StevenA
05-01-2007, 12:29 PM
I was home with the flu last week (or whatever it is that's been going around), so I decided to try out Verizon FiOS video-on-demand. I ordered up a showing of the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale. It was easy to order, and at $3.99, it was cheaper than renting the DVD (plus Sony Pictures DVDs use ARccOS copy protection, which my DVD player can't handle). However, I have to say that I was very disappointed in the result. I was expecting a HD movie, or at least wide-screen, but instead I got a 4:3 SD picture with a picture quality that was worse than any of the SD stations that I get from Verizon FiOS. Sound quality was also sub-par, making it difficult at times to follow the dialogue. Casino Royale is a throw-back to the early James Bond flicks and other spy thrillers where there is hardly any high tech gadgetry involved, but lots of character inter-relationships and plot twists, and what the characters have to say to each other is actually important to the plot. I suspect that VOD uses a high level of compression resulting in a significant loss of both picture and audio quality. If this is typical of what VOD has to offer, then my recommendation is to not waste your money and wait until Verizon FiOS can offer VOD in HD, or at least a better SD picture and sound quality.