watched the technology of digital entertainment grow by leaps and bounds. We've watched the requirements for the computer systems we use to enjoy the media, grow by leaps and bounds (and yes, just about every box we have in our home theater systems is a computer). We have optical disk players that now run Java to access the disk menus, so if you buy a BD player with a slow CPU your disks take forever to start. We have the highest performing service provider getting that performance by running fiber optic cable to our houses. (Most of us don't have fiber in our places of work.)

We're clearly not going to change Italian's mind. He repeats that since his family doesn't need more that 1TB of disk space, no one else should, and doesn't see that he is imposing his requirements on everyone else. He doesn't see that adding more tuners will result in people recording more content. And he doesn't see that the service provider running fiber to the house but chintzing out on $10 (or even $20) on a $500 to $800 unit, is silly.

Dunno about you, but I'm leaving this discussion - it's become pointless. We can just remember it when the next model of the media server has a larger hard drive, just like Verizon had to do with our current DVRs.

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