I converted to FIOS last Friday: Internet, Phone and TV.
My TV had been on RCN cable.
The picture quality with FIOS is good, but RCN had several features that were important to me which FOIS does not offer. These mainly have to do with the software on the “set top boxes”. I wish I had known about these before I switched.
- SMALL DIGITAL CONVERTER HAS NO GUIDE: I have a small TV on my kitchen counter (not HD). With RCN I had a small Motorola cable box that attached to that TV. I had it on its side next to the TV so it took up little counter space. FIOS has the same small box (they call it a “digital adapter”) but it has not been programmed to display a channel guide. There is no “info” button to see the name or description of programs. The screen will never display anything but the time and channel number. To get these things you must order the much larger “basic set top box” with takes up a lot of counter space.
- NO STAR RATINGS FOR MOVIES: RCN shows star rating for all movies (FIOS does not). With RCN you could search movies by star ratings. I could for example, search for only 4 star movies and program them easily for recording on my DVR. No such thing on FIOS.
- DVR CAN ONLY BE PROGRAMED TO RECORD SHOWS IN THE GUIDE: With RCN I could program the DVR to record future shows that are not yet in the current 2 week guide. I could search for example for “Bogart”. Even if no programs with that keyword (in the title, description or list of actors) appears in the current 2 week guide, the system will continuously look for that search criteria and find and record the program whenever it is scheduled in the future. YOU CANNOT DO THIS with FIOS.
- LIMITED PAUSE TIME FOR LIVE SHOWS: With RCN you can pause live programming for up to 1 hour. With FIOS you can pause for only 15 minutes.
- TYRANY OF CHANNEL NUMBERING : With RCN I could choose to display the guide alphabetically by channel NAME: I can remember names like CNN, ABC, CNN, HBO… etc and prefer a guide that lists channels that way. With FIOS you a stuck with yet another set of meaningless numbers. The FIOS glossy printed guide understands this and list the channels alphabetically. And shows a “quick key” explaining the numbering rationale. But the FIOS people programming the on screen guide didn’t get the memo.
- CHANNEL CLUTTER IS STILL A PROBLEM. Yes I can laboriously create a favorites list that does not include channels I have not subscribed to or channels in a foreign language. But why is this not an easy setup choice? Even if I’m showing only my favorites, any search I do includes all channels anyway. UGH!
Hopefully FIOS will catch up to RCN in the future, but for now FIOS TV is a step backward.
