So, who has firmware 1.9, permanently?

[ejpbowie]

Ok, so what part of 'grab your remote and get access' did I misunderstand?  Publishing the list of new features in a magazine and including this line implies it is available.

[Justin46]

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@BigggFuzzyG wrote:

See here's the problem with that. The 1.9 update was all set up by the 1.8. The Beta testers have been testing for months and the announcement for this upgrade was made last summer. This update was suppossed to take place in the 4th Quarter of last year.  The 1st quarter of this year has already ready passed us. So the wait is over. It's time to push it out.  If there's any bugs left they should be minor. And I'm sure like on PS3 they can do many small updates to fix the minor bugs. Besides, Why print the 1.9 update in the Verizon Spotlight if it's not going to drop before may in the March and April issue? 

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Unfortunately you are just going to have a problem then. I understand your frustration, I share it, but neither you nor I can do anything about it. And once again, I would much prefer that the stuff work properly when we get it, I don't want any bugs to deal with, even minor ones. So I applaud Verizon for biting the bullet and trying to make sure it all works before we all get it.

As to printing in the Spotlight, no way to know for sure. My guess is that they thought it would be ready March/April, and then it wasn't. Welcome to the software development process.....

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
QIP6416-P1, IMG 1.8, Build 02.54
Keller, TX 76248

[whuddup]

FYI, I called the 866 number, got transferred 3 times to 3 different people.  None of them even knew what a "media guide" was.  Nice.

[JohnCF]

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@Justin wrote:

Really, all of you should just lean back and relax, it will come sometime, hopefully in the next few weeks or months.

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Weeks?  Months??? Indeed, you must be on a time and materials contract with Verizon for software development.

Verizon gave a release date for this update that has long since past but offers no realistic expectation of when they will make this actually happen.  Now maybe you are fine with vague, inaccurate, generalized info about things that could help decide whether to decide to stay with Fios TV or not but many others are not.  FiosTV has the smallest hard drives of any provider.  FiosTv is the last provider to make external storage available.  These are things that people need in order to enjoy their service more fully.

Verizon could have fixed these problems by now but has most likely fallen victim to feature creep and keeps delaying release to add yet another feature that should have been added to 1.10 or 1.11 or 1.12 releases.  Verizon could ease the need for larger internal disks and external storage by making whole seasons of shows available over OnDemand.  Then the need to 4,5, or 6 tuners and 2TB hard disks and eSata port services might be much less.

 lean back from your keyboard and let us continue to ask our provider we pay monthly for service to give us definitive answers like a responsible service provider.

[Justin46]

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@JohnCF wrote:

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@Justin wrote:

Really, all of you should just lean back and relax, it will come sometime, hopefully in the next few weeks or months.

---

Weeks?  Months??? Indeed, you must be on a time and materials contract with Verizon for software development.

Verizon gave a release date for this update that has long since past but offers no realistic expectation of when they will make this actually happen.  Now maybe you are fine with vague, inaccurate, generalized info about things that could help decide whether to decide to stay with Fios TV or not but many others are not.  FiosTV has the smallest hard drives of any provider.  FiosTv is the last provider to make external storage available.  These are things that people need in order to enjoy their service more fully.

Verizon could have fixed these problems by now but has most likely fallen victim to feature creep and keeps delaying release to add yet another feature that should have been added to 1.10 or 1.11 or 1.12 releases.  Verizon could ease the need for larger internal disks and external storage by making whole seasons of shows available over OnDemand.  Then the need to 4,5, or 6 tuners and 2TB hard disks and eSata port services might be much less.

 lean back from your keyboard and let us continue to ask our provider we pay monthly for service to give us definitive answers like a responsible service provider.

---

As for me, I will gladly wait the weeks or months until it is really ready for general use, rather than put up with lots of bugs. A few weeks or months delay in enhanced TV service is totally insignificant; for heaven's sake, this is only TV, not a matter of life or death. 

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
QIP6416-P1, IMG 1.8, Build 02.54
Keller, TX 76248

[JohnCF]

As for me, I will gladly wait the weeks or months until it is really ready for general use, rather than put up with lots of bugs. A few weeks or months delay in enhanced TV service is totally insignificant; for heaven's sake, this is only TV, not a matter of life or death. 

---

And that's fine Justin, I think we all understand that.  Your requirements allow you to wait and be content.  However, many of us have different desires for storing and watching programming.  Other service providers already provide the options some Fios TV subscribers want to have access to and are promised in this update. 

Yes, it is "just" tv.  However, it would make things better, simpler, and more affordable for many subscribers if they did not have to also rely on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon streaming services in order to watch tv on a schedule that works for them and their families.  

I hope you can understand and see the point of view of others as a valid point of view and support a reasonable request for Verizon to provide definitive information based on where they are now for this update.  Verizon needs current customers to stay happy and new customers to come on board.  This is not going to happen for many who are looking at coming over from Dish Network, DirecTV, and Cable service providers where large hard drives, external hard drives, 4 or more tuners, complete VOD tv selections, and many other options already exist.

It is possible to release smaller incremental updates that are bug free rather than trying to deliver the world in one giant update that will completely change every facet of the dvr.  Hopefully after this major update, they will resort to smaller, regular updates that can be delivered on-time and bug free.

And, Verizon - if the problem is the lack of quality beta testers who will put the updates through their paces quickly, thoroughly, and provide these results fully documented, please give me a call. I would be glad to donate my professional skills as a technical instructor and writer to help you provide the best possible solutions and services to your customers.

[Keyboards]

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@JohnCF wrote:

And, Verizon - if the problem is the lack of quality beta testers who will put the updates through their paces quickly, thoroughly, and provide these results fully documented, please give me a call. I would be glad to donate my professional skills as a technical instructor and writer to help you provide the best possible solutions and services to your customers.

---

The beta testers have been providing fast and accurate bug reports back to the Verizon development team and the team has been responsive to those findings, but in a complex piece of software it can be difficult to find the root cause and may take several attempts to actually totally fix the issue.  The first release had over 50 items that were found (of which at least 20 would be considered show stoppers). Maybe Verizon bit off too much for this release, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water!

There are engineers, programmers and just "ordinary users" involved in the testing and I personally take exception to your questioning of the quality of the testers.  Trust me, some of the bugs we reported would have the masses steaming and lighting up the CSR lines if they occured in a general release (we are now on the 3rd release of testing).  Due to NDA that is as specific as I can get for now.

So please, chill - it will come when it comes as we are hoping to avoid what has happened in the past with released and then recalled updates.  This type of complaint is why Verizon is loath to release dates for anything - including IMG updates, channel adds, feature adds, etc.

[Shoffy1]

Justin: I'm sorry but I've had Comcast, DirecTV and AT&t Uverse and everyone of those providers had more storage capability then FIOS has. Eventually, everyone of them had external hard drives for more storage which obviously helped dramatically. Are you telling me that all these providers can develop all of this that much better than Verizon. I joined FIOS last May and when I started recording programs in HD as I was used to, boy did I get a kick in the hind end. I would think Verizon would be like Apple. When they say a product will be ready, IT IS. I was considering switching my AT&T IPhone over to Verizon when IPhone 5 comes out but now I'm not so sure I should do that. I heard about this update when I first installed Verizon almost a year ago, and it's still not ready. Can't say a lot about your developers with that kind of record.

[Justin46]

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@Shoffy wrote:

Justin: I'm sorry but I've had Comcast, DirecTV and AT&t Uverse and everyone of those providers had more storage capability then FIOS has. Eventually, everyone of them had external hard drives for more storage which obviously helped dramatically. Are you telling me that all these providers can develop all of this that much better than Verizon. I joined FIOS last May and when I started recording programs in HD as I was used to, boy did I get a kick in the hind end. I would think Verizon would be like Apple. When they say a product will be ready, IT IS. I was considering switching my AT&T IPhone over to Verizon when IPhone 5 comes out but now I'm not so sure I should do that. I heard about this update when I first installed Verizon almost a year ago, and it's still not ready. Can't say a lot about your developers with that kind of record.

---

OK, you have directed your comments to me, and that is just fine, but the content, especially the last sentence, seems to indicate that you think I work for Verizon. So just in case you do think that, no I don't, I am nothing more than a generally satisfied, normal (and fairly vocal) 5 1/2 year FiOS user (TV, internet, and phone).

Now to the content of your comments. I can't disagree with your comments at all, you are right on. Verizon doesn't do a very good job of delivering stuff "on time." But yes, at least in some circumstantces, I am telling you that those providers seemingly can develop this better than Verizon. I think you should keep in mind that at least Comcast and DirecTV (and of course Dish) have been in the TV business far, far longer than Verizon, many years. Verizon's TV service was delivered to the first customer in Sept. 2005 (I was not the first customer, but was among the first, I did get the TV service that month and participated in their early test program); how long have those others been doing this? I am not trying to make excuses for Verizon, but having worked in the computer industry for 37 years I have seen first hand many delivery schedules missed, both hardware and software, for many reasons. So maybe I am more tolerant of missed deadlines than others of you are due to my experience, I don't know. But I do know that I want stuff that works, not stuff full of bugs. And as Keyboards said in his post (he is one of the testers), there were bugs, lots of them, and it has taken time, probably much more time than Verizon expected, to work those bugs out.

One of the things that Verizon has had a very difficult time managing is when and what to announce. If they don't announce planned enhancements, the customer base, at least the vocal ones, are very, very vocal. But if they do announce something, then when they don't deliver it when the customer base thinks they should, again there are lots of complaints. Its a no-win situation I think.

Oh, and just for the record, I ordered a 7232 DVR yesterday, the one with the 500 GB drive, and UPS delivered it a couple of hours ago! So I am now really ready for the new IMG release!

And last, apparently I upset some of you with my comments. I'm  sorry, that was not my intent, it was to try to set some realistic expectations on when the new 1.9 level would be delivered.

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
QIP6416-P1 (to be replaced with a 7232 tonight!), IMG 1.8, Build 02.54
Keller, TX 76248

[NNard]

Justin -

Enjoy the 7232 - I just upgraded from the 7216 and it is great.  I am a new FiOS customer and couldn't be happier.