Re: External Hard Drive
KenAF
Specialist - Level 2

@juice421 wrote:

I highly highly doubt that Verizon pays $400 per HDDVR box.  With the amount of boxes they utilitze, I am sure they pay way less per box.  Anyway these DVR's are no where near worth $400, I can't stand the  bubble interface from the 90's. 


You can believe what you want, but I saw the price list last year.  The fact remains that HDTV DVR technology is still quite expensive.

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Re: External Hard Drive
KenAF
Specialist - Level 2

@Jolard wrote:

Did Patricia flat out lie to me to get me to purchase? I have the chat window saved as a JPG, because I wanted to have reference to the discussion, not just for this question, but for the others I asked as well. If she did flat out lie to me, then isn't that deceptive sales practices? I am kind of mad about being lied to. 


I don't know whether she knowingly lied.  She may have heard about customers using a TiVo with external drives and confused that with their own DVRs.

Scroll up to read my first response to this thread.  All of that information is confirmed.

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Re: External Hard Drive
Bugsy
Newbie

Frustration!!! For over 2 years I have been waiting for a valid response from Verizon to this very simple question: "When will you enable your DVR's eSATA or USB port to connect an external HD?" 

I have probably received at least 20 different responses and promises from Verizon for over the past 2 years. All of these promises have come and gone…….  

I am currently a Cablevision customer and have held back on switching to Verizon because of the DVR capacity issue. I have an external HD hooked up on my Cablevision Scientific Atlanta HD DVR for over 3 years and it works like a charm! 

Plug in the drive - reboot the DVR - It formats the drive and BANG I now have 660GB of recording space!  

Why is it taking so long for Verizon & Motorola to get this capability deployed to its customers???  This technology is not new! 

It is 2009 and digital storage is dirt cheep! With more and more shows being broadcast in HD, 160GB is just unacceptable. I want the ability to watch my recorded shows when I want to watch them, not because my DVR is full.  I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.

I know I can use TIVO to get around this issue, but why would I want to pass up on the FIOS VOD features – I will be paying for them and not using them. I also do not want to switch between TIVO & FIOS to accommodate the best of both worlds. 

Some of my friends have FIOS TV and they are pretty please with the service. Concerning the package offerings, it blows Cablevision out of the water! 

Verizon – PLEASE answer this VERY simple question: When will you enable your DVR's eSATA or USB port to connect an external HD? And PLEASE provide a timeframe that you can commit to this upgrade! 

I PROMISE - You will have another customer once I know……. Thanks!

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Re: External Hard Drive
KenAF
Specialist - Level 2

@Bugsy wrote:

Frustration!!! For over 2 years I have been waiting for a valid response from Verizon to this very simple question: "When will you enable your DVR's eSATA or USB port to connect an external HD?" 

Verizon – PLEASE answer this VERY simple question: When will you enable your DVR's eSATA or USB port to connect an external HD? And PLEASE provide a timeframe that you can commit to this upgrade! 


The reason they can't give you an answer....is because they don't know the answer.

 

Verizon wants to add eSATA support, but Motorola is responsible for the firmware and eSATA is a part of that firmware.  As soon as Motorola can make eSATA work reliably on their hardware, FiOS intends to support that feature.  But Verizon can't promise a timeline for a capability that doesn't yet exist.   Motorola hopes to offer this capability in the first half of 2009, but there is always the possibility that they will be unable to make eSATA drive expansion work reliably on current boxes.

 

The problem with adding / enabling features is that these DVRs are based on rather slow processors with limited memory and limited bus / memory bandwidth.  This limits what Verizon can do with their DVR at any given time.  The FiOS DVR can record two different HD programs, while you watch a third, previously recorded show...while it streams a fourth HDTV MPEG-2 recording to a HDTV STB elsewhere in your home.  That consumes most of the available resources on the Motorola platform, which makes it very tricky to support other features.

 

Your old Cablevision DVR (based on a different DVR CPU) supported eSATA and PIP, but it used a very basic UI with a lower memory footprint.  That UI lacked graphics and genre highlighting; it lacked the ability to browse the guide by favorites; and it lacked the ability to stream a recording from one room to another.

 

Before you go blaming Motorola and FiOS for using low-performance CPUs, you should be aware that higher-performance DVR CPUs only recently became available, and are still too new to be found in any shipping DVR.  The good news is that Dish Network (ViP922), DirecTV, and Motorola are designing products around on these chips for release later this year and next.  With new DVRs based on these chips, cable and satellite companies will have more freedom in the features / functionality they support; they won't have to trade off one feature for another as they do today.

Message Edited by KenAF on 03-14-2009 02:54 PM
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Re: External Hard Drive
Techman28
Master - Level 1

Bugsy,

There is a lot going on right now and I'm sure the answer to the question of yours will be to your liking but I can't give any details about it but I know your question will be answered just not right now unfortunately.

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Re: External Hard Drive
Carl
Specialist - Level 1

@Techman28 wrote:

Bugsy,

There is a lot going on right now and I'm sure the answer to the question of yours will be to your liking but I can't give any details about it but I know your question will be answered just not right now unfortunately.


You tease!!!!!

😉

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Re: External Hard Drive
vinnyv07
Contributor - Level 1
I am happy that they are working on this issue. It would be great if we could somehow increase the capacity of the hard drive or add our own. Thanks for the info.
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Re: External Hard Drive
Bugsy
Newbie

Thank you for the response KenAF & Techman28 !!!!

This is the best answer I have received from anyone why it is taking so long to get more capacity on the FIOS DVR.

I am no fan of Cablevision and the only reason I have not switch to Verizon is the DVR capacity.

I have FIOS internet and love it!

I will keep an eye on the message board and hope to get the news I want to hear soon.

Thanks Again!

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Re: External Hard Drive
xfed2006
Newbie
Hi all, I'm new to FIOS and very interested in being able to add expanded external storage;  does anybody have an updated status on the ability to use an external drive on the HD DVR?
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Re: External Hard Drive
TimSykes
Specialist - Level 2
nope sorry there is none.
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