Multi-room DVR question
Yankee_Fan
Enthusiast - Level 3
Ok, so I'm still considering moving from DirecTV to FIOS TV and I have a question about the Multi-Room DVR.  I have 3 HDTV's (one in the family room, and two in the bedrooms).  If I have a Multi-Room DVR in the family room and a DVR in each of the other bedrooms, can I record an HD show in the family room and watch it on a DVR in one of the bedrooms?  Thanks.
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Re: Multi-room DVR question
mrags2000
Enthusiast - Level 3
No, you can no stream info from one DVR to another. only from DVR to non DVR STBS, HD or SD.
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Re: Multi-room DVR question
Yankee_Fan
Enthusiast - Level 3

So what's the point of Multi-room DVR then??? That absolutely makes no sense...

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Re: Multi-room DVR question
pdxsam
Enthusiast - Level 2

There's differing thoughts on Home Media DVR.

Verizon's thought is you have one main DVR that records all. Then other boxes around the house can watch off that one box. I would prefer that you can choose which DVR you're watching from. That would make the space limitations on the boxes moot as you can get more than one DVR  and record on both and watch anywhere.

I don't know what the difficulty is with adding MRV to more than one HD DVR, but it would definitely be nice to stream from multiple boxes.

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Re: Multi-room DVR question
Yankee_Fan
Enthusiast - Level 3

@pdxsam wrote:

Verizon's thought is you have one main DVR that records all. Then other boxes around the house can watch off that one box. I would prefer that you can choose which DVR you're watching from. That would make the space limitations on the boxes moot as you can get more than one DVR  and record on both and watch anywhere.

I don't know what the difficulty is with adding MRV to more than one HD DVR, but it would definitely be nice to stream from multiple boxes.


Well, to me it seems Verizon's thinking is flawed, considering first, that you can only record 20 hrs of HD on their DVR, and second, they assume that everyone in the house will want to watch the same thing.  {please keep it relevant} 

Message Edited by KaLin on 01-03-2009 05:15 PM
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Re: Multi-room DVR question
mrags2000
Enthusiast - Level 3

Eventually streaming from DVR to DVR will be available. Only recently HD streaming was made available. To quote a vz rep "We're building the plane as we fly it"

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Re: Multi-room DVR question
jake5975
Enthusiast - Level 3
Don't bother with the HD streaming - it doesn't work.  More often than not you are going to get an "unable to locate HUB" error message when you are watching a recording on another HD box.  When you clear the message, the recording will start from the beginning.  Eventually, the whole recording will lock up.  If it weren't for the fact that I'm getting the MR-DVR for free for a year, I'd dump everything. 
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Re: Multi-room DVR question
vinnyv07
Contributor - Level 1

"Don't bother with the HD streaming - it doesn't work.  More often than not you are going to get an "unable to locate HUB" error message when you are watching a recording on another HD box.  When you clear the message, the recording will start from the beginning.  Eventually, the whole recording will lock up.  If it weren't for the fact that I'm getting the MR-DVR for free for a year, I'd dump everything."

It is very difficult to put up with the "unable to locate hub" nag. As stated above, it really makes the multi-room DVR not worth it at all. It happens when trying to stream to an hd receiver only. Not just streaming HD content. This morning I was able to get through a movie without the nag and then started a 1/2 hour show and the nag showed up. There really is no pattern to it at all. I am wondering what is taking so long on a fix. Verizon is aware of this problem and is going to fix it with the next update. Let's hope it is soon. The Multi-room dvr has no problem streaming to a std receiver. For the multi room dvr to be worth it Verizon must try and solve 2 problems.

1) STOP THE NAG

2) FIND A WAY TO INCREASE STORAGE CAPACITY.

Without solving the storage capacity problem it is of no use to have just one dvr for the whole house. For std programming that capacity would be fine. HD programming? It is really not enough. Not worth it. Either they have to fix their original mistake in going with Motorolla or they must pressure them to find a way to open the ports to let us use our computers as storage devices or to add external hard drives to increase capacity. Very big disappointment right now.  

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Re: Multi-room DVR question
jake5975
Enthusiast - Level 3
Misery loves company - thanks for backing me up Vinny.  You would think this would be a priority of Verizon, to fix the MR-DVR.  Hopefully 1.7 comes out in early January and fixes this. 
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Re: Multi-room DVR question
MikeyB
Newbie

I suspect that the issue of having multiple viewing DVRs on the same MOCA network is not trivial.  The router comms with each of the STBs at various freqs across the cable (i.e 214Mhz, 220 Mhz, etc).  Surely it is a software challenge that could be eventually mastered, but iit nvolves both STB and router software.   I don't think it is a trivial task one might expect VZ to crash to resolve anytime soon.  The biggest DVR fault IMHO is the small storage space.  If that were expanded, I would have no real issues with the DVR service (tv guide is still pretty lame though).

Regarding the nag issue, I have had FIOS TV since late Nov with the Multi-room DVR and 3 other STBs.  I have not experienced the nag screen once yet, and my family has not told me of seeing it.  Granted I have not had the service long and have not watched weeks of streaming on the other STBs.  But if it were strictly a FIOS issue, I might have expected to see it by now.  Your install tech would have checked signal levels on your cable ports, but maybe there is just enough signal loss somewhere in your home cabling to make the router comm between STB and DVR see errors.  Strong signal strength of the prime FIOS feed to each STB does not mean the feed from router to an STB is as strong.  Not sure how one would go about testing the router signal strength independent of the FIOS signal.

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