Just Ordered 06-15

[Bschneider]

I just got off the phone with Verizon after placing my order. The install date? Tomorrow morning between 8a and 11a!! At least that is what I was told. Apparently this time slot became available while we were talking about what Saturday was available. The rep was telling me that the next weekend date would be in July but then tomorrow popped up. I decided to grab tomorrow instead of waiting.

Next stop.. Canceling D*.

[Bschneider]

Next stop.. canceling FIOS.

The verizon tech, Dennis, did arrive at 9:00am. He gave me the DVR box and NIM to install while he hooked up my cable to the ONT. This all took place within 1 hour. I had a bad patch cable from the NIM to the router, but Dennis took care of that. And the singal was to strong coming into the house, according to Dennis, but he again took care of that.

Once everything was a go, he signed into the his laptop and browsed the Internet to the Verizon activation page. He did his thing, and then we waited..and waited.. and waited. About 15 minutes into waiting he called Verizon and asked if there was a backlog.. And there was. So we waited so more.. About 45 minutes later he called again, there was an even greater backlog..

Apparently, when the tech activates the STBs through the website, the webserver communiticates to another server to activate each STB. And so if the server is down it of course gets backlogged.

I waited until 9:00am the next day and called the Tech Support line. After about 10 minutes locating my account, ( I am still on a copper phone line, and they also have my cell number listed as the primary account number), they activated my DVR. The server must have be rebooted and cleared out the request from the day before.

I then had to call back and speak to sales to get the Sports Package turned on. That took about ten minutes.

For my thoughts regarding Fios, they need a better way to turn on or change programming packages. However, the install portion of it was really smooth. Dennis was really professional about his job and install. He had no problem with all my requests. And the picture quality is awesome except between channels 1 - 49 (the analog channels).

Now the bad. Watching Leno or the WorldCup in HD on NBC and ABC, the bottom half of the picture would pixalate. This does not occur OTA. Sometimes when this happens the audio would disappear, I would have to change the channel and then tune it back so the audio would reappear. But when none of the occured the picture was fabulous.

The real kicker for my wife and I to return the DVR is the software. Two major flaws is the "Series Manager" and the recording time. For some reason the Verizon programmers decided to buffer the recording time. For example, if a show starts at 9:00pm like "The Closer" the DVR will start recording at 8:59pm. It then will record 90 more seconds at the end. So basically, a 60 minute show will record 3 minutes extra. This is a serious problem if you have two programs that start at 10:00pm on two different channels. Verizon needs to remove this buffer.

The other flaw is the "Series Manager" or "Season Pass" for those that have Tivo. The Verizon DVR cannot tell the difference between New or First Run and a Rerun or Repeat. So if a family member likes, "Punk'd" on MTV and wants the "Season Pass" and has it set for New only episodes, the DVR will record each episode that airs on MTV. That could be 5 episodes in one day. Bottomline, they need to fix this.

The other thing I noticed is that they need to put in a bigger hard drive in their DVRs. Their current DVRs will only record 20 one-hour HD shows. Each one HD show will take up 5.5% of the hard drive. An SD show will take about 1%.

So after about a week using Fios-TV, we are going to be canceling the service. After being spoiled by the use of the DirecTivo, Verizon really needs to fix our two major flaws before I go back to their DVR service. I heard rumors that they are in talks with Tivo. I really hope this is true.

EDIT: Dennis, the Verizon tech, did have to update the firmware on the D-Link router to 2.50(??) to get the NIM to talk.

[CANDY76MAN]

thanks for the info..of course I would be coming from BHN's dvr and have never used a Tivo so I don't know what I'm missing...lol...did you use the broadband?...any comments on that if you did?

[Bschneider]

I have had FIOS broadband for about two months. Rock solid connection, so far. I only have the 5/2 for 34.95 and that is enough for me. I absolutely recommend the FIOS broadband.

[audiolab]

You canceling the whole service or just the DVR? Seems rather drastic to cancel after only one week. I know people love their TIVOs (having never owned one, I don't know what I'm missing), but it seems your problems with Verizon's DVR have easy work-arounds (don't rely on the lousy program guide to record your shows; do it yourself on a show-by-show basis). Verizon's far superior picture quality for me outweighs its weak points, which can all be addressed by firmware updates (though because they can fix problems doesn't mean they will).
I too had pixelization issues on WFLA and WFTS which I didn't see OTA. I called the next morning to the Fios support center. I was told to call when it's happening, since there's not much they can do after the fact.
NBA finals on 6/20 were fine. PBS ch.54 had break-up during Ranch House last night (6/22), though PBS seems bit-starved even OTA, so it's hard to tell who's at fault in this case.

[Floyd]

Those two issues alone would be a deal breaker for me also. Not that it matters, since I'm now on a two year committment with DTV. My HD tivo failed last week, and I found out that the warranty was only for 90 days. The replacement unit was shipped out second-day for $19.95. I have to return the old unit, and had to make a two year committment on the new LEASED unit. They didn't mention any kind of a monthly leasing fee, or change in my tivo fee, so we'll see about that. If I wanted to buy the new unit outright, they wanted $750!
I'm on my third fios ONT(outdoor network terminal). Lightning got the first one, and maybe the second one. Last week the phone(also fiber) started acting up. I could dial out, but incoming calls would only ring once before the caller heard static and got dropped. The verizon computer analysis showed several problems, and I spent a lot of time on hold with tech people. After I went out and did a tech job while the expert guided me I found the problem was a bad punch down on the small wires going into my house.
I've also had the backup battery unit fail, and they replaced it. There are at least three different ONT versions out there, so they had to replace my battery backup when they replaced my ONT. The latest ONT version is supposed to have the battery backup unit built in.

[Bschneider]

After talking to Verizon this weekend, one of our issue was resolved. That issue was the buffering. Apparently the DVR never received the new firmware.

Now if they can fix that last issue regarding the NEW or REPEAT episodes, I'll be just peachy. I'll be talking to Verizon about that real soon. I really do want to stay with FIOS but with only a 160gb hard drive. This is a major issue as I can't have 6 copies of a show on the hard drive that I have already seen.