This post is for people who are trying to decide if FiOS TV is for them
Gus_Gutz
Enthusiast - Level 3

(edit)

I thought that I could get rid of Directv and save a few dollars. For those people who have the service and are satisfied, great! This post is for people who are trying to decide if it is for them.  If you are on the fence and thinking about switching, HOLD OFF. The features in their equipment is poor at best. The dvr's are limited in their ability to hold data and nothing is being done about it (according to tech support and sales.) You cannot add an eSATA drive and the 20 hours of HD content comes out to maybe 17 or 18. At 6 hours of recorded HD programming, I was at 47% used. I had to run commands to recover some of the space and then I got it down to 40.

The menus are a kludge. They are either stretched to fit the screen or compressed.  It's as if these Motorola /Verizon engineers think that HD tv's are not the norm.  They have 4:3 menus stretched to 16:9. Recording a series is not intuitive and then you end up recording every instance of the show. You have to go and tell it not to record certain times.

You need two remotes if you have an audio device and do not use the sound in the tv. You can control the sound of an audio device with the supplied remote but you have to press the AUX button to do so. When you are in that auxiliary mode you cannot use the dvr functions unless you press another button taking you out of aux mode. You need to change sound levels often as the commercials seem twice as loud as the content.

A Tivo box is one solution to the storage problem, but you have to rent two cable cards to do so. It costs 79 dollars an hour for the tech to come out to your house to install them and the Tivo requires you pay them a service fee along with the purchase of the box. Probably a better option but Verizon should tell you when you place your order.

I realize that Verizon would like to market this service, but until they make the hardware better and more modern, they just are not going to get the sales. I should have held off. I wish I found this forum before I made my decision. **bleep** me.....

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Re: This post is for people who are trying to decide if FiOS TV is for them
jmw1950
Specialist - Level 2

The Verizon DVR is admittedly not the sharpest box on the market. I admit to giving up on the multi-room DVR product, it just never worked satisfactorily for me.

Hopefully features/functions issues  will improve in the near term with the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta box that obviously isn't going to make Q1. I admit I have ceased  holding my breath. Something does have to happen fairly soon because 160gb drives are literally going out of production.

You do however make two statements that incorrect. Current TiVO's only need 1 cable card, since the standard cable card today in Verizon's stock  is the M-Card. You also have the option with TiVO of paying either an annual fee, or a one time fee, both of which are lower in the long term than the month to month fee. Alternatively you can by the Moxi DVR, and it includes lifetime service in the purchase price.

While in theory a truck roll costs $79, in practice if it is for a Cable Card install, it is free (I think  FCC regulations preclude the charge).

Apparently there is nothing in Verizon's order processing system that tells reps that there is no charge for Cable Card installations, so they often quote the $79 fee because that is the standard charge for technician to come out. As far as I can tell (and there have been lots of posts about cable card installs), no one has in fact been charged the $79 fee..

Re: This post is for people who are trying to decide if FiOS TV is for them
prisaz
Legend

@jmw1950 wrote:

The Verizon DVR is admittedly not the sharpest box on the market. I admit to giving up on the multi-room DVR product, it just never worked satisfactorily for me.

Hopefully features/functions issues  will improve in the near term with the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta box that obviously isn't going to make Q1. I admit I have ceased  holding my breath. Something does have to happen fairly soon because 160gb drives are literally going out of production.

You do however make two statements that incorrect. Current TiVO's only need 1 cable card, since the standard cable card today in Verizon's stock  is the M-Card. You also have the option with TiVO of paying either an annual fee, or a one time fee, both of which are lower in the long term than the month to month fee. Alternatively you can by the Moxi DVR, and it includes lifetime service in the purchase price.

While in theory a truck roll costs $79, in practice if it is for a Cable Card install, it is free (I think  FCC regulations preclude the charge).

Apparently there is nothing in Verizon's order processing system that tells reps that there is no charge for Cable Card installations, so they often quote the $79 fee because that is the standard charge for technician to come out. As far as I can tell (and there have been lots of posts about cable card installs), no one has in fact been charged the $79 fee..


There is no charge for a cable card install. I have 1 M-Card and a TIVO HD. $3.99 a month to Verizon for the card, and $12.95 a month to Tivo. I am very happy with my set up. I purchaced the smallest of the two TIVOs for $199 at the time. Reconditioned, and I removed the small drive and installed a terabyte drive for $120. But they do support an external drive.

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Re: This post is for people who are trying to decide if FiOS TV is for them
Bob_Robertson
Specialist - Level 1

also, you CAN program the remote to control your AUX device volume, by default

Using AUX Device

 

Some people may want to always adjust the volume using their AUX device

(typically a home theater receiver) regardless of the mode they are in:

 

Step Action

1 Press and hold the STB button

2 While holding down the STB button, press OK

3 Release both keys. The Device Keys will blink twice.

4 Press 955. The STB button will blink twice.

5 Press AUX The AUX key will blink 3 times to indicate success in programming.

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