Plain and simple...
Awesome picture, awesome internet, DVR's are garbage just read the forums... So beware!! Worst Customer service ever! TS is ok...
Tell me about it, I returned my 3 HD DVRS to switch to this... 
Hi everybody and thanks in advance for any help.
I am in Fl. and Fios has just come to my area. I have been using Verizon landline and Dsl services and using DISH for my TV.
I just ordered the Fios TV,Internet,phone bundle because of the intro price. I have dealt with Verizon/GTE for over 20 years and to say the least I am under whelmed with Customer service/support. In the past they were the only game in town so I dealt with it. I received a mailer for the FIOS bundle in the mail and decided to give it a shot.
Called the number in the mailer spent 15 minutes going through the automated phone maze finally got a live person who asked again why I was caling tranferred my call and spent another 10 min on hold. The sales rep was very good on the pricing of services but could not answer any questions of a technical nature. Told me all my questions could be answered by support. I ended up ordering 1multi room dvr and 2 std set top bxes for 3 tvs in my home. BTW--no mention in the add about eqpt lease charges -$20/mo for DVR and $6/mo for each box I feel this is high for a long term commitment.
After I placed the order I tried to call FIOS support once again got thrown into a phone maze and eventually(about 10 min) got the support desk. The rep I spoke to could not answer any question I put to him. At one point in the conversation he told me he had never actually seen the FIOS tv because they do not have it in his part of the country. He basically has a troubleshooting workbook and if your problem or question is not covered in the book he can give you a number for area specific support such as Media Manager Support etc.
After wasting 45 mins with him I gave up. I found this forum and hope I can get some answers before they come to install. I did not cancel my DISH service yet and I am already on the verge of cancelling my FIOS order.
1. How does the multi room dvr work. I have 1dvr on Main tv and 2 bxes in other rooms. Can recording tasks be programmed from any tv or only from main? If I have a recorded progam may I watch it on any tv without affecting the others? Can I record while watching a different program on main tv? What is the Max time of stored recordings? Can I pause live tv to skip commercials.
2. Is Fios phone service the same as having a land line? Will I still have access to a dial tone at the interface box? (in Fl. we have a lot of power outages and cell phones are spotty during the worst ones) Is the batty backup for the FIOS interface, what is its pupose if I still have a landline? We have had multi problems over the years because the phone cable is buried in ground that becomes saturated during the rainy season, will FIOS make a difference in phone service?
3. Does FIOS use my existing COAX cable in the int. of my home? Does the DVR require a phone jack nearby.
4. How does Fios interface with my home computer to enable Media Manager? Is it neccesary to have a hardwire between the home computer and the DVR? I was told Verizon supplies a wireless router, can I use my existing WiFi router?
These are some of the questions sales and support could not answer I have others. I would really love to hear the pros and cons of FIOS versus Dish TV, DSL, and local analog phone service from anyone who has experienced both.
PS--When I called DISH and told them I was thinking of cancelling they told me they could take me from$68/mo to $45/mo for same service.
Here are the answers to some of your questions:
The MR DVR acts like a HUB for all of the other STBs in your house. Here are answers to some of your questions:
You can only program it to record and delete shows from the MR DVR or via the Internet.
You can watch any recordings from any STB in the house, without effecting the other STBs.
You can not watch HD Recorded Content from a SD STB.
You can record up to 2 programs at one time, while watching a 3rd recorded program.
The DVR has a 160GB HD. Capacity depends upon how much HD and SD is being recorded.
You can Pause Live TV and you can manually skip ahead 30 seconds to get around commercials.
FIOS does a POTS Emulation to provide you with phone service, which will replace your existing phone line.
You will have a dial done at the ONT, which will have a battery backup.
The battery is supposed to provide up to 8 hours of backup power for the phone service.
The buried FIOS cable may stand up to being saturated better than copper.
If at all possible the FIOS Installer will use your existing Coax Cable.
They will test the signal at each end to make sure that it can handle the signal properly.
The DVR communicates to the Router via the Coax cable and does not require a phone connection.
FIOS Interfaces with your Main Computer via your Coax Cable.
The PC running media manager will communicate to the MR DVR via a MOCA Network that FIOS uses over your Coax Cable.
There is no need for a CAT5 line between the PC and MR DVR.
Since you are getting TV Services you will need to use the Verizon Supplied Router.
You can also use your own router in addition to the Verizon Router if necessary. There are many different ways to accomplish this, with pros and cons for each one. Here is a FAQ with more details:
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/verizonfios/3.0_Networking
I have been using my Verizon Router as Primary and then Bridging to my wireless router with a LAN to LAN Connection.
Thanks Brian McD that cleared up a lot of my questions.
I suppose since the Main computer and the Dvr/stbs network through the coax runs, location of computer and DVR is not an issue as long as there is coax run available. Does anyone know aprox hours of recording available in std def only? With my DISH DVR I have 80 hours and that gets used pretty quickly.
This is from Verizons www site:
Record at least 80 hrs. of standard definition content and up to 20 hrs. of HD content
See the following for more details:
http://www22.verizon.com/residential/fiostv/EquipmentDetails/EquipmentDetails.htm?Media=0
Plain and simple...
Awesome picture, awesome internet, DVR's are garbage just read the forums... So beware!! Worst Customer service ever! TS is ok...
I hope you will not be as sorry as I am. I gave up DISH for FIOS TV.
1. The HD picture on FIOS is not nearly as good as DISH.
2. DVR has numerous insufferable problems. Screen goes black for no reaso. Signal Lost numerous times. Guide is not nearly as complete as DISH. As you go up or down channels using the channel up or down it screws up all the time.
3. Takes at least ten seconds from when you turn it on untill you get a picture.
I can't wait to go back to DISH.
Tell me about it, I returned my 3 HD DVRS to switch to this...
@Aplayer2 wrote:Hi everybody and thanks in advance for any help.
I am in Fl. and Fios has just come to my area. I have been using Verizon landline and Dsl services and using DISH for my TV.
I just ordered the Fios TV,Internet,phone bundle because of the intro price. I have dealt with Verizon/GTE for over 20 years and to say the least I am under whelmed with Customer service/support. In the past they were the only game in town so I dealt with it. I received a mailer for the FIOS bundle in the mail and decided to give it a shot.
Called the number in the mailer spent 15 minutes going through the automated phone maze finally got a live person who asked again why I was caling tranferred my call and spent another 10 min on hold. The sales rep was very good on the pricing of services but could not answer any questions of a technical nature. Told me all my questions could be answered by support. I ended up ordering 1multi room dvr and 2 std set top bxes for 3 tvs in my home. BTW--no mention in the add about eqpt lease charges -$20/mo for DVR and $6/mo for each box I feel this is high for a long term commitment.
After I placed the order I tried to call FIOS support once again got thrown into a phone maze and eventually(about 10 min) got the support desk. The rep I spoke to could not answer any question I put to him. At one point in the conversation he told me he had never actually seen the FIOS tv because they do not have it in his part of the country. He basically has a troubleshooting workbook and if your problem or question is not covered in the book he can give you a number for area specific support such as Media Manager Support etc.
After wasting 45 mins with him I gave up. I found this forum and hope I can get some answers before they come to install. I did not cancel my DISH service yet and I am already on the verge of cancelling my FIOS order.
1. How does the multi room dvr work. I have 1dvr on Main tv and 2 boxes in other rooms. Can recording tasks be programmed from any TV or only from main? If I have a recorded program may I watch it on any TV without affecting the others? Can I record while watching a different program on main TV? What is the Max time of stored recordings? Can I pause live TV to skip commercials.
2. Is Fios phone service the same as having a land line? Will I still have access to a dial tone at the interface box? (in Fl. We have a lot of power outages and cell phones are spotty during the worst ones) Is the batty backup for the FIOS interface, what is its purpose if I still have a landline? We have had multi problems over the years because the phone cable is buried in ground that becomes saturated during the rainy season, will FIOS make a difference in phone service?
3. Does FIOS use my existing COAX cable in the int. of my home? Does the DVR require a phone jack nearby.
4. How does Fios interface with my home computer to enable Media Manager? Is it necessary to have a hardwire between the home computer and the DVR? I was told Verizon supplies a wireless router, can I use my existing WiFi router?
These are some of the questions sales and support could not answer I have others. I would really love to hear the pros and cons of FIOS versus Dish TV, DSL, and local analog phone service from anyone who has experienced both.
PS--When I called DISH and told them I was thinking of canceling they told me they could take me from$68/mo to $45/mo for same service.
1). Multi-room DVR can only play back recordings from the DVR. It cannot schedule recordings, nor can it delete existing recordings. In general you can watch the other TV's while the DVR is either recording or playing back. The DVR has two tuners, so a long as you don't do anything that requires more than 2 tuners you are safe. I am not sure you can playback more than recording at a time however. I should point out that the the Multi-room DVR product is not exactly robust.. In addition a standard definition Set Top Box cannot play back an HD recording.
2). The general answer is yes, it is the same as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). All that happens is the conversion to digital occurs at your home instead of at the Central Office. Note however that your telephones will now be powered by the ONT, so if the lights go out for longer than the Battery backup lasts (about 6 hours), you WILL BE WITHOUT TELEPHONE SERVICE. The Battery Backup does NOT power Internet and/or TV services, so they will go off when the lights go out. The battery in the Battery Backup unit has a roughly 5 year life, and you are responsible for replacing it when it fails.
3). the answer is that it depends upon the age and quality of the coax in place. MOCA uses frequencies above those normally used by Cable systems, so in some cases it may be necessary to replace the Coax. That also usually means that the existing splitters usually have to be replaced, because of both the higher frequencies used by MOCA and the fact that the splitters need to be able to split the signals going in both directions.
4). In general you existing router cannot be used. Verizon uses TCP/IP over cable (MOCA) to things like Video on Demand, program guide, and multi-room DVR. The Verizon supplied router has Wi-Fi, and provides media conversion from MOCA to Ethernet. The Verizon router is the switchboard for both your computers and the Set Top Boxes. So when you share media with the DVR, the media goes out to the router over the Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and is then routed via Coax to the DVR by the Router. If you are in love with your existing wireless router, you can hook it on to the Verizon supplied router and disable wireless on the Actiontec. Other can provide details of exactly what needs to be done.
As for user experiences, The actual FiOs part works fine. The DVR is a very sore subject with a lot of customers.
Cannot vouch for Dish, but when I had DirecTV, I learned that it didn't take all that much bad weather to knock it out. FiOs seems to be completely weather proof. As far as internet, so far my FiOs has been much more reliable than DSL, and unlike DSL, there is no penalty for distance from the Central Office. If you signed up for 20/5 service, that is pretty much what you are going to get, no matter what the weather is, or how far you are from the Central Office.
Er, I just signed up, and was surprised at some of the ways features work with FIOS TV. Regarding earlier answers, they didn't quite cover some surprises:
> The MR DVR acts like a HUB for all of the other STBs in your house. Here are answers to some of your questions:
> You can only program it to record and delete shows from the MR DVR or via the Internet.
Yes, ONLY from the DVR box. This was the most annoying surprise. Other surprise: if you are watching on the other non-DVR STBs, you CANNOT: pause live TV, rewind or skip back on live TV, on initiate a recording of ive TV you are seeing on the STB (you can walk to the other room, or log on and remote-control the STB. Hah!) Of course: the STB isn't a DVR. But the marketing cleverly gets you excited about the idea of "remote."
I'm going to trade out my non-recording STB for a DVR-STB. With two DVRs at home, I got so used to pause/playback live TV on all TVs that I am really annoyed not to have it on the second set. I think Verizon counted on extra revenue from people who discover this and are annoyed by it. Plus, if you decide mid-program that you want to record what you are seeing on the STB, it probably wasn't being buffered on the DVR in the other room; so you won't get a recording in full unless you record a repeat later: hope it repeats for you to record!
> You can watch any recordings from any STB in the house, without effecting the other STBs.
I wonder how many recording streams the DVR can supply?
> You can not watch HD Recorded Content from a SD STB.
> You can record up to 2 programs at one time, while watching a 3rd recorded program.
So in that scenario, only one STB in the house can watch a recording, right? I wonder how the system warns you that you've used up the streams; it seems like the STB/DVR just ignores a command when it can't do it, why can't it put a warning box put up on the screen? I have these times that the STB simply doesn't perform a command, and I'm left to guess why.
> The DVR has a 160GB HD. Capacity depends upon how much HD and SD is being recorded.
Yes, and if you have one DVR and one STB, you get 160GB for the whole household. I was a Comcast user prior to this, and had two DVRs: essentially double the recording space of one. His and hers. upstairs and downstairs. Consider also, er, the type of content you like to record? Perhaps, if someone records something for viewing on the bedroom TV that, hmm, you don't want to share with the more public family-room TV, you get my drift? You might order two DVR$.
> You can Pause Live TV and you can manually skip ahead 30 seconds to get around commercials.
30 seconds, I wish it was 15. But again, you can only pause live TV on the DVR STB, but not for LIVE TV on the non-DVR STB.
However, you can pause, fwd, rewind a recoding on the STB when it is streaming remote from the DVR.
Finally, a couple other peaves.
When fast-fwd-rewind, the timing bar does not indicate the time progress in the program. You can't judge with digits a time point to jump back-forward to. There is just a very subtle analog bar.
When recoding using the guide - which is the easiest and preferred path to recording - (not setting up a manual recoding), the Comcast Motorola box gave better timing options, i.e. you could start early, or run over late, but 1 minute, 2 mintes, 5, etc. The Verizon Moto-DVR has the option to start/stop recording on-time, 5 mintes earlier/later, 10 minutes: ARGH ! Some shows just run under/over a half minute from the scheudled time, the 1-minute option was soo nice. 5 minutes: annoyingly guaranteed to interfere with prior/next recording. Manual set-up: a pain. Oh well.
The skip foraward-back buttons: the timing of these is a larger chunk (30 seconds) of time than my previous system (15 seconds) and takes getting used to. It seems to jump forward/back a lot, which I think makes it harder to skip commercial breaks. I find I'm using the fwd/rev buttons more than the skip buttons. On the Comcast box I had it down as to how many times to push the button. Recalibrate, but the Verizon granularity is still too coarse.
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