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In keeping with our commitment to provide FiOS TV viewers with information about modifications and enhancements to their service, we are providing release notes for version 1.8 of the Interactive Media Guide software for your FiOS TV DVR and set-top boxes. We’ve begun deploying IMG 1.8, and it will be delivered into subscribers’ homes nationwide in the coming weeks.
You may have read some reports this week about IMG 1.9, which will be out later this year. See below for highlights of what’s ahead. This post is about the new 1.8 version of the IMG and is intended to summarize the release notes we use internally in language us mere mortals can understand.
IMG 1.8 is a feature release and is almost entirely focused on video on demand. There are minor changes to how we handle guide data and some corrections to software issues. But most of the enhancements are focused on scaling the FiOS On Demand platform to accommodate the growing number of users, their increasing activities on the service and our future plans for evolving the On Demand service. For the most part, these enhancements will be transparent to you initially, but become very apparent over the coming weeks and months.
Our next generation On Demand infrastructure paves the way for a dramatically larger library of content that grows faster than ever before. This is accomplished with a new hierarchical storage and streaming architecture that leverages Verizon’s nationwide long-haul backbone network. This network’s capacity is not measured in megabits or even gigabits; rather this network provides terabits and terabits of capacity across the entire country. Employing this massive network means that in addition to watching content stored in a Verizon facility near your home, in some cases you will be watching On Demand content that is stored thousands of miles from your home – all transparent to you and with the same high quality that FiOS TV has always delivered. In this new environment, we only have to expand one central location’s storage, and every customer gets more On Demand content, compared to today where that same result requires more than one dozen facilities to be upgraded over several months. With this new architecture, we are looking forward to rocketing the content selection into six-figure land. And theoretically this new platform could scale to millions of content options over the coming years.
The On Demand experience is also being improved with regards to discovering standard-definition and high-definition titles. Instead of being presented as two separate titles (i.e. title X in SD and title X in HD) in the IMG, you will see a single title with an option to watch the SD version or the HD version. No more accidentally selecting standard definition when you intended to enjoy the high definition version.
The second improvement to the On Demand experience is support for multi-room viewing. With IMG 1.8 you can start watching a movie in the living room and then move to the bedroom and access “Recently Viewed” to continue watching that movie right where you left off.
Perhaps most exciting about this release is the commissioning of software that enables a completely new paradigm for Verizon FiOS On Demand. As we progress through the remainder of 2010, the new On Demand capabilities in 1.8 will enable us to further banish the legacy approach that has historically kept content trapped on the television screen. Get ready for more flexible viewing options, which we will detail in a future blog post.
And last with IMG 1.8 we have made changes to the audio handling. Some of your reported the audio was “too low” in IMG 1.71, so we implemented a 11 dB gain for IMG 1.8 when heavy dynamic range is selected in the Settings menu.
In these release notes posts we are adding a new section that will highlight features and enhancements planned for the next version of the IMG. We are including them here, so you know that we have captured your feedback and are working on delivering the capabilities. However, the disclaimer is that during the normal course of technology development, items are added and removed from scope for a variety of reasons. So, some of these items may not be included in the next release, while others not represented below could be added.
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Sample of What’s Next?
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It is our hope that this blog post and the future “release notes” posts will go a long way toward responding to many of your requests for improved visibility into how we develop and operate the FiOS TV service. These communications are a work in progress as we balance offering a video service in a highly competitive market with maintaining an open dialogue with our customers, so please don’t hesitate to let us know how we are doing. We may not be able to respond to all of your requests, but are committed to collaborating on a best path forward for all of us.
Please note: Please register as a member of the Verizon Community Forums to comment here.
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Bill Kula
Director -- Media Relations
Bill oversees the Verizon telecom customer experience, consumer bundles, DSL, e-commerce and small business. He helps customers learn about efficient ways to manage their Verizon services.
Maitreyi Krishnaswamy
Director - Product Management
Maitreyi is responsible for Verizon's entertainment products. Check out @VerizonFiOS on Twitter, for insight, thoughts & news about FiOS TV.
Alberto Canal
Alberto is in the public relations group. He loves to share tech, sustainability, feel-good, and random news of interest. A happy FiOS quad play customer, he likes to use his family as guinea pigs.
Deidre Hart
Manager -- Media Relations
Deidre is a member of the consumer PR team and loves to talk everything FiOS and everything football. She’s also a happy Triple Play customer.
Phil Santoro
Phil has been extolling the virtues of FiOS ever since he had his Triple Play installed and can’t image how he ever managed without it. He writes about developing technologies that enable him to fuel his addiction to movies and sports whenever he wants, no matter where he is.
Caroline Wilson
Caroline manages the Verizon FiOS Google+ page, capturing the latest in entertainment, technology, sports and everything in between. She loves using social media and the written word to extend the FiOS conversation.
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