What would you change with FIOS

jvmendoza

I am contemplating switching over from DTV to FIOS but wanted to know what features regarding FIOS do people not like or would like to change?

I'm assuming the HD Picture is great.
How is the DVR? I like to record a lot of shows and would like to be able to watch any show i record on any of my 3 tv's? Would that be possible?
How is the menu of the Set top box?
How is the speed when navigating through the menus?
How is the speed navigating when you fast forward or rewind or when you ff then hit play when watching a recorded show?
Is it as good or faster than the DTV HD 20 box?

Any help would be appreciated.

JPL

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, because Verizon is currently in the process of rolling out their new IMG (interactive media guide) s/w. We should be getting it by the end of August. So my take is based on s/w that will soon be retired.

First things first - the best part of fios (and I too switched from DirecTV, but I didn't have HD with them - just two R15s - and when I went HD, and when DirecTV wanted $300 for the HR20, I went looking) is the picture quality - hands down. I always thought the PQ on my DirecTV setup looked great - and it did. But my FiOS PQ is just clearly better. The SD is much sharper and more realistic looking (especially on my SD TV), and the HD is just amazing.

Next up - the hardware. Here's the way I usually compare the motorola DVR to the DirecTV series of DVRs - the moto DVR is much more pared down, in terms of functionality, but what it does do, it does really well. It's faster than my R15s were, and is outrageously intuitive and easy to use. And with the new IMG s/w, they're adding lots of cool new stuff (color-coding on the guide, adjustment for skipping/jumping back, multiple ways to view the PIG). And they're planning on making updates to the s/w before the end of the year to expand the functionality.

The DVR is capable, relatively fast (although others have noted that DVRs they've used are faster, this one is really quick compared to my R15s), very easy to use, and robust (it records what I tell it to). My two nits with the DVR - one is the limited functionality compared to the DirecTV boxes (e.g. there's nothing like a autorecord, there's no bookmarking, there's no caller id, and the searching I find to be pretty limited). The second nit is the size of the harddrive. It only has 160 GB harddrive in it, which isn't expandable. It's respectable for SD programming, but it's just too small for HD.

And what makes the space even worse is that programming takes up much more room on this box than on the DirecTV DVRs. For example, on my R15, I noticed an average of about 1GB/1 hour of programming for SD. This box uses about 2 - 3 times the amount of space for SD programming (again, never having had HD with DirecTV, I can't compare the programming time for HD). As a result, the box will store at most 80 - 85 hours of SD, and about 20 hours of HD. Now the reason for the extra space is actually a good thing - Verizon doesn't compress their picture nearly as much as DirecTV does.

Next up the multi-room capabilities. I have the multi-room DVR, and a standard STB on a second TV. So, answering your question - yes, you can watch what you record on the DVR on multiple TVs. You can hook up up to 6 additional TVs to the multi-room DVR (3 at one time - meaning that you can watch 4 shows all at the same time - one on the TV with the DVR, and 1 each on 3 separate TVs).

The multi-room feature works really well, and I like it alot (with DirecTV I had two R15s, and I really hated having 2 DVRs - the second was just a back-up of the first, allowing me to watch stuff on the family room TV if the kids were on the living room TV - as a result, I just ended up setting up the same recordings on both DVRs - I HATED doing that dual maintenance). And the multi-room DVR gives you access to their Media Manager s/w, allowing you to transfer digital pictures and music from your computer to your TV (and soon to include games).

All that being said, there are some downsides to the multi-room DVR:

1) You need standard STBs on each additional TV you're using to access the multi-room feed. In my case, I have 2 TVs - an HD in my living room (with the DVR), and an SD in the family room (with a standard STB).

2) You currently can't feed out HD programming. In fact, the multi-room feed currently doesn't even work with the HD STB. If you want to use the multi-room capability you HAVE to use standard def STBs on your other TVs. You can record HD, and watch it just fine on the TV that the DVR is hooked to, but you can't currently feed out HD to your other TVs. One note with this - Verizon is well aware of the desire to feed out HD programming, and this is one piece of functionality that they're looking to add in short order.

3) When accessing recorded content on one of your standard STBs, there's a real noticeable delay when using the "trickplay" functions (e.g. ffwd, rwd, et. al.) - on the order of 4 - 5 seconds between the time you press the button until you see it respond on the TV. The reason is because of how the recordings are accessed. Most of the video feed for your TV comes in via QAM - directly fed to your TVs. Some of the data, however, comes in via IP - via your router. This includes stuff like guide data, video on demand, widgets, and the multi-room video feeds are handled this way too. So, when you press "ffwd", the command goes from the standard STB -> router -> DVR, and the response goes back the same way, in reverse (DVR -> router -> STB).

4) Even though you get the Media Manager feature, you can only access the pictures and music on the TV that has the DVR.

5) Once you get a second DVR, I don't think you can use the multi-room features anymore.

As for the speed of the box - like I said, I found it faster than my R15s. The trickplay is more responsive than the R15s, and surfing is really fast (and with the new IMG, they supposedly cut that lag time for surfing through the guide down to .2 seconds).

As for the menuing, well, that I can't answer. The reason, again, comes down to the version of the s/w I have. I did find that the current guide data was a little clunky looking. The menu is WAY too large, taking up a quarter to a third of the screen, and the font was WAY too large, leaving little room on the guide for actual data. The menu, however, is very easy to navigate around, and is extremely intuitive. And the new IMG really looks slick. And from what I've seen (there's a tutorial floating around out there) the overall functionality hasn't really changed on the guide (it appears to be laid out the same as it is today).

Hope that helps. I really loved my DirecTV service (I was a customer for 5 years), but I like FiOS better. Oh, one more thing. If you're on the fence you can always do what I did. DirecTV allows you to suspend your account for up to 9 months. And Verizon gives you a 30-day trial with FiOS. Actually, Verizon doesn't have a mandatory commitment. If you sign up for a one-year commitment, however, you get $5 off/month for the year. And the commitment doesn't kick in for 30 days.

One exception to this, however, is the triple-play packages. Those all vary by state, and the one I signed up for locks me in for 2 years - and (and this is important) the commitment with the triple play kicks in right away. The good news is that you can always sign up for the triple play AFTER you've signed up (that's what I did - the triple play wasn't available when I signed up, but was offered about 2 weeks later) - as long as it's still in effect.

Anyway, I signed up for FiOS (without the triple play) and I suspended my DirecTV account. And when the FiOS installer came out I asked that he keep as much of my dish connections alone as possible. He did a great job - it would take me 5 minutes to disconnect FiOS and rehook up DirecTV if I wanted. I was sold on FiOS after just a couple days, and knew I would be dropping DirecTV. About a month after I signed up for FiOS, I finally cancelled my DirecTV account.

JPL

Oh, I wanted to give you a couple other comparison points. FiOS doesn't really have PPV (well, there's SOME, but not much at all - just one full-time PPV channel). The reason - anything you want to buy (ala PPV) you order via VOD instead. There are a couple upsides to this approach:

1) More movies offered - there are dozens of movies on VOD to choose from.

2) You start them when you want - and you can treat them like a recorded movie - ffwd, rwd, pause, et. al.


There are also a couple downsides:

1) Currently no HD VOD. Again, something that Verizon is working on, and will be adding before the end of the year.

2) You can't record the VOD to your DVR. This is kind of a pain. With DirecTV, I would order a movie via PPV for my kids. And they would watch it repeatedly - one movie sat on my DVR for 2 years. With VOD you can't do that. You have 24 hours to watch the movie you rent.

hidef-blue

awesome breakdown! i wish i we had FiOS in atlanta

E55AMG

Don't want to hijack the thread but discovered something interesting the other night. I switched to FiOS from dish a month or so ago. I never really took a look at our 2 std. def. TV's until last night. The Pioneer 5080 with the DVR looks great. I have a TV in the bedroom which I almost never watch and there is a TV up in the kids' area - also, I never watch.

I happened to be with my son last night upstairs and we had the TV on. I was pretty surprised at how much worse it looked than when dish was connected to that TV. I went to my bedroom and gave it a look and the same thing - it was not as good as it used to be. Any reason why this would be?

JPL

Really? I would call Verizon. It could be that there is something getting in the way of the signal getting through cleanly. Someone in this area said that his picture, as well as those around him, got crappy all of a sudden. After going back and forth with Verizon, it turned out there was dirt on the end of the fiber connecting his neighborhood. Also, if you don't mind my asking - where do you live. I'm not looking for anything specific - just a general location (e.g. I'm in West Chester, PA). There were some issues that some folks noticed with some PQ issues - never really affected me, but it did a number of people in this area.

There's been some speculation that it may have to do with the new IMG s/w coming out. They had to upgrade equipment to handle the roll-out of the s/w. The speculation (and that's what it is) is that Verizon did a "pre-emptive" upgrade of the hardware in this area in anticipation of the new s/w being rolled out. And because the h/w isn't optimized for the old s/w, folks were seeing degraded PQ. I think that makes alot of sense.

Do you know which version of the s/w you have? Do you have the new IMG yet?

Justin

You know, it might be something as simple as a loose connection. I presume that Verizon reused the existing cables, but they should have installed a new splitter, maybe the connectors for those TVs are loose or corroded. If you can get to the splitter easily I would check that.

FWIW, I have the HD-DVR and two SD STBs, and the FiOS picture on the SD TVs is far superior to what I had on them when I had cable, so I really don't think it is a given that the picture should be worse than what you had from the satellite. And of course the HD picture is just wonderful

__________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV and Internet
Motorola QIP6416 DVR
Sony KDL-V40XBR1 LCD
Sony SLV-D360P DVD/VCR

Methodical

[quote=JPL;334682]I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, because Verizon is currently in the process of rolling out their new IMG (interactive media guide) s/w. We should be getting it by the end of August. So my take is based on s/w that will soon be retired.

First things first - the best part of fios (and I too switched from DirecTV, but I didn't have HD with them - just two R15s - and when I went HD, and when DirecTV wanted $300 for the HR20, I went looking) is the picture quality - hands down. I always thought the PQ on my DirecTV setup looked great - and it did. But my FiOS PQ is just clearly better. The SD is much sharper and more realistic looking (especially on my SD TV), and the HD is just amazing.

I will agree here. I too said no to Dtv when they wanted $300 to get the new DVR, then pay a monthly lease, commit for 2 years and pay $300 for early termination. What pissed me off about this is that the new customers get all this crap for free. I too noticed that the SD picture quality is sharper and so has my wife, who still views the local channels in SD and not HD - can't seem to get thru to her - oh well .

Next up - the hardware. Here's the way I usually compare the motorola DVR to the DirecTV series of DVRs - the moto DVR is much more pared down, in terms of functionality, but what it does do, it does really well. It's faster than my R15s were, and is outrageously intuitive and easy to use. And with the new IMG s/w, they're adding lots of cool new stuff (color-coding on the guide, adjustment for skipping/jumping back, multiple ways to view the PIG). And they're planning on making updates to the s/w before the end of the year to expand the functionality.

Did not use a DVR with Dtv so can't provide info on that.

The DVR is capable, relatively fast (although others have noted that DVRs they've used are faster, this one is really quick compared to my R15s), very easy to use, and robust (it records what I tell it to). My two nits with the DVR - one is the limited functionality compared to the DirecTV boxes (e.g. there's nothing like a autorecord, there's no bookmarking, there's no caller id, and the searching I find to be pretty limited). The second nit is the size of the harddrive. It only has 160 GB harddrive in it, which isn't expandable. It's respectable for SD programming, but it's just too small for HD.

It seems fast to me but again I have not used any other DVR. I get no complaints from the wife and kids so it must be doing just fine.

And what makes the space even worse is that programming takes up much more room on this box than on the DirecTV DVRs. For example, on my R15, I noticed an average of about 1GB/1 hour of programming for SD. This box uses about 2 - 3 times the amount of space for SD programming (again, never having had HD with DirecTV, I can't compare the programming time for HD). As a result, the box will store at most 80 - 85 hours of SD, and about 20 hours of HD. Now the reason for the extra space is actually a good thing - Verizon doesn't compress their picture nearly as much as DirecTV does.

I don't think they do any compression and that's why it takes up so much more space but I could be wrong. From what I understand Verizon is utilizing very little of what's capable of the fiber optics.

Next up the multi-room capabilities. I have the multi-room DVR, and a standard STB on a second TV. So, answering your question - yes, you can watch what you record on the DVR on multiple TVs. You can hook up up to 6 additional TVs to the multi-room DVR (3 at one time - meaning that you can watch 4 shows all at the same time - one on the TV with the DVR, and 1 each on 3 separate TVs).

I just got the Multi Room feature and all I can say is "Yeah Baby"

The multi-room feature works really well, and I like it alot (with DirecTV I had two R15s, and I really hated having 2 DVRs - the second was just a back-up of the first, allowing me to watch stuff on the family room TV if the kids were on the living room TV - as a result, I just ended up setting up the same recordings on both DVRs - I HATED doing that dual maintenance). And the multi-room DVR gives you access to their Media Manager s/w, allowing you to transfer digital pictures and music from your computer to your TV (and soon to include games).

All that being said, there are some downsides to the multi-room DVR:

1) You need standard STBs on each additional TV you're using to access the multi-room feed. In my case, I have 2 TVs - an HD in my living room (with the DVR), and an SD in the family room (with a standard STB).

2) You currently can't feed out HD programming. In fact, the multi-room feed currently doesn't even work with the HD STB. If you want to use the multi-room capability you HAVE to use standard def STBs on your other TVs. You can record HD, and watch it just fine on the TV that the DVR is hooked to, but you can't currently feed out HD to your other TVs. One note with this - Verizon is well aware of the desire to feed out HD programming, and this is one piece of functionality that they're looking to add in short order.

He's correct on this

3) When accessing recorded content on one of your standard STBs, there's a real noticeable delay when using the "trickplay" functions (e.g. ffwd, rwd, et. al.) - on the order of 4 - 5 seconds between the time you press the button until you see it respond on the TV. The reason is because of how the recordings are accessed. Most of the video feed for your TV comes in via QAM - directly fed to your TVs. Some of the data, however, comes in via IP - via your router. This includes stuff like guide data, video on demand, widgets, and the multi-room video feeds are handled this way too. So, when you press "ffwd", the command goes from the standard STB -> router -> DVR, and the response goes back the same way, in reverse (DVR -> router -> STB).

I haven't really used this feature enough to judge, but the one time I did use it it move fairly fast to me.

4) Even though you get the Media Manager feature, you can only access the pictures and music on the TV that has the DVR.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but from what I understand, you should be able to share pictures and music (play music thru the STBs) to all other STBs via the Media Mgr.

5) Once you get a second DVR, I don't think you can use the multi-room features anymore.

Yes, you can have 2 DVRs. I have 2 of them, one in the basement (Multiroom hub) and one my bedroom. They will try to tell you they can't determine which DVR will get to be the Multi Media HUB (if you have more than 1 DVR) but don't buy it. Have the serial number of the box you want to be the HUB and tell them that's the box you want to be the Multi Room hub. My installer put the serial numbers on the the manual for each room.


... Hope that helps. I really loved my DirecTV service (I was a customer for 5 years), but I like FiOS better. Oh, one more thing. If you're on the fence you can always do what I did. DirecTV allows you to suspend your account for up to 9 months. And Verizon gives you a 30-day trial with FiOS. Actually, Verizon doesn't have a mandatory commitment. If you sign up for a one-year commitment, however, you get $5 off/month for the year. And the commitment doesn't kick in for 30 days.

Yep, this is what I did too.

One exception to this, however, is the triple-play packages. Those all vary by state, and the one I signed up for locks me in for 2 years - and (and this is important) the commitment with the triple play kicks in right away. ..

Here in Maryland, you can do the Triple Play for a one year commitment but they charge an extra $10 per month. But if you commit for 2 years they don't charge the extra $10. I, gulp, signed for a 2 year commitment and believe me I do not like committing to anything for 2 years, except of course my marriage, but I think it's that good, plus I do get a 30 day trial period. Also, if you have Verizon wireless, you can combine it with the FIOS bill, get a one-time $25 credit and a $5 credit off your monthly bills as long as you keep the bills combined. Plus, I got one of the boxes installed free and a monthly credit of $4.99 per month(one STB for free)

I just wanted to piggy back off these comments and provide my .02because it pretty much tells the story.

JPL

[quote=Methodical;336827]To hit some of these. No, you can't access music and pictures on any other STB than the DVR. I thought you could too, but I wasn't able to. I posted this on another forum, and someone responded with the disclaimer from Verizon's website saying that music and pix are only available on the TV with the DVR.

As for having multiple DVRs while still using the multi-room feature, I didn't know that you could do that. That's great to know. I was under a different understanding, but I believe what you're saying, and what you're saying definitely makes sense.

As for the speed via the remote STB, I probably over-stated the delay. Most of the time it is about 4 - 5 seconds though. Just seems slow compared to how fast it is when I run it from the TV with the DVR. If you do alot of ffwding, e.g., it can seem slow.

SOBAY310

The PPV picture is awful. UFC fights in particular look horrible on HDTV's. I went to a relatives house and it looked just as crappy. They need HD PPV.

JPL

Haven't ordered PPV through them, but I've heard the same thing. I agree that they need HD PPV/VOD. BTW, I think the subscription VOD (starz and whatnot) looks pretty good. Still, they need HD VOD!

akron05

The technology and service is great.

The billing blows.

bboncorr

i would change them not having enough available areas in my area. i cant even get fios internet because the house i just bought has underground lines. looks like no fios anything for me.

__________________
Living Room
pioneer kuro plasma PDP-5010FD (9.9)
Denon 4308CI (9.5)
B&W 683's, HTM61, 685's (9.0)
Sony PS3 (9.0)
Sony BD-S350 (9.5)
HSU VTF-3 MK3 sub (9.0)
Harmony 1000 (9.5)
XBOX360 + HD DVD (9.2)
Nintendo Wii (7.5)
Netflix Roku (9.0)

Gaming Room
60A3000 (8.7)
Halcro ssp200 (10. perfection)
Deftech BP7004, C/L/R2002, BP2X (8.7)
Sony Remote Commander (7.0)
Toshiba HDA35 (7.9)
Samsung 1400 (5.0)

Bedroom
Panasonic TH-42PZ85U (8.7)
Tivo HD (9.7)

bigjim2k

I have had Verizon Fios TV in Tampa now for over a year. I was one of the first to get it and have had Fios Internet for over 2.5 years. I was a long standing DirecTV HD customer with an HD-Tivo HR10-250 that my family and I loved, we went through Tivo withdraw for about three months and still take about how great the Tivo system worked. The DirecTV signal here in Tampa goes in and out during summer storms, so I made the switch.

I do love the Fios TV picture, it is the best I have seen even with a OTA. My only issue is that the widescreen movies in VOD are not true 19:9 widescreen. I have a 65” HD-TV and the WS Movies are framed or letterboxed so much that the actual screen size is reduced to a 40” view and it will not even come close to fill the screen. This had nothing to do with my TV native resolution or screen adjustment. I do miss my HD-Direct TV Tivo with it’s 250 GB HD, the Moto DVR is nice. The HD Tivo is like a Lexus and the Motorola QIP6416 is more like a nice Ford product.

JPL

You can opt to go with a Tivo off the shelf and get a cable-card from Verizon, if you so desire. Granted, that's not a cheap option, but it IS available with FiOS (although you would be sacrificing VOD). With DirecTV, many are still lamenting the fact that they will no longer support the HD Tivo platform. Oh, you can still use your old HD Tivo, but none of the new HD channels will be available to you - if you did go back to DirecTV, you would need their HR20 DVR to get their new HD channels.