To my knowledge, that "feature" is not available on FIOS. Either Verizon has not enabled it or it is not possible on the DVR. I don't know why it's not available.

Five Hole -
Were you referring to the Swap function, or the USB keyboard (or both)?
Come to think of it, being able to use a keyboard and/or mouse would make a lot of things easier. I have a nice wireless keyboard/mouse combo that would be really handy.

I just did today...they insist on sending a tech out to the house.

they claim that the root of all my problems was old firmware on the router

Can someone give me a quick rundown on how this multi-room DVR coonects to the remote TVs STB's? Is it via RG-6 cable from the DVR to STB? I'm scheduled to get installed next week and want to make sure everything needed is in place.

Can someone give me a quick rundown on how this multi-room DVR coonects to the remote TVs STB's? Is it via RG-6 cable from the DVR to STB? I'm scheduled to get installed next week and want to make sure everything needed is in place.

Video just streams over over the coax network.

Check out the "Verizon FiOS Installation & Hardware - Master Topic!" thread for some good info.

You can use the silver Comcast remote with FIOS and it can be programmed with the 30 second skip. The "all on" works as well. You can pick up a new remote off of Ebay for about $10. That is what I did.

yeah i'm getting fios in a few days. i've heard the dvr isn't as good as comcast though and in general fios isn't yet as good as comcast.

from wht i know the main benefit is better std def pic. main con is not getting all the reg cable chans on a side room tv without set top box.

i heard the remote sucks but i have free comcat dvr remotes and a non dvr one which i will try to keep . i know i can keep one dvr remote becaue i can give back 2 with the 2 dvr boxes and the non dvr remote with the non dvr comcast box

but i'm not going to cancel comcat until i try out fios and know i'm keeping it which i have a feeling i may not according to what othes have done and heard a few ppl switching bck to comcast sadly

i know tivo is better box but i assumed fios was as good or slight better then comcasst. i can't imagine it being not as good but well see

Five Hole -
Were you referring to the Swap function, or the USB keyboard (or both)?
Come to think of it, being able to use a keyboard and/or mouse would make a lot of things easier. I have a nice wireless keyboard/mouse combo that would be really handy.

if the swap button on silver comcast dvr remote doesn't do the same function on fios that sucks.

how do you swap to the other tuner then on a fios dvr box?

yeah i'm getting fios in a few days. i've heard the dvr isn't as good as comcast though and in general fios isn't yet as good as comcast.

from wht i know the main benefit is better std def pic. main con is not getting all the reg cable chans on a side room tv without set top box.

i heard the remote sucks but i have free comcat dvr remotes and a non dvr one which i will try to keep . i know i can keep one dvr remote becaue i can give back 2 with the 2 dvr boxes and the non dvr remote with the non dvr comcast box

but i'm not going to cancel comcat until i try out fios and know i'm keeping it which i have a feeling i may not according to what othes have done and heard a few ppl switching bck to comcast sadly

i know tivo is better box but i assumed fios was as good or slight better then comcasst. i can't imagine it being not as good but well see

Who are you hearing this from. Read through the threads. Most are happy. There are occasional complainers but I can't wait to dump comcast. As far as the swap button goes, with the FIOS box, you just select another channel and it changes. I find the swap button really cumbersome.

ok i figured that but the main thing i'm pissed about which is fact is losing getting all reg cable chans on tv without stb like in kitchen which i watch espn cnbc mtv etc. and wont be able to with fios without paying even more for another stb.

just was on hold with them for an hour too only for the guy to tell me he can't credit me to 20 dolloar in place of waiveing the install fee for a 4th box because i just got credit today which was in place of the 5 off/mo for 1 year for the movie pakcage. which makes no sense

like any customer service ymmv but this guy was a prick in his whole demaenor and attitude.

so in that way is not arguable that comcast is better for non stb tvs. i know in 2 years they will go all digital too and the guy loved menttion this.

thast still 2 years i cna get all reg cable chans on tv w/o stb and fios should therefore give free std def stb free for someone like me getting 2 hd dvr and on hd box

whatever welll see how it goes and compares in service and price was but in the end the need ot get extra boxes is going to make it way more then comdast.

i canceled the internet for now until i know i'm keeping fios tv cus not switchingmy email back and forth as one time is pain enoguh and my cable modem works fast and great.

ok i figured that but the main thing i'm pissed about which is fact is losing getting all reg cable chans on tv without stb like in kitchen which i watch espn cnbc mtv etc. and wont be able to with fios without paying even more for another stb.

just was on hold with them for an hour too only for the guy to tell me he can't credit me to 20 dolloar in place of waiveing the install fee for a 4th box because i just got credit today which was in place of the 5 off/mo for 1 year for the movie pakcage. which makes no sense

like any customer service ymmv but this guy was a prick in his whole demaenor and attitude.

so in that way is not arguable that comcast is better for non stb tvs. i know in 2 years they will go all digital too and the guy loved menttion this.

thast still 2 years i cna get all reg cable chans on tv w/o stb and fios should therefore give free std def stb free for someone like me getting 2 hd dvr and on hd box

whatever welll see how it goes and compares in service and price was but in the end the need ot get extra boxes is going to make it way more then comdast.

i canceled the internet for now until i know i'm keeping fios tv cus not switchingmy email back and forth as one time is pain enoguh and my cable modem works fast and great.

If it is important to you to not need a STB, then you are right, Comcast is probably better suited to how you use a cable service.

My opinion on the internet is it's faster and cheaper and has been glitch free. (I saved over $15 per month for faster internet compared to Comcast.) I had Comcast for years, and switched to FIOS TV 3 weeks ago and have always used STBs, so using them is not an issue FIOS SD quality is excellent and the diff in my HD from Comcast to Fios is amazing. Simply put, the picture quality, in my home on my tvs, between Comcast and Verizion is amazing, and dropping Comcast was a no brainer

The FIOS DVR is, in my opinion, way better than the Comcast SA 8300 I had. It is no TIVO, but neither was Comcast's and the functinoality of the FIOS DVR is more TIVO-like than Comcast's. I do miss pip/swap and want a page up/page down on their remote, but it has 30 sec skip and otherwise works fine.

So from a picture quality perspective, it's better. But again, if the need to not use a STB is a deal breaker, then it's a deal breaker. No harm in that.

Who are you hearing this from. Read through the threads. Most are happy. There are occasional complainers but I can't wait to dump comcast. As far as the swap button goes, with the FIOS box, you just select another channel and it changes. I find the swap button really cumbersome.
Then once you select the other channel, the "last" button does almost the same as the tuner swap. But you can't rewind, pause, or jump back on either channel after you switch channels... that I miss.

Im getting stuttering all the time it seems. especially on some HD recorded shows. I'm about to pick up the phone and call Verizon about this.

Well I had the tech out today and he replaced the box. Thats about all he was good for. He also replaced a component cable on my component vid switch because he said it was sub standard. There was never any problem with the cables before even with Directv but I guess if it made him feel better. Of course he completely contradicted everything you read here on these forums and said in fact to not read the forums at all cause their all rumor mills. He said that the software rewrite was already pushed out. He said that microsoft is still the provider of the DVR software and that it was one of the cable companies that is doing a revamp. He knew nothing about the stuttering problems and couldn't seem to see it on my old box but said it was probably heat or cable related. I have a fan and good cables so I know that is not an issue. He also said that I didn't want the new remote, with FIOS button, and to keep my current remote which is the Moto DRC800. Boy i wish they could just send out the equipment sans tech. Also with all the outputs on these boxes you would think verizon would write some software that would give the ability to transfer recorded programs as well as record lists to the new box. What a pain. Not sure this FIOS thing is worth it!

Is there a code available to access the service menu to see signal levels?

I am wondering this as well. I just noticed that the tech who installed my replacement DVR hit some buttons on the remote and accessed a long multi page menu with lots of info. Anyone know what the button commands are? He did it while it was on.

I am wondering this as well. I just noticed that the tech who installed my replacement DVR hit some buttons on the remote and accessed a long multi page menu with lots of info. Anyone know what the button commands are? He did it while it was on.

Ok never mind I found it here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorola_DVR/Firmware_and_Software#How_To_Check_Your_Firmware_and_Softwar e_Versions_.28i-Guide.29



Press the off button and then imediately press ok button.

What is the current firmware number with date?

Hi all, I'm new here, and I'm frustrated.

I just got FIOS installed here in NJ on two tv's. One has just the basic box, and another has the 6416. For whatever reason the 6416 won't boot up. Myself and the techs were sitting in front of the box for almost 3 hours trying to figure it out. The box turns on, attempts to download and update the newest firmware but then it just turns itself off and doesnt come back on (at least for the 5 mins we waited it didnt). Ive tried resetting and redownloading the firmware but each time the same thing happens. If you try turning it back on, all you get is the power light to come on. Then if you try and change the channel the number 4095 appear on the screen and don't go away. I'm at my wits end with this, and we tried 2 different boxes. The guys have now left and told me they would be back on Tuesday to figure it out, but no one seems to have any idea on how to fix this problem. If anyone has any suggestion it would be greatly appreciated. Also I appologize if this topic has been covered already.

Thanks.

Hi all, I'm new here, and I'm frustrated.

I just got FIOS installed here in NJ on two tv's. One has just the basic box, and another has the 6416. For whatever reason the 6416 won't boot up. Myself and the techs were sitting in front of the box for almost 3 hours trying to figure it out. The box turns on, attempts to download and update the newest firmware but then it just turns itself off and doesnt come back on (at least for the 5 mins we waited it didnt). Ive tried resetting and redownloading the firmware but each time the same thing happens. If you try turning it back on, all you get is the power light to come on. Then if you try and change the channel the number 4095 appear on the screen and don't go away. I'm at my wits end with this, and we tried 2 different boxes. The guys have now left and told me they would be back on Tuesday to figure it out, but no one seems to have any idea on how to fix this problem. If anyone has any suggestion it would be greatly appreciated. Also I appologize if this topic has been covered already.

Thanks.



Just thinking out loud here. How is the box connected to your TV? If you unhook the coax and/or the connections to the TV will it work? also connect the box to a different outlet. make sure your getting correct voltage. reste the router too. you can check to see if you get just analog channels, up to 50 i think, on a regular analog set using just the coax.

Funny that you guys started talking about this stuttering picture issue. I was just about to call Sears and have them look at my TV. If the background is white (usually a commercial), my picture shakes up and down. I also see a color band along the top... hard to explain. I have some things recorded that do it, so I'll demo this when the Verizon tech comes out.
Is this the same thing you are seeing?
No idea if this is my TV or the DVR.

Just thinking out loud here. How is the box connected to your TV? If you unhook the coax and/or the connections to the TV will it work? also connect the box to a different outlet. make sure your getting correct voltage. reste the router too. you can check to see if you get just analog channels, up to 50 i think, on a regular analog set using just the coax.


Trying it on another TV, outlet, and RF connection I got the error eb02 which apparenlty means it timed out trying to update the firmware after trying different frequencies.

Funny that you guys started talking about this stuttering picture issue. I was just about to call Sears and have them look at my TV. If the background is white (usually a commercial), my picture shakes up and down. I also see a color band along the top... hard to explain. I have some things recorded that do it, so I'll demo this when the Verizon tech comes out.
Is this the same thing you are seeing?
No idea if this is my TV or the DVR.

Have you looked at other sources such as off air antenna or DVD? If you dont see it then i would suspect the DVR. I havent seen color banding or up and down shaking but you never know. the stuttering looks more like micro pauses when you see panning or motion in HD. News crawls show it especially well.

Trying it on another TV, outlet, and RF connection I got the error eb02 which apparenlty means it timed out trying to update the firmware after trying different frequencies.

Hmmm, did the tech put a meter on all RG6 comming in? I would even try a direct connection to the line comming into house from splitter. also call up a CSR and make sure someone actually turned your service on. Stranger things have happend. Im just thinking that it would be odd for two boxes to do this so maybe there is an infrastructure problem. you should be able to pick up analog channels on a TV even without the DVR box and that would tell you if there is a signal there.

Hmmm, did the tech put a meter on all RG6 comming in? I would even try a direct connection to the line comming into house from splitter. also call up a CSR and make sure someone actually turned your service on. Stranger things have happend. Im just thinking that it would be odd for two boxes to do this so maybe there is an infrastructure problem. you should be able to pick up analog channels on a TV even without the DVR box and that would tell you if there is a signal there.


Signal definitley works all over the house. I saw them check every connection. Something's wrong with the box, Im pretty sure. Because now I tried it again, and it downloaded the flash update, installed it, and then the screen showed ----and it appeared as if it would do something, but then showed a 0 and then turned off. This is the part I keep getting to and then failing. I have a feeling that possibly the update is bad or something, because I can't do anything passed this point. If I leave it off it doesnt do anything, if I turn it on, it just shows the light and if I press anything to change the channel it just shows 4095.



Also I noticed that I can not receive any on demand stuff throught the 2500, it just never accepts the connection or something, because i choose something and then it tells me that the video was stopped.

Have you tried to call a FIOS tech rep on the phone? also try the FIOS forum over at broadbandreports.com

my stuttering problem was resolved just recently with an upgrade to the router's firmware

my stuttering problem was resolved just recently with an upgrade to the router's firmware

Now why would the router cause stuttering on the DVR? Where did you get the firmware?

I am new to Fios TV, swicthing over from D*. Other than some guide issues and getting used to the interface all has been good.
EXCEPT....

Closed captions.

I used to have this option with the satellite and now it seems to have vanished.

I have the 6416 phase 2 box, a Samsung DLP TV and another Samsung LCD. The TV menu function shows subtitles/closed captions as DISABLED.
The STB has no option for this. I notice in the manual there is a screen for this but it does nto show how to get to this screen to enable the feature.

My STB are connected via component cable and HDMI (DLP compenent and HDMI LCD)

I would love to get my captions back, am I out of luck?

I would love to get my captions back, am I out of luck?


im not sure if this works or not because I have been unable to get my 6416 to work at all, but you could try this. Turn off the power to your STB, then on the STB itself press the menu button. This should bring you to a screen where you can set all the options for your tv size and everything. Last time I checked there was also an option for closed captioning in there, maybe thats what you need in order to enable it.

I am new to Fios TV, swicthing over from D*. Other than some guide issues and getting used to the interface all has been good.
EXCEPT....

Closed captions.

...

My STB are connected via component cable and HDMI (DLP compenent and HDMI LCD)

I would love to get my captions back, am I out of luck?
I investigated this recently as well and found that the built-in closed captioning capabilities of many (most?) TVs doesn't work via the HDMI port. I have a Sony HD TV and I couldn't get closed captioning to work on it either when it is connected via HDMI. Apparently some TV's support this, but unfortunately mine isn't one of them (and it sounds like yours isn't either).

As xer0derm said, the work-around is to have the FiOS STB do the closed captioning for you. You can enable and configure closed captioning via the "User Settings" menu (turn the stb off and then press the menu button to access this menu). The only downside to this is that it's not as easy to turn captioning on & off, but that might not be an issue for you if you leave it on all the time.

Now why would the router cause stuttering on the DVR? Where did you get the firmware?

the v* tech that came to my house told me this...he installed the update...when i asked this same question he said that it was because the version that i had was continuously downloading program guide info which limited the bandwidth for tv...i don't know if a buy it, but i did not see stutter on NFL network football last night...i also, i always saw it on nbc football which i will test later.

the v* tech that came to my house told me this...he installed the update...when i asked this same question he said that it was because the version that i had was continuously downloading program guide info which limited the bandwidth for tv...i don't know if a buy it, but i did not see stutter on NFL network football last night...i also, i always saw it on nbc football which i will test later.


Hmmm, there was an FTP somewhere that had firmware updates. Anyone know it?

the v* tech that came to my house told me this...he installed the update...when i asked this same question he said that it was because the version that i had was continuously downloading program guide info which limited the bandwidth for tv...i don't know if a buy it, but i did not see stutter on NFL network football last night...i also, i always saw it on nbc football which i will test later.

The latest firmware for the Actiontec router that I can find is 45.120 which has been out quite a while and I had already updated mine. Did not have any affect on the stuttering issues.

The latest firmware for the Actiontec router that I can find is 45.120 which has been out quite a while and I had already updated mine. Did not have any affect on the stuttering issues.

that is not good news...i just checked mine and i'm running 4.0.16.1.45.120 at the moment...do you get this problem all the time? i mainly saw it when watching multicasted locals and feeds that people at avs complained had bad PQ...i have 2 hd dvrs (the with Multi-Room DVR service stutters the most) and 2 SD boxes...what is your setup?

that is not good news...i just checked mine and i'm running 4.0.16.1.45.120 at the moment...do you get this problem all the time? i mainly saw it when watching multicasted locals and feeds that people at avs complained had bad PQ...i have 2 hd dvrs (the with Multi-Room DVR service stutters the most) and 2 SD boxes...what is your setup?

Dosnt stutter any more since they replaced the DVR yesterday but I have no confidence that it wont come back. I also have one standard def box but never see anything happen on it. I have only seen this problem with HD programing. No multiroom function though.

As xer0derm said, the work-around is to have the FiOS STB do the closed captioning for you. You can enable and configure closed captioning via the "User Settings" menu (turn the stb off and then press the menu button to access this menu). The only downside to this is that it's not as easy to turn captioning on & off, but that might not be an issue for you if you leave it on all the time.
This is not a work-around. This is how it is supposed to work for digital systems. The receiver or STB which tunes to and generates the picture also generates the closed captions for display. You turn on CC at the external STB or if you are using an internal ATSC OTA or QAM tuner in the TV, turn them on at the tuner. In analog, the caption data was embedded in the analog NTSC signal. In digital, everyone is supposed to switch to EIA-708 format captioning which are data packets sent in the digital data stream. A search for EIA-608 and EIA-708 should turn up some explanations of these formats.

The Motorola DVRs do suck in their implementation of closed captions for anyone who wants to be able to turn them on or off for different programs or for different viewers in a house. You have to turn the box off and go into the setup menu to turn the CC on and then turn the box off again. Hopefully in the next generation DVR or maybe even a major firmware update for the Motorolas (doubt this however), this will be fixed. Meanwhile, Universal HD offers no CC at all and HDNet Movies is still hit or miss for CC.

for what it is worth, i'm not seeing any stuttering tonight watching the nfl game on nbc, which was typical prior to my recent firmware upgrade.

for what it is worth, i'm not seeing any stuttering tonight watching the nfl game on nbc, which was typical prior to my recent firmware upgrade.

i'm back to stuttering today

i'm back to stuttering today


Just call and get a swap out. seems to be fine now but for who knows how long.

This is not a work-around. This is how it is supposed to work for digital systems. The receiver or STB which tunes to and generates the picture also generates the closed captions for display. You turn on CC at the external STB or if you are using an internal ATSC OTA or QAM tuner in the TV, turn them on at the tuner. In analog, the caption data was embedded in the analog NTSC signal. In digital, everyone is supposed to switch to EIA-708 format captioning which are data packets sent in the digital data stream. A search for EIA-608 and EIA-708 should turn up some explanations of these formats.

The Motorola DVRs do suck in their implementation of closed captions for anyone who wants to be able to turn them on or off for different programs or for different viewers in a house. You have to turn the box off and go into the setup menu to turn the CC on and then turn the box off again. Hopefully in the next generation DVR or maybe even a major firmware update for the Motorolas (doubt this however), this will be fixed. Meanwhile, Universal HD offers no CC at all and HDNet Movies is still hit or miss for CC.
Thanks for the clarification. That makes more sense and explains the behavior I'm seeing. I too wish Motorola (or Verizon) would make it easier to turn CC on and off.

I finally got po'd enough by D* that I cancelled and ordered FIOS. I was surprised when I got call this morning saying they would be out on Wed. to do the install, that's fast, I was expecting to wait a week or two. Once they do the install I'll report back. In the meantime, anyone using a Sony Commander RM-AV3100 Universal to control the DVR? Is there a setup code available or do I need to use the learn mode? Thanks. this thread has been very informative.

I've got the stutters also. It seemed to start when they sent a signal to try and fix my media manager file sharing app. They did fix that, but with it seemed to come the stuttering.
I called and they very quickly came out to my house, (Sunday New years eve) and the guy spent a good few hours at my house watching the Jets game. He saw the problem right away.

He upgraded the router first, (BTW I think all he did was go to a menu item that searched for an update) that did not help.
He then swapped out the DVR. We noticed that the box never really came up by itself, meaning that the clock never comes back on it's own like they say it's supposed to. Might have something to do with it.

It appeared to fix the problem, but it didnt. He was a good guy and called me later to see how it was, said he would come back tomorrow to look at it some more.

I noticed last night that UHD was stuttering very badly on Battlestar Galactica.

As if all this isnt bad enough, I also have a "Noise" line going through the center of my screen. It comes and goes, very hard to see, but when you get a light background you see it. Anyone else seen this?

I hear I'm getting a new remote tomorrow also.

I've got the stutters also. It seemed to start when they sent a signal to try and fix my media manager file sharing app. They did fix that, but with it seemed to come the stuttering.
I called and they very quickly came out to my house, (Sunday New years eve) and the guy spent a good few hours at my house watching the Jets game. He saw the problem right away.

He upgraded the router first, (BTW I think all he did was go to a menu item that searched for an update) that did not help.
He then swapped out the DVR. We noticed that the box never really came up by itself, meaning that the clock never comes back on it's own like they say it's supposed to. Might have something to do with it.

It appeared to fix the problem, but it didnt. He was a good guy and called me later to see how it was, said he would come back tomorrow to look at it some more.

I noticed last night that UHD was stuttering very badly on Battlestar Galactica.

As if all this isnt bad enough, I also have a "Noise" line going through the center of my screen. It comes and goes, very hard to see, but when you get a light background you see it. Anyone else seen this?

I hear I'm getting a new remote tomorrow also.

The first day I had FIOS installed I saw a very faint noise line that would go from bottom to top slowly but it disappeared rather quickly. Please report back on what remote you get and if the installer has anything in particular to say about it.

I just switched from Comcast's DVR service to Verizon FIOS. The Comcast DVR allowed me to easily switch between the 2 tuners using the swap button. Each tuner would have it's own independant buffer so this was very convenient for jumping between the buffers for 2 shows without actually recording them.

Has anyone figured out how to switch between the tuners on the Verizon DVR? Does each tuner maintain it's own buffer?

The closest thing to the old COmcast "swap" funtionality that I can figure out it to force the DVR to record 2 programs and then access them from the recordings menu. I then need to go clean up the recordings when I'm done watching the 2 shows. This is a pain and I much rather just switch between the buffers using the swap button.

mreading,

I have seen it mentioned before that the swap button on the Comcast remote works with the FiOS box - so the functionality is there. In order for you to use it, I guess you will either have to get your hands on a Comcast remote, or borrow one and input the code to a learning remote.

mreading,

I have seen it mentioned before that the swap button on the Comcast remote works with the FiOS box - so the functionality is there. In order for you to use it, I guess you will either have to get your hands on a Comcast remote, or borrow one and input the code to a learning remote.
Wow, Thanks guys I've learned a lot. :eek:

I have seen it mentioned before that the swap button on the Comcast remote works with the FiOS box - so the functionality is there. In order for you to use it, I guess you will either have to get your hands on a Comcast remote, or borrow one and input the code to a learning remote.

I still had my Comcast remote when they finished installing the FIOS box. The Comcast remote could control almost all functions on the FIOS box. However, SWAP still did not work.

I just switched from Comcast's DVR service to Verizon FIOS. The Comcast DVR allowed me to easily switch between the 2 tuners using the swap button. Each tuner would have it's own independant buffer so this was very convenient for jumping between the buffers for 2 shows without actually recording them.

Has anyone figured out how to switch between the tuners on the Verizon DVR? Does each tuner maintain it's own buffer?

The closest thing to the old COmcast "swap" funtionality that I can figure out it to force the DVR to record 2 programs and then access them from the recordings menu. I then need to go clean up the recordings when I'm done watching the 2 shows. This is a pain and I much rather just switch between the buffers using the swap button.

FIOS does not have this functionality currently. You can only buffer one channel at a time. Perhaps they will turn it on in the future.
-Rob

I finally got po'd enough by D* that I cancelled and ordered FIOS. I was surprised when I got call this morning saying they would be out on Wed. to do the install, that's fast, I was expecting to wait a week or two. Once they do the install I'll report back. In the meantime, anyone using a Sony Commander RM-AV3100 Universal to control the DVR? Is there a setup code available or do I need to use the learn mode? Thanks. this thread has been very informative.
I have the Sony RMVL 1000 remote - as I remember, there is a code for Moto digital cable boxes that worked for most functions - I just had to teach it a few minor commands. Good luck w/your install - I was very happy w/the change from D*, especially w/the PQ.

FIOS does not have this functionality currently. You can only buffer one channel at a time. Perhaps they will turn it on in the future.
-Rob

I just called Verizon to ask about the "swap button" feature. The tech wasn't very knowledgeable. However, he said that he heard that a bunch of people were asking about tihs feature and that he thinks that Verizon is going to roll out this feature "soon". He couldn't give me a date.

i dont know what is going on with the AVS site. it was down and now its all white like its in mobile mode and i can't quote.

that sucks that there is no swap function on fios like there is on comcast to change tuners and that you therefore can't rewind etc when you swap tuner/switch chan as there is no buffer.

strike that up as one more con of fios compared to comcast.

believe me i'm all for fios. i'm not bias, its just the facts so far sound like the only benefit you are getting is better std def pq quality and only some say slight better HD quality at the expense of losing a lot of features you get with comcast.

this just doesnt' seem worth it.

i decided to still go through with the intallation to get the free install tomorrow and try it out but i'm not canceling comcast or getting rid of my comcast hd dvr boxes etc.

i pretty much already plan on canceling fios and i already canceled the inet install as that means switching email etc. and unless i'm keeping the tv i wasn't going to keep the inet.

meanwhile i hear the inet is faster, more stable, glitch free and cheaper then comcast cable modem but i just can't see having fios inet and comcast cable tv.

if i keep fios tv or if and when it gets equal or better to comcast in every way i will get both as we already have verizon phone se we can have the ease of the one bill triple play.

just sucks cus i really wanted fios tv to be better but again fact just seems like its really not in most areas.

we are going to lose too much function especially having all reg cable c hannels on our tvs without stbs just for better std def pq quality? can't justify it.

you have read it where? can you give us a link

how do you use the swap button on comcast remote for fios dvr stb?

you would think fios would know if you call knowing that ppl want this and that their fios remote sucks and lot of ppl that came from comcast hae comcast remote

i'm keeping all 4 of my comcast remotes i dont think comcast asks for them bck with the box.

if they do i still have an extra comcast dvr remote that they wont need back.

I too wish Motorola (or Verizon) would make it easier to turn CC on and off.The new Fios remotes label the * button as "CC" and the manual states:
http://www22.verizon.com/nroneretail/nr/rdonlyres/0d93f875-4498-460f-8fc4-a15d519b4e7c/0/welcomekitremotecontrolinsrt_nc.pdf

CC - Toggles between closed-caption options.So ... sounds like they are planning on a one-button CC on/off ... hopefully in the oft-rumored / talked about "big upcoming software update".

Note: the button does nothing now ... it's going to need a firmware update to do anything. Also, the same button on their existing remotes (or any universal remote) should do the same thing once the firmware update is rolled out.

I just thought I'd take a minute to describe my initial experience with the Verizon Media Manager. This feature allows you to view picture and stream MP3's off of your PC onto your DVR settop. I've really only played with the photo app so that's all I'll comment on.

I was actually fairly excited about this feature. Even though I know that you can buy many devices to do similar things (I have an old Linksys WMA11b), I would rather have one less device to worry about. I've always that that this would be a "killer application" for cable companies to offer via their settops.

I'm mainly interested in viewing photos -- we have about 8 years worth of digital photos neatly organized into folders and sub-folders on our main PC and it's always fun to sit on the couch and put on slideshows on the big screen. We currently have an old linksys WMA11b, but that device is limited to S-Video connections and the software hasn't been updated in years.

To get the Media Manager running, you need to install some software on your PC and unblock the application in your firewall software. This was fairly easy. Upon installation, the software scans your harddrive for photos and music and puts them into "Scanned Photo Folders" or "Scanned Music Folders" categories. You can tell it where to scan so it doesn't have to scan your entire harddrive.

One annoying thing is that the scanning process does not store the entire pathname -- only the final folder name. This is a big problem if, like me, you organize your folders into many subfolders. You will only see the final foldername in the scanned folders listing. With ~18,000 photos organized into >1000 folders, this creates a long annoying list of folders that's almost impossible to navigate.

Even though it has scanned your entire harddrive and recorded all of the folders, you must still manually create slideshows to have anything show up on the settop. Again, this is a big pain. You can create a slideshow out of an entire folder or you can manually add picture one-by-one to create a new slideshow.

Once you have created some slideshows, you can now view them from the settop. by selecting "Enhanced TV" and "Media Manager". It takes a 5-10 seconds to fire up and then displays a list of all of the slideshows you have created. Navigating thright the pictures is fairly easy although it seems quite sluggish -- there is a 2-3 second delay after pressing the "next" key on the remote. Even when "fullscreen" mode is selected for the photos, ~25% of the top, bottom, and sides of the screen are occupied by gray bars. No idea why Verizon considers fullscreen to mean 75% of the screen.

The pictures look fairly sharp. I have my settop connected to my TV via HDMI so this was expected. The application displays the images in SD -- too bad they can display them in HD.

Needless to say, I found the Verizon Media Manager to be quite a disappointment, at least for photo viewing. My main gripes:
1. No support for sub-folders / heirarchy -- not good for anyone that has a large amount of photos.
2. Must re-scan your HD for any new folders / pictures to show up
3. Must manually create slideshows out of the scanned folders -- I already organize my photo into folders on my PC. It should just recognize those as slideshows and let me view them directly without requiring that extra step.
4. Sluggish response when advancing through photos -- not exactly a good showcase for Verizon's high-tech fiber.
5. "FullScreen" photo viewing only covers ~75% of the screen
6. No support for viewing photos in HD

From what I understand, the photo applet on the settop was developed by Microsoft. I was quite surprised that this applet wasn't more integrated into Windows Media Connect or some other standard Microsoft functionality. I certainly hope that Microsoft/Verizon plan on enhancing this application in the future since I still think that this is one of the killer features of a Home Media DVR.

The new Fios remotes label the * button as "CC" and the manual states:
So ... sounds like they are planning on a one-button CC on/off ... hopefully in the oft-rumored / talked about "big upcoming software update".

Note: the button does nothing now ... it's going to need a firmware update to do anything. Also, the same button on their existing remotes (or any universal remote) should do the same thing once the firmware update is rolled out.

Where/When is that remote available? Have people started receiving them with new installs?

Where/When is that remote available? Have people started receiving them with new installs?Some people have reported getting them with new installs. Then again, some people are still getting the old remotes. Seems to be a 'location-by-location' kind of thing. Some people have also gotten them by calling Verizon or stopping by one of the stores ... usually with a $5 (or so) 'replacement remote' charge.

With the current firmware, I would actually consider the new remote a little 'less than optimal'. For example, the new remote doesn't have distinct PAGE UP / PAGE DOWN buttons. They seem to plan on using CH UP / CH DOWN for paging ... but ... the current firmware doesn't respond to it as such. Little things like that. The remote is obviously designed for a new version of the firmware ... and I'm sure it will work well with it. But for now ... I dunno.

OTOH, it does have some nice features now (like 30 sec skip, all on / all off, etc).

Re: Dual Buffering / Swap functionality

As noted by mreading above ... you can get dual buffering if you try hard enough. No, it's not as convenient / easy as the swap button that (some) competitors support. Yes, it's a PITA with more button presses and a few gotchas / issues.

But anyway ... if you really want to / absolutely have to dual buffer you can do so via two recordings. To switch between the two, and maintain the buffer, you have to use 'List' / 'Resume Play'. That will maintain the two seperate buffers.

Personally I watch everything rather substantially time-shifted so I could give a flip about dual buffering. But yes, I can certainly see how some people would find a convenient way of doing it desireable.

With the current firmware, I would actually consider the new remote a little 'less than optimal'. For example, the new remote doesn't have distinct PAGE UP / PAGE DOWN buttons. They seem to plan on using CH UP / CH DOWN for paging ... but ... the current firmware doesn't respond to it as such. Little things like that. The remote is obviously designed for a new version of the firmware ... and I'm sure it will work well with it. But for now ... I dunno.

OTOH, it does have some nice features now (like 30 sec skip, all on / all off, etc).
VERIZON (FIOS) ARE YOU LISTENING TO THIS OR DO YOU EVEN CARE? :(

I am waiting for Verizon to install the video equipment at my wire center and then it's bye bye to Comcast. The comcast remote has some nice features which I have taken for granted such as the 30 second skip and page up and page down but I recently purchased a Harmony 670 remote which provides all that functionality and more on one remote. My TV remote, DVR remote and DVD remote are not tucked away in a drawer. The Harmony is sweet. Before to change from TV watching to DVD watching I had to get the TV remote out to change video input. I could used the comcast remote to turn the DVD player on and to play, pause, and stop but it could little more than that. Now I just press watch movie. The TV input switches and the DVD player turns on. All the DVD controls are there. There are six soft buttons to allow for programming even more features such as an eject button which my DVD remote doesn't even have. Switch back to TV watching, no problem. Press watch TV, the input switches back to the STB and the DVD player turns off. Now the buttons give more full control over the DVD player and the STB. It's the best cnote I ever spent. Even controls my XM radio and the tech support is really good.

One of the features I am really looking forward to is customization of the online guide by selecting out channels I don't watch. I can do that with Comcast by setting favorites but to get to my favorites version of the guide I have to go through three keystrokes. Talk about PITA.

I was wondering if the firewire ports are enabled on the 6416 for connectionto a DVHS machine. Thanks guys.

I got two of the new remotes today. Tech came out to my house to see how my system was doing. All the stuttering is gone ever since I told them to remove any hint of Media Manager from my DVR. That took a lot of explaining, but they finally reinitialized my system and it came back fine. Media manager never worked right anyway.
He was about to leave today, and I asked for the new remote, he said he would go out to the truck and get one, I said 2 would be better. I got 2, no questions asked.

The new remote is good for the problems if fixes. Lighted, better feel, all off, 30 sec. skip. It fails for the things it cannot do, page up/down, and when you press the number keys it assumes you want to be controlling the STB. (The last remote allowed me to switch inputs on my Audio using the number keys).

I need to find a user guide for the remote to see if there are other things I can do.

Recording Space seems terrible on this box. I had about 5 hours of HD recorded material last night and it was saying 85% full.

I know this has been discussed on this thread, but this seems extremely bad.

Anything new on ways to increase hard drive space - external hard drive or otherwise.

My understanding of the Verizon DVRs is that there is no way to set them to respond to an individual remote. That is, if I put two DVRs in my living room, and connected both to my TV, then any commands entered into the remote would go to both DVRs. Is this correct? I now have two TIVOs (from DirectTV) and have set each to work only with its own remote. The inability to do this would be a big drawback to Verizon.

Over the past few days I noticed that my picture will occasionally freeze, as if I had hit the pause button. Except I'm nowhere near the remote. After several seconds, or if I change channels, the picture goes back to live. I've had my QIP6416 for about three weeks, but this just started happening. Has anybody else had this happen? I'm wondering if I need to call Verizon and have them swap out my DVR.

Recording Space seems terrible on this box. I had about 5 hours of HD recorded material last night and it was saying 85% full.

I know this has been discussed on this thread, but this seems extremely bad.

Anything new on ways to increase hard drive space - external hard drive or otherwise.

All MSO's of the Motorola DCT / QIP Series STB, are awaiting on Working DRM code for eSATA & USB external drives. The Current code used in these STB does not currently enforce DRM on external storage media. as a result the MSO's are not allowed by law to currently activate and allow users to use eSATA or USB external storage devices. Last word we have at comcast is mid summer 2007 for this fix.

Does this involve firewire also?

Does this involve firewire also?

Not that I am aware of.

Recording Space seems terrible on this box. I had about 5 hours of HD recorded material last night and it was saying 85% full.

I know this has been discussed on this thread, but this seems extremely bad.

Anything new on ways to increase hard drive space - external hard drive or otherwise.

I had the same problem. Attempted to wipe the hard disk with Verizon tech on the phone. No luck with this. Tech came out tried the same thing. No luck there either. He gave me a new box and things are as expected now.

HTH

Recording Space seems terrible on this box. I had about 5 hours of HD recorded material last night and it was saying 85% full.

I know this has been discussed on this thread, but this seems extremely bad.

Anything new on ways to increase hard drive space - external hard drive or otherwise.
Something isn't right. I had 5-1/2 hours of HD and was only 27% full.
See this post. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9312252&&#post9312252)
Try power cycling your STB & see if that helps (I'm guessing that like any Microsoft product, it would trigger a file system check.)
If that doesn't help, give them a call. Or maybe delete one or more shows and see what happens.

I just thought I'd take a minute to describe my initial experience with the Verizon Media Manager. This feature allows you to view picture and stream MP3's off of your PC onto your DVR settop. I've really only played with the photo app so that's all I'll comment on.

I was actually fairly excited about this feature. Even though I know that you can buy many devices to do similar things (I have an old Linksys WMA11b), I would rather have one less device to worry about. I've always that that this would be a "killer application" for cable companies to offer via their settops.

I'm mainly interested in viewing photos -- we have about 8 years worth of digital photos neatly organized into folders and sub-folders on our main PC and it's always fun to sit on the couch and put on slideshows on the big screen. We currently have an old linksys WMA11b, but that device is limited to S-Video connections and the software hasn't been updated in years.

To get the Media Manager running, you need to install some software on your PC and unblock the application in your firewall software. This was fairly easy. Upon installation, the software scans your harddrive for photos and music and puts them into "Scanned Photo Folders" or "Scanned Music Folders" categories. You can tell it where to scan so it doesn't have to scan your entire harddrive.

One annoying thing is that the scanning process does not store the entire pathname -- only the final folder name. This is a big problem if, like me, you organize your folders into many subfolders. You will only see the final foldername in the scanned folders listing. With ~18,000 photos organized into >1000 folders, this creates a long annoying list of folders that's almost impossible to navigate.

Even though it has scanned your entire harddrive and recorded all of the folders, you must still manually create slideshows to have anything show up on the settop. Again, this is a big pain. You can create a slideshow out of an entire folder or you can manually add picture one-by-one to create a new slideshow.

Once you have created some slideshows, you can now view them from the settop. by selecting "Enhanced TV" and "Media Manager". It takes a 5-10 seconds to fire up and then displays a list of all of the slideshows you have created. Navigating thright the pictures is fairly easy although it seems quite sluggish -- there is a 2-3 second delay after pressing the "next" key on the remote. Even when "fullscreen" mode is selected for the photos, ~25% of the top, bottom, and sides of the screen are occupied by gray bars. No idea why Verizon considers fullscreen to mean 75% of the screen.

The pictures look fairly sharp. I have my settop connected to my TV via HDMI so this was expected. The application displays the images in SD -- too bad they can display them in HD.

Needless to say, I found the Verizon Media Manager to be quite a disappointment, at least for photo viewing. My main gripes:
1. No support for sub-folders / heirarchy -- not good for anyone that has a large amount of photos.
2. Must re-scan your HD for any new folders / pictures to show up
3. Must manually create slideshows out of the scanned folders -- I already organize my photo into folders on my PC. It should just recognize those as slideshows and let me view them directly without requiring that extra step.
4. Sluggish response when advancing through photos -- not exactly a good showcase for Verizon's high-tech fiber.
5. "FullScreen" photo viewing only covers ~75% of the screen
6. No support for viewing photos in HD

From what I understand, the photo applet on the settop was developed by Microsoft. I was quite surprised that this applet wasn't more integrated into Windows Media Connect or some other standard Microsoft functionality. I certainly hope that Microsoft/Verizon plan on enhancing this application in the future since I still think that this is one of the killer features of a Home Media DVR.


xbox 360 media streaming is better and does video in addition to pics and musis no problem with a great visualation for mp3s.

overall i had a nightmare of an install over 2 days. i have an extension cord of my own being used in garage, a dirty house, a broken access panel to attic and they disconnected my comcast cable modem internet and said they were unable to get it back on forcing me to add verizon internet service as well.

my internet is slower actually then comcast. the router gets less signal then my cheap but sexy netgear g router did and tv is worse is just about every way plus i needed a stb for kitchen where i was fine with a great pq just through coax with comcast to watch all basic cable channels i needed int ehre.

i hd the 3416 hd dvr boxes with comcast which though a lower number are actually better then verizion 6416 and are sme size hdd. i pretty much liked everything better about comcast and customer service was great. when anythign went wrong we called up they fixed it and made it up to us and weve always gotten tons of discounts and credits etc.

it hink i'm just in a great comcast area where we had super fast internet and great pq. verizon fios hsa been a nightmare and now i wish i never even bothered.

Here's the bottom line with my DVR.
3 hours of recorded shows equals 70% Full.

Something is Broke, or some gremlin replaced my hard drive.

i pretty much liked everything better about comcast and customer service was great. when anythign went wrong we called up they fixed it and made it up to us and weve always gotten tons of discounts and credits etc.

And we switched because.....?

As far as the router issue, I turned off the wireless on my actiontec and I have my own wireless Linksys router (a WRT54GL running HyperWRT) hooked up via Ethernet to a LAN port on the actiontec. I gave a static IP to the Linksys, DHCP is handled by the Actiontec and the gateway on the Linksys points to the Actiontec. Works great. It's allowed me to keep my old WAN configuration from pre-FiOS.

I've had no dealbreaker FiOS issues here.

And we switched because.....?

As far as the router issue, I turned off the wireless on my actiontec and I have my own wireless Linksys router (a WRT54GL running HyperWRT) hooked up via Ethernet to a LAN port on the actiontec. I gave a static IP to the Linksys, DHCP is handled by the Actiontec and the gateway on the Linksys points to the Actiontec. Works great. It's allowed me to keep my old WAN configuration from pre-FiOS.

I've had no dealbreaker FiOS issues here.

Right on target Clockwork. I don't undertand Quatre at all. If he has a service he's happy with, why change?

overall i had a nightmare of an install over 2 days. i have an extension cord of my own being used in garage, a dirty house, a broken access panel to attic and they disconnected my comcast cable modem internet and said they were unable to get it back on forcing me to add verizon internet service as well.

my internet is slower actually then comcast. the router gets less signal then my cheap but sexy netgear g router did and tv is worse is just about every way plus i needed a stb for kitchen where i was fine with a great pq just through coax with comcast to watch all basic cable channels i needed int ehre.

i hd the 3416 hd dvr boxes with comcast which though a lower number are actually better then verizion 6416 and are sme size hdd. i pretty much liked everything better about comcast and customer service was great. when anythign went wrong we called up they fixed it and made it up to us and weve always gotten tons of discounts and credits etc.

it hink i'm just in a great comcast area where we had super fast internet and great pq. verizon fios hsa been a nightmare and now i wish i never even bothered.

If you spent half the time learning how to pre wire your house as you do complaining about FIOS here and at all the other FIOS threads I think you would have a lot less problems. I have had comcast TV and internet as well as DSL and Directv. Fios Internet is better, only slightly slower at 5mbs compared to 6with Comcast but then again significantly cheaper. I too have an extension cord but so what! The electrician that wired your outlets couldnt have foreseen that you would need one for a battery backup for the new technology that comes out. You should have already prepared an outlet if you dont want to use said extension cord. You need more RG6 runs in your house if you want to run comcast and Fios together since they would normaly share the same infrastructure. Please go back to comcast.

If you spent half the time learning how to pre wire your house as you do complaining about FIOS here and at all the other FIOS threads I think you would have a lot less problems. I have had comcast TV and internet as well as DSL and Directv. Fios Internet is better, only slightly slower at 5mbs compared to 6with Comcast but then again significantly cheaper. I too have an extension cord but so what! The electrician that wired your outlets couldnt have foreseen that you would need one for a battery backup for the new technology that comes out. You should have already prepared an outlet if you dont want to use said extension cord. You need more RG6 runs in your house if you want to run comcast and Fios together since they would normaly share the same infrastructure. Please go back to comcast.

WOW, what a screwed up perspective. He isnt the one getting paid to do a job.

WOW, what a screwed up perspective. He isnt the one getting paid to do a job.

You're right about that but it seems he hated FIOS even before the install. I just don't understand his decision.

WOW, what a screwed up perspective. He isnt the one getting paid to do a job.

As much reading as he has or should have done here he should have known how it could go and he should have managed the ppl in his house a bit better. He knew all the negatives and went ahead and did the install. im just wondering why someone has to go on and on at length about installing a service that he knew was not going to be right for him.

I got two of the new remotes today. Tech came out to my house to see how my system was doing. All the stuttering is gone ever since I told them to remove any hint of Media Manager from my DVR. That took a lot of explaining, but they finally reinitialized my system and it came back fine. Media manager never worked right anyway.

I tried the media manager installed on my computer, but uninstalled quickly after trying it. is there some more cleanup on my 2 6416 boxes i still need to do? Also, i have the multi-room dvr service on one of my boxes and that recently stopped working and i have not seen any stuttering recently...has anyone had stuttering problems that did not have the multi-room drv service?

I tried the media manager installed on my computer, but uninstalled quickly after trying it. is there some more cleanup on my 2 6416 boxes i still need to do? Also, i have the multi-room dvr service on one of my boxes and that recently stopped working and i have not seen any stuttering recently...has anyone had stuttering problems that did not have the multi-room drv service?

I had the stuttering problems and I have never had multi room service.

My understanding of the Verizon DVRs is that there is no way to set them to respond to an individual remote. That is, if I put two DVRs in my living room, and connected both to my TV, then any commands entered into the remote would go to both DVRs. Is this correct? I now have two TIVOs (from DirectTV) and have set each to work only with its own remote. The inability to do this would be a big drawback to Verizon.


You are correct.

Over the past few days I noticed that my picture will occasionally freeze, as if I had hit the pause button. Except I'm nowhere near the remote. After several seconds, or if I change channels, the picture goes back to live. I've had my QIP6416 for about three weeks, but this just started happening. Has anybody else had this happen? I'm wondering if I need to call Verizon and have them swap out my DVR.

I had the same thing after swaping out my router then rewiring my entire house from scratch they determined the buffer on the DVR was bad.
I have not had the issue since they replaced it.

Cracks me up reading all these pro-Comcast posts. My entire street has switched over from Comcast to Verizon and we're all very happy. Time Warner came in and bought Comcast and service went straight to heck. FIOS customer service, uptime, internet speed, installation, everything has been fantastic for all of us.

Stutter problem is back for the football games today. Pretty annoying .

With the help of a Tech today, I did a "Clear" on my hard drive. Looks like it solved my recordable space problem.
Here is how we did it.
Power - OK - Replay- List, List, List, - LiveTV
Clr shows on the STB, then we powered off, and / or he reset it from the office. Not sure if it formatted the drive or what, but it did clear off all recorded shows.

kheflw,,

I'm seeing the stuttering problem here in Garland TX as well.

kheflw,,

I'm seeing the stuttering problem here in Garland TX as well.

It got so bad here in Carrollton, TX that I turned off the MOT 6416 and watched OTA for a few minutes. When I tuned back in I got black bars on the sides and bad PQ which makes me think they lost the HD signal for a while. This stuttering problem seems to only happen on NBC Football, so what gives?

Before I go on, I just want to say that I think the Verizon Tech/Tech Support system is the best - most concerned support system around.
No, I am not affiliated.

Anyway, I agree that the stutter problem is worst on NBC Football. I did see a Basketball game, I think on ESPN last week that was terrible. The Fox game right now is not as bad, hardly any stutters.

Today, before my daily visit from the verizon guy, I took my 2nd DVR from upstairs and brought it down. Upstairs it never has the stutter problem, running off a Sharp Aquos 26" LCD. Downstairs it Stutters. Downstairs I am running a RCA 38310 - 38" Tube HDTV.
The verizon guy came, gave me new Component cables - still stutters, we swapped the feeds from upstairs to downstairs from the splitter - still stutters.

A friend came by, we decided that since you can Record the stutter and play it back and have it stutter at the same spot all the time, it cannot be the TV, and the stutter has to be either the feed to the STB or the STB itself. Since we swapped STB's, the problem has to be going into the STB. Of course our theory could be garbage, but we are thinking.

We have checked signal strength and the house is pretty even, all cables putting out good signals, the stuttering tv is at around 6 (not sure what that measurment is. We also tried it without it's attenuator on it, so that is probably around 9) Stutters both ways.

My friend who has a 50" plasma, has never noticed the stutter, but does see a lot of pixelation on NBC. We recorded this at my house and played it back in Slow Motion, It is pretty bad, but doesnt bother me as much as the stutter.

So - the Giants game looks great right now on FOX. The Jets are done, so I may not notice the stutter for a while.

Hef

Verizon 'officially' announced the new firmware / features at CES today:
http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2007/verizon-unveils-next.html
http://daytime.engadget.com/2007/01/07/live-coverage-of-verizons-press-conference/
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6404788.html?display=Breaking+News

Initial trials in New Jersey ... released elsewhere by 'mid-year'.

Some screenshots of the new interface:
http://newsfeed.verizon.com/detail?source=&mid=VER2007010753931&mime=JPG
http://newsfeed.verizon.com/detail?source=&mid=VER2007010753895&mime=JPG
http://newsfeed.verizon.com/detail?source=&mid=VER2007010753967&mime=JPG

Verizon 'officially' announced the new firmware / features at CES today:
http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2007/verizon-unveils-next.html
http://daytime.engadget.com/2007/01/07/live-coverage-of-verizons-press-conference/
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6404788.html?display=Breaking+News

Initial trials in New Jersey ... released elsewhere by 'mid-year'.

I wonder what new features the software will have?

Any insight?

Verizon 'officially' announced the new firmware / features at CES today:
http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2007/verizon-unveils-next.html
http://daytime.engadget.com/2007/01/07/live-coverage-of-verizons-press-conference/
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6404788.html?display=Breaking+News

Initial trials in New Jersey ... released elsewhere by 'mid-year'.

Bring it!

I wonder what new features the software will have?

Any insight?One could make a few edumacated guesses from the press release / screen shots ... but ...

I'll hold off (for now) untill we get a few more screenshots / CES blogs / etc.

Bye bye Comcast and Tivo...

I called Verizon to check my order and they said they would be here most of the day to install FiOS, 3 DVRs (2 LCD HDTV's and one SD TV), and Internet service.

Are there certain DVR part numbers or model numbers I should hope for? firmware version? type of remote?

If they're tied up here for many hours I can probably ask the techs some questions if you have I can pass on. I am located north of Boston.

Bye bye Comcast and Tivo...

I called Verizon to check my order and they said they would be here most of the day to install FiOS, 3 DVRs (2 LCD HDTV's and one SD TV), and Internet service.



Isn't the day mostly over already?

Bye bye Comcast and Tivo...

I called Verizon to check my order and they said they would be here most of the day to install FiOS, 3 DVRs (2 LCD HDTV's and one SD TV), and Internet service.

Are there certain DVR part numbers or model numbers I should hope for? firmware version? type of remote?

If they're tied up here for many hours I can probably ask the techs some questions if you have I can pass on. I am located north of Boston.

You will get Moto QIP-3416 or QIP-6416 STB for your DVR, and they use the QIP-2500 for SD STB or the QIP-6200 for an HD non DVR STB

Keep your comcast silver remotes at all cost. they will be better then the original remotes Verizon normaly gives out.

You will get Moto QIP-3416 or QIP-6416 STB for your DVR, and they use the QIP-2500 for SD STB or the QIP-6200 for an HD non DVR STB

Keep your comcast silver remotes at all cost. they will be better then the original remotes Verizon normaly gives out.

Better yet. Invest in a Harmony 670 remote. It's keypad is DVR centric and operates Moto DVR boxes wonderfully. Does the 30 skip, page up and page down. Replaces all the remotes for your devices.

if the swap button on silver comcast dvr remote doesn't do the same function on fios that sucks.

how do you swap to the other tuner then on a fios dvr box?



Another question - what happens if a show is being recorded on the tuner you are watching and you want to change channels? With comcast, you have to "swap" to the other tuner or it will warn you that it will stop recording in order to change channels. Is the fios dvr like tivo in that it automatically knows to go to the other tuner? Thanks.

I have been considering a switch to fios from comcast but have three concerns - can anyone who switched from comcast comment on sd pq comparisons, is there native passthrough like the moto 6412, and do season passes only record new episodes if set up that way? Thank you.

Another question - what happens if a show is being recorded on the tuner you are watching and you want to change channels? With comcast, you have to "swap" to the other tuner or it will warn you that it will stop recording in order to change channels. Is the fios dvr like tivo in that it automatically knows to go to the other tuner? Thanks.

No, the system will switch to the other tuner automatically. One small annyoance though is that the machine hijacks the tuner 1 minutes before a show to record starts until 1 minute after. (OR it might be two, I don't remember)

So, for example, if you have 1 show set to record from 8-9 on say channel 800 and another from 9-10 on a different channel say 801 at 8:59 the box will want to set the second tuner to 801 and the tuner recording 800 will keep that one until 9:01... so you might have to wait a minute or two until you can go to another channel.

However, I rarely run into this because I rarely watch live. I usually have both tuners recording and I am watching recorded content.

BOb

I have been considering a switch to fios from comcast but have three concerns - can anyone who switched from comcast comment on sd pq comparisons, is there native passthrough like the moto 6412, and do season passes only record new episodes if set up that way? Thank you.

I didn't come from comcast but I can answer your other questions.

The FiOS DVR does not have a passthru mode. It converts all HD to 1080i or 720p... you can set which in the settings mode. Although I think I have the Moto 6412 for FiOS.

Yes, you can set the system to record only new episodes of a show. The best bet of getting all new episodes of a show is to set it to record new shows only and to record at "anytime". This way, if the timeslot is moved you still will get the show... as long as there are no conflicts.

For conflicts you can rely on the auto resolution buy setting the shows priority. this way, if two shows conflict the system will record the one with the higher priority.

Hth,
BOb

If they're tied up here for many hours I can probably ask the techs some questions if you have I can pass on. I am located north of Boston.

That's an understatement. They took a total of 9 hours over two days (not back to back much to my chagrin) to install FIOS Internet and TV.

What town are you in? I am in Swampscott and had my original install date on 12/28. To make a long story short, I finally got FIOS-TV on 1/8. It was a comedy of errors on VZ's part but I am sort of happy right now. I went from SD DirecTV Tivo to the new DVRs. I am trying to keep an open mind, but it's getting harder. Tivo is SO MUCH BETTER. The experience is better. I am just biding my time until the S3 tivos drop in price and I will get one for the living room.

--Mike

I didn't come from comcast but I can answer your other questions.

The FiOS DVR does not have a passthru mode. It converts all HD to 1080i or 720p... you can set which in the settings mode. Although I think I have the Moto 6412 for FiOS.

Yes, you can set the system to record only new episodes of a show. The best bet of getting all new episodes of a show is to set it to record new shows only and to record at "anytime". This way, if the timeslot is moved you still will get the show... as long as there are no conflicts.

For conflicts you can rely on the auto resolution buy setting the shows priority. this way, if two shows conflict the system will record the one with the higher priority.

Hth,
BOb


Thanks Bob.

I was hoping some ex-comcast subs can comment on sd pq comparisons. I have read some very positive and some very negative reports on fios sd pq. I would like to know how the quality compares to comcast specifically as i currently like the comcast sd and hd pq but was hoping that fios was even better. Thanks.

Thanks Bob.

I was hoping some ex-comcast subs can comment on sd pq comparisons. I have read some very positive and some very negative reports on fios sd pq. I would like to know how the quality compares to comcast specifically as i currently like the comcast sd and hd pq but was hoping that fios was even better. Thanks.

I'm in MD, and coming from comcast, I definitely see a difference in the SD PQ.
I don't have an HD TV, so I can't comment on the HD at all.
The DVR menus take some getting used to (they are quite different than the comcast ones).
On comcast, I got more channels without a box that Fios gives me, but the picture quality on some of those was really bad with comcast, with or without the box. (especially some of the PBS stations).
The PQ is stunning (from what I can tell on my 7.5 year old TV) as compared to comcast.

SD definatly is much better than any cable service I had - Brighthouse Networks. Each channel looks like brighthouses over 100(digital) channels

My FIOS SD PQ far exceeds what I had from comcast cable. Much better AND much more consistent.

I needed 2 Cablecards for my S3.

I called on Tuesday, and they gave me an address of the Verizon office where they said the cards would be waiting for me to pick up before 5:00pm that day and that I could install them myself. That sounded great. I would have to leave work an hour early to get over there, but would save me from having to take off from work and wait for an installer.

I got to the office and they told me they don't give out any such item, and they don't even know what a "Cablecard" is!. Great, they made some calls for me, and the order was switched to a field install between 8 and 12 today (Thursday). I called my boss and took the morning off. I waited till 12:00, no show.

I called again (long hold times again), got bounced around some more, and then was told the last person did not fix the order correctly, they should have deleted and re-ordered, but they were able to correct it and now someone would be here by 5:00. I called my boss again and told him I would need the rest of the day off.

Okay, by 5:00 - no show again. Complete waste of a day, and several hundred $ in lost wages. Called again (long hold times again), and was eventually told that the order STILL was not placed correctly and it never went through.

Now they are scheduled for Sat. the 20th (can't take more time off for this crap). After arguing with a manager, the best they offered was one month free internet and TV - which does not come close to my lost wages and my waste of time.

Verizon is a mess. They definitely do NOT have their act together with all of this stuff.

I needed 2 Cablecards for my S3.

I called on Tuesday, and they gave me an address of the Verizon office where they said the cards would be waiting for me to pick up before 5:00pm that day and that I could install them myself. That sounded great. I would have to leave work an hour early to get over there, but would save me from having to take off from work and wait for an installer.

I got to the office and they told me they don't give out any such item, and they don't even know what a "Cablecard" is!. Great, they made some calls for me, and the order was switched to a field install between 8 and 12 today (Thursday). I called my boss and took the morning off. I waited till 12:00, no show.

I called again (long hold times again), got bounced around some more, and then was told the last person did not fix the order correctly, they should have deleted and re-ordered, but they were able to correct it and now someone would be here by 5:00. I called my boss again and told him I would need the rest of the day off.

Okay, by 5:00 - no show again. Complete waste of a day, and several hundred $ in lost wages. Called again (long hold times again), and was eventually told that the order STILL was not placed correctly and it never went through.

Now they are scheduled for Sat. the 20th (can't take more time off for this crap). After arguing with a manager, the best they offered was one month free internet and TV - which does not come close to my lost wages and my waste of time.

Verizon is a mess. They definitely do NOT have their act together with all of this stuff.

Very true, if your order does not go smoothly it seems like an endless maze to get back to whoever, or whichever department you originally spoke to. Forget it if you dont have a verizon phone number to put in at the start of the 1800#. They have not been able to get my bill all on one bill (fios internet and tv) for the past 6 months, i just gave up.

Better yet. Invest in a Harmony 670 remote. It's keypad is DVR centric and operates Moto DVR boxes wonderfully. Does the 30 skip, page up and page down. Replaces all the remotes for your devices.

The new harmony 7xx series is cool also.

I needed 2 Cablecards for my S3.

I called on Tuesday, and they gave me an address of the Verizon office where they said the cards would be waiting for me to pick up before 5:00pm that day and that I could install them myself. That sounded great. I would have to leave work an hour early to get over there, but would save me from having to take off from work and wait for an installer.

I got to the office and they told me they don't give out any such item, and they don't even know what a "Cablecard" is!. Great, they made some calls for me, and the order was switched to a field install between 8 and 12 today (Thursday). I called my boss and took the morning off. I waited till 12:00, no show.

I called again (long hold times again), got bounced around some more, and then was told the last person did not fix the order correctly, they should have deleted and re-ordered, but they were able to correct it and now someone would be here by 5:00. I called my boss again and told him I would need the rest of the day off.

Okay, by 5:00 - no show again. Complete waste of a day, and several hundred $ in lost wages. Called again (long hold times again), and was eventually told that the order STILL was not placed correctly and it never went through.

Now they are scheduled for Sat. the 20th (can't take more time off for this crap). After arguing with a manager, the best they offered was one month free internet and TV - which does not come close to my lost wages and my waste of time.

Verizon is a mess. They definitely do NOT have their act together with all of this stuff.

did you talk to billing about the credit? they told me the same thing after problems I had with the service. I later found out that you have to talk to billing to get any credit and it only works if you are on the phone with billing and the tech doing the orders.

did you talk to billing about the credit? they told me the same thing after problems I had with the service. I later found out that you have to talk to billing to get any credit and it only works if you are on the phone with billing and the tech doing the orders.What a joke. :eek: Good luck.

I just had fios tv installed and have been noticing on my recordings of hd channels that the video will occasionally drop out and I get a black screen but I still have audio, this happens twice in a half hr program for about 1 second (nbchd the office) other times I will have multiple audio dropouts(cw11). and on abchd I have been getting picture freeze on recordings. is this normal for fios or is there something wrong with my box or signal?
Thanks

I just had fios tv installed and have been noticing on my recordings of hd channels that the video will occasionally drop out and I get a black screen but I still have audio, this happens twice in a half hr program for about 1 second (nbchd the office) other times I will have multiple audio dropouts(cw11). and on abchd I have been getting picture freeze on recordings. is this normal for fios or is there something wrong with my box or signal?What market are you in?

It sounds like something may be wrong with your signal. Do you have any extra splitters? Did Verizon run new wiring, or use your existing wiring?

What market are you in?

It sounds like something may be wrong with your signal. Do you have any extra splitters? Did Verizon run new wiring, or use your existing wiring?


im in westchester ny market and verizon used the existing wire I had. the tech said the signal was low when he first tested it but then went outside and changed something and when he came back in he hooked up the set top box and said everything was fine now. the tech didn't find any extra splitters but did ask me, but I didn't know. is their a way I can check the signal through the settop box? should I call verizon back and have them replace the wire?
thanks

I just switch from Direct TV to FiOS.. I and hate the new remote. Is it possible to use another one, like the one that came with the Direct HD DVR, which is an RCA? If so, how can I get the codes to control the FiOS?

I'm also realizing that the hard drive in the 6416 seems smaller than what I had wiith Direct's DVR. Is there a larger one available, and if so, will Verizon swap it?

I just switch from Direct TV to FiOS.. I and hate the new remote. Is it possible to use another one, like the one that came with the Direct HD DVR, which is an RCA? If so, how can I get the codes to control the FiOS?

I'm also realizing that the hard drive in the 6416 seems smaller than what I had wiith Direct's DVR. Is there a larger one available, and if so, will Verizon swap it?
LOL. If they do I'll bet they will charge you!!!

no there is no bigger harddrive, it did seem to get full really quick, i guess your other options are tivo with cablecards

I just switch from Direct TV to FiOS.. I and hate the new remote. Is it possible to use another one, like the one that came with the Direct HD DVR, which is an RCA? If so, how can I get the codes to control the FiOS?You can get a universal remote. I like the Harmony 720 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=681453), although the upcoming URC R70 (http://www.remotecentral.com/wn061227.htm) looks very nice too.

I'm also realizing that the hard drive in the 6416 seems smaller than what I had wiith Direct's DVR. Is there a larger one available, and if so, will Verizon swap it?DirecTV's HDTV DVR has a 250Gb drive, compared to the 160Gb drive in the FiOS DVR. DirecTV's SD DVRs had 80-120Gb. That said, the higher quality SD and HD on FiOS consumes more disk space.

Motorola is currently working on firmware to support external SATA drives. FiOS will add that capability when it is available. It's expected around mid-2007. When that happens, you can buy an external 500Gb SATA drive for ~$100 and plug it into the back of your FiOS DVR.

im in westchester ny market and verizon used the existing wire I had. the tech said the signal was low when he first tested it but then went outside and changed something and when he came back in he hooked up the set top box and said everything was fine now. the tech didn't find any extra splitters but did ask me, but I didn't know. is their a way I can check the signal through the settop box? should I call verizon back and have them replace the wire?I would have them replace the wire, eliminating any splitters while they do it. What you are seeing sounds very much like a signal quality problem, and old/existing house wiring is almost always the culprit.

Having just bought the 720, its an awesome remote, very nicely shaped and excellent colour screen, very clear and legible.

DirecTV's HDTV DVR has a 250Gb drive, compared to the 160Gb drive in the FiOS DVR. DirecTV's SD DVRs had 80-120Gb. That said, the higher quality SD and HD on FiOS consumes more disk space.

Motorola is currently working on firmware to support external SATA drives. FiOS will add that capability when it is available. It's expected around mid-2007. When that happens, you can buy an external 500Gb SATA drive for ~$100 and plug it into the back of your FiOS DVR.



Hi,

Thanks for the information.

I'm currently a DirecTV subscriber, but Verizon has just installed fiber in my subdivision and I'm seriously considering a switch.

HD capabilities and recording capacity are big issues for me. Are you familiar with DirecTV's new HD DVR? When used with their new 5LNB dish it will do MPEG4. As I understand it switching from MPEG2 to MPEG4 will increase their HD recording capacity from ~30 hours to 50 hours. I'm pretty sure it also has SATA ports (which of course aren't operation yet). Presumably this would serve the same purpose as Verizon's to increase recording capacity?

With regard to Verizon's FiOS DVR, could more than one 500 Gb SATA drive be daisy-changed to it? Do you know if these external drives are silent? I'm dealing with a home theater environment and the quieter the better.

Would this added SATA capacity be able to be used along with the multi-room feature? Am I correct that currently HD multi-room is not available, but an upgrade to enable it is planned for later this year?

With regard to comparing overall HD capabilities between DirecTV and FiOS TV do you have an opinion or preference?

Larry

HD capabilities and recording capacity are big issues for me. Are you familiar with DirecTV's new HD DVR? When used with their new 5LNB dish it will do MPEG4. As I understand it switching from MPEG2 to MPEG4 will increase their HD recording capacity from ~30 hours to 50 hours. I'm pretty sure it also has SATA ports (which of course aren't operation yet). Presumably this would serve the same purpose as Verizon's to increase recording capacity?Yes, my understanding is that DirecTV intends to support SATA expansion in the future.

With regard to Verizon's FiOS DVR, could more than one 500 Gb SATA drive be daisy-changed to it?I doubt it. But by the time this capability is available, I'm sure there will be several different 1Tb models available. Hitachi just annonced the first (http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.368c8bfe833dee8056fb11f0aac4f0a0/?javax.portlet.tpst=74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_viewID=co ntent&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_docName=2 0070105_first_terabyte_hd.html&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_folderPat h=%2Fhgst%2Faboutus%2Fpress%2Finternal_news%2F&beanID=804390503&viewID=content&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=token).

Do you know if these external drives are silent? I'm dealing with a home theater environment and the quieter the better.The 500Gb Western Digital RE2 and Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 drives are very quiet. I wouldn't say they are silent, but they are no more noisy than the drives used in the DirecTV and FiOS DVRs.

Would this added SATA capacity be able to be used along with the multi-room feature? Am I correct that currently HD multi-room is not available, but an upgrade to enable it is planned for later this year?Multi-room support for HD and HD receivers was still planned for introduction in 1H 2007, last time I asked.

With regard to comparing overall HD capabilities between DirecTV and FiOS TV do you have an opinion or preference?I prefer the DirecTV DVR, but picture quality on SD and HD channels is a clear improvement on FiOS. If you just have a 34" HDTV, you may not notice a difference, but it is very obvious on a 60+" screen. I initially changed from DirecTV to Comcast due to PQ issues, and then to FiOS for faster Internet, a better DVR, and a lower monthly fee. I've found FiOS as good or better than Comcast for HD, but an improvement for SD.

FiOS just began deployment of a major DVR software upgrade. It's said to be a significant improvement. At the moment, the new DVR software is only available in New Jersey; it's slated for deployment to other service areas in March/April.

Yes, my understanding is that DirecTV intends to support SATA expansion in the future.

I doubt it. But by the time this capability is available, I'm sure there will be several different 1Tb models available. Hitachi just just annonced the first (http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.368c8bfe833dee8056fb11f0aac4f0a0/?javax.portlet.tpst=74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_viewID=co ntent&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_docName=2 0070105_first_terabyte_hd.html&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_folderPat h=%2Fhgst%2Faboutus%2Fpress%2Finternal_news%2F&beanID=804390503&viewID=content&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=token).

The 500Gb Western Digital RE2 and Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 drives are very quiet. I wouldn't say they are silent, but they are no more noisy than the drives used in the DirecTV and FiOS DVRs.

Multi-room support for HD and HD receivers was still planned for introduction in 1H 2007, last time I asked.

I prefer the DirecTV DVR, but picture quality on SD and HD channels is a clear improvement on FiOS. If you just have a 34" HDTV, you may not notice a difference, but it is very obvious on a 60+" screen. I initially changed from DirecTV to Comcast due to PQ issues, and then to FiOS for faster Internet, a better DVR, and a lower monthly fee. I've found FiOS as good or better than Comcast for HD, but an improvement for SD.

FiOS just began deployment of a major DVR software upgrade. It's said to be a significant improvement. At the moment, the new DVR software is only available in New Jersey; it's slated for deployment to other service areas in March/April.

Hi,

Thanks very much for all the helpful information.

I like the part about the one terabyte Hitachi disk drive having "bedroom quiet" acoustics. I guess how quiet that was would depend on whose bedroom they are referring to. ;)

I've got about $2,000 tied up in DirecTV receivers, but I'm leaning toward Verizon. Right now I know regardless if I upgrade to either the new DirecTV DVR or to FiOS TV I would be facing some pain and suffering. One thing that caught in my craw was that to upgrade to the new DirecTV DVR I have to give them my HD TiVo that I paid $1,000, throw in some more cash, between $100 and $300 depending on how good a negotiator I am, for the priviledge of paying an on-going leasing fee. I don't even own the thing. Oh, I forgot to add that I need to commit to being a subscriber for two years. Something just doesn't smell right. :confused: I guess I'm going to wait for several more months before making a commitment either way.

I've got a 120" diagonal screen, so that's an other reason in favor of Verizon.

Thanks again.

Larry

no there is no bigger harddrive, it did seem to get full really quick, i guess your other options are tivo with cablecards
I just wonder how long they'll be able to keep shipping the DVR with 160G. Those drives should become scarce. I saw them on clearance for $29 over the holidays (after a bunch of rebates of course.) Then again, they may have hundreds in the warehouse.

As i type this a Verizon FIOS tech is sitting on my couch replacing the Motorola DVR. I've always had 'hiccups' of sound and video but it got really bad over the past week. Today I got up and started playing some of my recent recordings and none would play all the way though. Although it varied from 5 seconds to 15 minutes, each program would abruptly end saying 'DVR Playback Error' and then have me go back to the main menu.
So the tech comes and says 'well I see you have a bunch of HD movies on the box, you know that they take a lot space right?' I answer 'yes'. He then say:

"Well you should leave as much free space on the DVR as possible, it might be because you had so many recordings that this happened.'

Thought it was kinda funny.
On a more positive note, Verizon was able to get a tech to my house in less than 3 hours to replace the box.

-Jody

As i type this a Verizon FIOS tech is sitting on my couch replacing the Motorola DVR. I've always had 'hiccups' of sound and video but it got really bad over the past week. Today I got up and started playing some of my recent recordings and none would play all the way though. Although it varied from 5 seconds to 15 minutes, each program would abruptly end saying 'DVR Playback Error' and then have me go back to the main menu.
So the tech comes and says 'well I see you have a bunch of HD movies on the box, you know that they take a lot space right?' I answer 'yes'. He then say:

"Well you should leave as much free space on the DVR as possible, it might be because you had so many recordings that this happened.'

Thought it was kinda funny.
On a more positive note, Verizon was able to get a tech to my house in less than 3 hours to replace the box.

-JodyWOW, Don't know what to say to that. :eek:
But I do got to say, thanks to all the info I know I made the right choice.
Staying away from fios!!! :)

Other than what has happened with the DVR in the past day, FIOS has been great. I definitely wouldn't go off on them myself. I definitely think I made the right decision going from my cable company to Verizon.

My thought is that I'm going to record what I want and if their boxes continue to fail then Verizon will continue to bring me more boxes. Simple as that.

-Jody

WOW, Don't know what to say to that. :eek:
But I do got to say, thanks to all the info I know I made the right choice.
Staying away from fios!!! :)

Then why are you still in these threads?

Hey Olevia37HD - You really have the most USELESS posts of any forum I have ever been a part of.
Please Go Away.

I just recently got Fios installed with the Motorola QIP6416 DVR. I have not been able to set my aspect ratio correctly. I find myself having to manually change the aspect ratio on the Panny (just screen ratio)to fill the screen when switching between SD and HD channels. I previously had Directv with the HD DVR in which I did not have to manually change the aspect ratio. This was done thru the Directv DVR automatically somehow. The tv is connected to the DVR thru HDMI.
Can someone please give me some suggestions on how I can get this to work automatically without the picture looking so bad.

Thanks

I just recently got Fios installed with the Motorola QIP6416 DVR. I have not been able to set my aspect ratio correctly. I find myself having to manually change the aspect ratio on the Panny (just screen ratio)to fill the screen when switching between SD and HD channels. I previously had Directv with the HD DVR in which I did not have to manually change the aspect ratio. This was done thru the Directv DVR automatically somehow. The tv is connected to the DVR thru HDMI.
Can someone please give me some suggestions on how I can get this to work automatically without the picture looking so bad.

ThanksTurn the Fios DVR off, then press menu on the remote to get the settings menu.

Make sure HD is set to 1080i or 720p (depending on which channels you watch most often). Enable 480i or 480p passthrough. Press menu again to save the changes.

Turn the Fios DVR off, then press menu on the remote to get the settings menu.

Make sure HD is set to 1080i or 720p (depending on which channels you watch most often). Enable 480i or 480p passthrough. Press menu again to save the changes.


Thank You, I will try it. I have a Panasonic TH-50PX60U plasma HDtv so which should I use 1080i or 720p?

Thank You, I will try it. I have a Panasonic TH-50PX60U plasma HDtv so which should I use 1080i or 720p?There is no "perfect" setting available on Motorola STBs for a 1366x768 plasma like the TH-50PX60U. In the ideal case, you set the STB to output the native format of the program so the display can perform all scaling, but no Motorola boxes from any cable provider can do that at this time. [Note the Tivo Series3 will pass all formats natively.]

When you set the box to 720p, 720p channels are passed as is, but 1080i channels like CBS and NBC are downconverted from 1920x1080 to ~1280x540. When you set the box to 1080i, 1080i channels are passed as is, but 720p channels like ABC and FOX are downconverted from 1280x720 @ 60fps to ~1280x540p @ 30fps.

ABC, FOX, ESPN, ESPN2, and the Food Network broadcast in 720p. If you are watching those channels, the 720p setting is optimal. If you are watching any other HD channel (CBS, NBC, HBO, Discovery, MTV, Showtime, etc), 1080i is optimal. I would set the box to the format used by the high-definition channels you watch most.

I have found myself that 720p is optimal for most of the channels I watch, even the 1080i ones. I am watching on a Sony RP-LCD, which has roughly the same resolution as the plasma you mention. Of course, there are numerous variables involved here, like how good is the source signal (given the example of NBC's downgraded signal at the source), and how good is the scaler in your TV.

The DirecTV TiVo boxes had no native passthrough whatsoever, so if you set the box to output at 1080i, for example, even 480i was upconverted to this resolution. This may be why High Top was having to mess less with his set with that set-up. The QIP allows you to set the 480i output to several settings: I believe 480i, 480p, or "Off" which outputs upconverts the 480i picture to whatever the QIP's HD resolution is set to. The 480i setting gives you actually pass-through for these signals, but will unfortunately also cause your TV to have to reset itself to that new resolution. I actually find that an "off" setting is best for me, and also eliminates the "blip" of changing resolutions when switching from HD to SD stations or vice versa.

Thanks bfdtv and BTDT for your help. After trying several setups it looks like turning off the "480" setting like BTDT works well for me also.
Again thanks for sharing you knowledge.

There is no "perfect" setting available on Motorola STBs for a 1366x768 plasma like the TH-50PX60U. In the ideal case, you set the STB to output the native format of the program so the display can perform all scaling, but no Motorola boxes from any cable provider can do that at this time. [Note the Tivo Series3 will pass all formats natively.]

When you set the box to 720p, 720p channels are passed as is, but 1080i channels like CBS and NBC are downconverted from 1920x1080 to ~1280x540. When you set the box to 1080i, 1080i channels are passed as is, but 720p channels like ABC and FOX are downconverted from 1280x720 @ 60fps to ~1280x540p @ 30fps.

ABC, FOX, ESPN, ESPN2, and the Food Network broadcast in 720p. If you are watching those channels, the 720p setting is optimal. If you are watching any other HD channel (CBS, NBC, HBO, Discovery, MTV, Showtime, etc), 1080i is optimal. I would set the box to the format used by the high-definition channels you watch most.
Where do they offer the Food Network in HD?

Where do they offer the Food Network in HD?It's not available to customers yet. I just gave it as an example.

The above comment(s) apply to all cable providers using Motorola hardware.

I just had my FiosTV install on Friday <Comcast convert>, and I'm having a problem with the DVR. There is an option under recording that appears to allow recording of a show at any time, or only at a certain time.

Whenever I set the option to 'lock' the recording to a particular time, the dvr appears to ignore this option, and still marks all shows, regardless of the start time. For example, I tried to set up a series recording for The Simpsons, and set the option for only 8:00pm. However, when I check the scheduled recordings, it chooses all of the shows, regardless of the scheduled start time.

Is this a bug, or am I not doing something right, or did I misunderstand the option?

I just had my FiosTV install on Friday <Comcast convert>, and I'm having a problem with the DVR. There is an option under recording that appears to allow recording of a show at any time, or only at a certain time.

Whenever I set the option to 'lock' the recording to a particular time, the dvr appears to ignore this option, and still marks all shows, regardless of the start time. For example, I tried to set up a series recording for The Simpsons, and set the option for only 8:00pm. However, when I check the scheduled recordings, it chooses all of the shows, regardless of the scheduled start time.If you just got the DVR, it may be a short while before your box has all the guide data it needs. Changes you make to some recording settings don't register immediately on the Scheduled screen, it can take a few minutes to a few hours. Did the DVR actually record any programs it wasn't supposed to? You'll find sometimes that program episodes are listed on the scheduled screen that shouldn't be recorded, but in the end, the DVR does what it is supposed to and doesn't record them.

I would double-check to make sure you don't have two entries for The Simpsons under the Series Manager. It's possible to have multiple recording entries for a particular program when you set them to a specific time.

For most programs, I use the settings "only new episodes" and "all recordings at anytime" -- this seems work best for me. I would suggest you try that for your favorite programs, assuming you are only interested in new episodes. For a long time, FiOS had some issues with program flags on popular cable channels like TNT, SciFi, and HBO, but they seem to have fixed those a few months ago. They've always done a pretty good job at flagging programs on ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.

As noted previously in the thread, FiOS has a major DVR software upgrade in the works, currently available only in parts of New Jersey. Other markets should get it by April.

BSDTV - thanks, that's good info - I'm having the same issue with scheduled recordings. My box has been up for a while, so it's not the guide data, but maybe the scheduled recording screen will update itself after a while - I'll try it.

Last night I was going crazy trying to record a few different shows all at the same time, so instead of recording Rome (HBOHD) on Sunday night, I was going to record it on Wednesday or Thursday as a Series and I locked the Only record at this time Option. The Schedule always said it was going to record it on Sunday night, causing a Schedule Conflict.

I've been looking into that Software Upgrade, I'm in NJ - Any Info on when it will be coming?

Thanks bfdtv and BTDT for your help. After trying several setups it looks like turning off the "480" setting like BTDT works well for me also.
Again thanks for sharing you knowledge.

Setting the STB to 1080->480p stretch didn't work for me like I hoped to eliminate the back and forth between TV inputs depending on the resolution of the station I was watching. The SD channels did fill the screen but PQ was terrible.

I've been MUCH happier since I sprang for a decent up-converting DVD player (Samsung DVD-R135). I now run 1080i via component from the STB direct to the TV for use when watching HD channels. However, I let all the SD channels go over to the DVD via S-video and then let it upscale them to 1080i and send them on to the TV over HDMI. The R135 upscales these SD stations so much better than the STB it's not even a fair comparison.

This cut WAY down on the number of input switches I had to make while watching TV and I've programmed my Harmony 880 remote to manage things with a minimum of fuss.

Problems with the DVR in Tampa. Had one box go out a few days ago. The DVR funcntionality just quit working and all the options for the DVR dissappeared from the Guide. They had me do all the regular stuff, unplug for 3 min, that didn't work then they did a different reset which basically reinstalled the software and that didn't work, then a tech was sent out to swap the box. Now today one of my other four boxes is doing the same thing. I'm on the phone right now with them waiting to see what next.

Then why are you still in these threads?

It's okay. Olivia is such a shpos that she thinks she has HD when really she has only HD-lite that the sat providers proffer. So she will have a great remote and we will have the great PQ. I know on which end of that deal I would rather be. Besides, if you go out and invest in a harmony, you can have a great remote and great PQ at the same time.

It's okay. Olivia is such a shpos that she thinks she has HD when really she has only HD-lite that the sat providers proffer. So she will have a great remote and we will have the great PQ. I know on which end of that deal I would rather be. Besides, if you go out and invest in a harmony, you can have a great remote and great PQ at the same time.So your so bright. I have OTA for HD so beat that!!!
Never mind you have to buy a remote to make something you rent work right. :eek:
And you say I'm a shpos...OK

FiOS just began deployment of a major DVR software upgrade. It's said to be a significant improvement. At the moment, the new DVR software is only available in New Jersey; it's slated for deployment to other service areas in March/April.

I'm assuming that this upgrade is automatically downloaded to the box, correct?

I'm getting FiOS installed in a couple weeks ... leaving DISH. Is the remote for the multi-room DVR an IR or UHF? Do they leave two remotes (one for second room)? If it's IR ... how can you control the DVR from the second room? Thanks.

I'm assuming that this upgrade is automatically downloaded to the box, correct?Yes.

Is the remote for the multi-room DVR an IR or UHF? Do they leave two remotes (one for second room)? If it's IR ... how can you control the DVR from the second room?It's IR. You can't control the DVR from a second room with the Verizon remote. You would need to purchase a universal remote with RF, like the Harmony 890 or one of the cheap models from URC. See the remotes section of AVS.

I'm getting FiOS installed in a couple weeks ... leaving DISH. Is the remote for the multi-room DVR an IR or UHF? Do they leave two remotes (one for second room)? If it's IR ... how can you control the DVR from the second room? Thanks.

you can't pause and a record live tv in the secondary room. you can only stream completed recordings (only the SD ones) to the SD STBs.

I'm getting FiOS installed in a couple weeks ... leaving DISH. Is the remote for the multi-room DVR an IR or UHF? Do they leave two remotes (one for second room)? If it's IR ... how can you control the DVR from the second room? Thanks.

The remote is IR... but I will try to clarify.

You do not control the DVR from the second room. The second room has a set top box (call it Box2) which has it's own dedicated remote. When you want to watch content from the DRV on Box2 you press the List button. Box2 will talk to DVR via a computer network running over your coax cable (MoCA). When you request a show it is streamed over this coax network and displayed on your second TV.

Hth,
BOb

Does anyone know if it is possible to get the swap feature? I miss this the most. I do have a silver Comcast remote but it doesn't switch the tuners. The 30 sec skip does work.

Does anyone know if it is possible to get the swap feature? I miss this the most. I do have a silver Comcast remote but it doesn't switch the tuners. The 30 sec skip does work.

Add A Tuner Swap Button
The following technique can be used to map an unused or unneeded button on the "silver" remote to the tuner swap command. The Motorola DVR contains two tuners. Some versions of the "silver" remote lack the DVR-specific buttons, including the "swap" button that tells the DVR to swap the "background" tuner (which can record but does not display on-screen) with the "foreground" tuner (the tuner that is actively displaying on your TV). A common use for this command is to switch to a tuner that is not currently recording a program in order to watch another live program without disrupting the ability to pause or rewind the first program.

Method 1 (Comcast URC-106XXXXX Silver Remote):

Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice.
Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button.
Type in the code 00236.
Press whatever button you want to map the tuner swap command to (ex: PiP Swap). The "Cable" button will blink twice if successful.
Note: It was common for some Comcast remotes that had transport keys, but none of the PIP keys (URC1067BG1), to have the swap programmed on the TV/VCR key.

It didn't work. I have the silver remote with the swap button at the bottom. I even tried programing the tv/vcr button as the swap button with no luck. Maybe it's the STB?

It didn't work. I have the silver remote with the swap button at the bottom. I even tried programing the tv/vcr button as the swap button with no luck. Maybe it's the STB?

are you able to swap tuners via the fios software on screen? If not then one of your tuners might be dead.

check the diagnostic screen.

STB to standby (off) and press ok/select to access the diagnostic page.

scroll down and check to see if both tuners are working.

It appears that both tuners are working properly. I just can't pause with one tuner and swap to the other. Is anyone able to do this with the FiOS QIP6416?

It appears that both tuners are working properly. I just can't pause with one tuner and swap to the other. Is anyone able to do this with the FiOS QIP6416?

To the best of my knowledge, this function is not enabled currently on the FIOS QIP-6416. You can't maintain a buffer on both tuners at once. However, the system is smarter than the Comcast version, in that if you tell it to record, it will automatically use the background tuner. As long as that is the only thing being recorded, you can still switch channels on the foreground tuner.
Of course, if you are recording two things at once, you need to punch in the channel number (or use the guide) to go directly from one tuner to the other.

Does anyone know if it is possible to get the swap feature? I miss this the most. I do have a silver Comcast remote but it doesn't switch the tuners. The 30 sec skip does work.
Swap doesn't work on the FiOS DVR. All you can do is change channels, then use the "Last" button to "swap" (between tuners if you're recording.) But any buffering is lost every time you change channels.

Next-gen FiOS

Verizon is also using Motorola's Follow Me technology for its multiple DVR deployments in its next generation FiOS solution, as well as for other interactive features.


At CES, Verizon rolled out the next generation of its FiOS service, which includes an interactive media guide that lets customers search TV programming, movies, Internet videos, music, photos and games. Additional enhancements include the ability to remotely program DVRs from a subscriber's Web-enabled PC. The company will extend that same feature to customers' cell phones later this year, but didn't say when or what vendors' handheld devices.

New Jersey will have the first FiOS customers to receive the FiOS TV applications, but Joe Ambeault, Verizon's director, interactive services, said customers in Verizon's other 10 states will have the new applications by mid-year.


http://www.cable360.net/events/conventions/21611.html

Next-gen FiOSSome links to screen shots (available from Verizon's web site) were posted earlier:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9404100&&#post9404100

Is there any way around the inability of the FIOS DVRs to be controlled by a specific remote? My wife and I watch almost no live TV—I even record sports events now, and start watching them about 45 minutes after they start. We presently have DirecTV and have two TIVOs connected to our main TV. One is “hers” and one is “mine.” We often are recording three shows at once, and on occasion four shows. I don’t see how this could be done with the FIOS one-remote-controls-all DVRs. In addition, the small drives on the FIOS DVR would be difficult to live with after having two large TIVO drives. We wouldn’t be able to save anywhere near the number of hours we presently save.

Is there a solution to this problem?

Is there a solution to this problem?Manually turn one DVR on and the other off. From that point on ... 'Power' will switch between 'his' and 'her' DVRs (technically, it will turn one off and the other on). Untill you lose power or have the machines reboot ... then you'll have to manually turn one DVR on again.

Or, the Verizon remotes seem a little 'directionally' sensitive so ... if you spread the two DVRs out a little bit (one at the top of the entertainment center and one at the bottom) you may be able to get enough seperation to get individual control.

There are more elegant solutions consisting of a universal remote, IR forts, and some logic that knows how to switch between the two ... I forget the specific manufacturers ... but, they're out there.

Swap doesn't work on the FiOS DVR. All you can do is change channels, then use the "Last" button to "swap" (between tuners if you're recording.) But any buffering is lost every time you change channels.

yeah i dont know why that guy posted the instructions to program the swap button of the comcast remote to work with the verizon fios moto qcip 6416-2 hd dvr box as you can map it all you want. the box doesn't have that function.

i know ppl say you can just switch between the 2 but if you dont know the channel # of the ones you are recording you have to look in the menu at your recordings which also unlike comcast there is no white dvr button so you have to hit menu then recorded shows, pick oneo f your currently recording shows select to watch one of them just to see what chan it is or just look if it even tells you in the list of recorded/recording shows.

then remember the 2 chan #'s so you can type in one then the other before you have the ability to switch between the 2 using the last button.

i've heard about not being able to rewind etc. on fios when you switch tuner in this manner but if the show is actually recording i dont see why you can't.

i thought it was meant that when watchign live tv you can't which also sucks considering you can with comcast but if you can't even rewind something that you are recording that is really bad because well its recording it. unless rewinding messes up the recording but again it doesn't with comcast.

main thing is to use the last button to switch between the 2 shows you are recording at once you have to know the other channel # which there is no quick way to see that.

You will get Moto QIP-3416 or QIP-6416 STB for your DVR, and they use the QIP-2500 for SD STB or the QIP-6200 for an HD non DVR STB

Keep your comcast silver remotes at all cost. they will be better then the original remotes Verizon normaly gives out.

i kept one 3416 hd dvr box with comcast because i still had a lot of recorded shows left on there and for the better on demand from comcast as fios has no hd demand at all. I also wanted to keep comcast for a couple side rooms with older crt tvs where i just want std cable (chans 2-99) through coax which fios can't do (they only offer 2-22 basic local cable in analog through coax) .

I got a good deal on keeping the digi plus basic and std with one dvr because they know i wasn't just bluffing to get a better comcast deal, i literally canceled all comcast services except that one dvr box.

Fios gave me 2 QCIP 6416-2 hd dvr stb's, i think a qip 6200 if thats the only hd non dvr box they use and the 2500 if thats the only std stb they use. that one was free supposedly as long as i keep either fios phone or internet service and should be because its for the kitchen where i previously didn't need a box with comcast and would have been another one to keep with comcast.


So anyone keeping on topic of the QIP6416 DVR. what is the difference between that and the 3416 i have with comcast?

Manually turn one DVR on and the other off. From that point on ... 'Power' will switch between 'his' and 'her' DVRs (technically, it will turn one off and the other on). Untill you lose power or have the machines reboot ... then you'll have to manually turn one DVR on again.

Or, the Verizon remotes seem a little 'directionally' sensitive so ... if you spread the two DVRs out a little bit (one at the top of the entertainment center and one at the bottom) you may be able to get enough seperation to get individual control.

There are more elegant solutions consisting of a universal remote, IR forts, and some logic that knows how to switch between the two ... I forget the specific manufacturers ... but, they're out there.
I found that the beam isn't quite that narrow... had to separate the two units (actually a Comcast box and the QIP) by about 6 feet, turn one box at an angle, and shield the remote by hand to reduce the chance of affecting both. But it wasn't perfect. As mentioned in earlier posts, our final solution was to put one box directly in front (on the TV stand) and the other directly to my left on a bookcase, connected to the TV with a 25' component cable.

yeah i dont know why that guy posted the instructions to program the swap button of the comcast remote to work with the verizon fios moto qcip 6416-2 hd dvr box as you can map it all you want. the box doesn't have that function.


Just to clear up your WRONG info. The Swap feature is embeded in the STB itself from Motorola. It like everything else can be enabled and disabled by the MSO's via the Firmware.

On my brothers FIOS QIP 3416, the swap feature works just fine via the remote.

Now I dont work for Verizon, but I do work for Comcast, and I Work on these STB every day.

Have a good one!

Just to clear up your WRONG info. The Swap feature is embeded in the STB itself from Motorola. It like everything else can be enabled and disabled by the MSO's via the Firmware.

On my brothers FIOS QIP 3416, the swap feature works just fine via the remote.

Now I dont work for Verizon, but I do work for Comcast, and I Work on these STB every day.

Have a good one!

With my harmony remote, can I trick the Verizon 6416 to behave like a comcast 6412 by telling the remote it is operating a 6412 so I will have a working swap feature?

Is there any way around the inability of the FIOS DVRs to be controlled by a specific remote? My wife and I watch almost no live TV—I even record sports events now, and start watching them about 45 minutes after they start. We presently have DirecTV and have two TIVOs connected to our main TV. One is “hers” and one is “mine.” We often are recording three shows at once, and on occasion four shows. I don’t see how this could be done with the FIOS one-remote-controls-all DVRs. In addition, the small drives on the FIOS DVR would be difficult to live with after having two large TIVO drives. We wouldn’t be able to save anywhere near the number of hours we presently save.

Is there a solution to this problem?

I dealt with this problem by purchasing a wireless IR extender that has a send and receive unit. You can pick up one at Best Buy, Circuit City or similar for around $35 - $40. I turned one of my DVR's at a 90 degree angle to where I sit so that my remote would operate the other DVR without operating both of them simultaneously. After placing the box at a 90 degree angle, I placed the receive unit so that it pointed directly at the sensor on the front of the box turned at 90 degrees. I then placed the sending unit next to me on an end-table by my chair. I can then point the remote straight at the DVR that is directly facing me and operate it OR point my remote at the IR sending unit to my left and operate the other DVR that is sitting at a 90 degree angle to me. Not too pretty, but it works. You will find that using the wireless IR extender is a bit more sluggish than pointing directly at the front of the DVR. I hope that the engineers who design the next generation of DVR's that Verizon uses have enough common sense to do what DISH has been doing for years. i.e. a programmable radio frequency remote. Duhhhhhhh! and. . . while we are talking about common sense, anybody with just a little of it would have realized that 160 GB is ridiculously small for an HD DVR. That is why I have two of them in the first place. Come on guys, what were you thinking??? I do have to admit that I like the ability to record four programs simultaneously though. That is the only silver lining in that cloud.

The small HD and the inability to use 2 units next to each other (I can't utilize the methods listed, because I already use IR extenders throughout the house as I have a distribution system that allows me to control everything in my living room from anywhere in the house) is what's currently preventing me from switching from D* to FIOS. I don't need Multi-room as I already have that with my distribution system (I can currently watch anything on either of my Directivos and my DVD player from any of the 7 TV's in the house - and control them from there). I just need 2 units and lots of storage.

The swap tuner command does not work on my 6416 box. I would venture to say that the majority of FIOS customers have a 6416, not a 3416. Therefore, the swap command will not work for the majority of FIOS customers...

The swap tuner command does not work on my 6416 box. I would venture to say that the majority of FIOS customers have a 6416, not a 3416. Therefore, the swap command will not work for the majority of FIOS customers...

It has nothing to do with what model is used. this is a cmd embeded in the motorola STB software. However it can be disabled via the headend / hub Controler. These cmds are sent as part of the firmware.

The swap cmd may not be enabled at your location. But trust me the cmd is there in the DVR Control set.

I just ordered Fios TV to include a MRDVR. I wasn't told what the model would be but based on the info given by the guy that took the order & what has been described on this forum I think it will be the QIP-6416.

I was told the MRDVR would support two TV's. One being a HD while the other an SD. I found the spec's on the Motorola site (sorry, I can't post a link) which shows no RF coax output. The only outputs I can find are: (Y Pb Pr), IEEE 1394 & HDMI.

So, does this mean the SD TV would have to be sitting right next to the QIP-6416?

I was told the MRDVR would support two TV's. One being a HD while the other an SD. I found the spec's on the Motorola site (sorry, I can't post a link) which shows no RF coax output. The only outputs I can find are: (Y Pb Pr), IEEE 1394 & HDMI.

So, does this mean the SD TV would have to be sitting right next to the QIP-6416?No, the SD TV can be anywhere in the house on your coax network.

The exact same coax that runs to the QIP-6416 is used to carry content from the QIP-6416 to the multi-room clients. Ie, you don't have to run a seperate coax line to each box from the DVR.

Watching the fights tonight and it was stuttering all over the place.

Watching the fights tonight and it was stuttering all over the place.

Oddly enough the other day during the ice storm we lost power several times and after each recovery the box would stutter. I changed the vid resolution from 1080 to 480 and then back again like others have suggested and it cleared it up. Not sure whats going on inside that Moto box but somethings amis.

Oddly enough the other day during the ice storm we lost power several times and after each recovery the box would stutter. I changed the vid resolution from 1080 to 480 and then back again like others have suggested and it cleared it up. Not sure whats going on inside that Moto box but somethings amis.
Sound like a lot of bugs that still need to be worked. I'm glad you guys are paying to be the Guinea Pigs. :eek:

Sound like a lot of bugs that still need to be worked. I'm glad you guys are paying to be the Guinea Pigs. :eek:

And your perfect media service provider would be???

Wow ... holy misinformation Batman. Absoultely every point made in this post is incorrect. Have you ever even used this software / service that you speak so authoritatively on? You must be trying to help or something ... but ... I'm not sure what help it is to post so many inaccuracies ...

Seriously, absolutely everything in the following is just plain wrong:but if you dont know the channel # of the ones you are recording you have to look in the menu at your recordings which also unlike comcast there is no white dvr button so you have to hit menu then recorded shows, pick oneo f your currently recording shows select to watch one of them just to see what chan it is or just look if it even tells you in the list of recorded/recording shows.

then remember the 2 chan #'s so you can type in one then the other before you have the ability to switch between the 2 using the last button.

i've heard about not being able to rewind etc. on fios when you switch tuner in this manner but if the show is actually recording i dont see why you can't.

i thought it was meant that when watchign live tv you can't which also sucks considering you can with comcast but if you can't even rewind something that you are recording that is really bad because well its recording it. unless rewinding messes up the recording but again it doesn't with comcast.

main thing is to use the last button to switch between the 2 shows you are recording at once you have to know the other channel # which there is no quick way to see that.Well, excepct I guess what you may have 'heard' or 'thought'. You may have 'thought' that the earth is flat or 'heard' that the earth revolves around the sun ... doesn't make it right.

Where to start ...

The new Verizon remotes have a 'DVR' button. The old ones have a 'List' button that serves the exact some function. You don't have to go through the menu to get to your recordings list ... one button access
You don't have to 'remember a channel' or anything of the sort to get to a recording in progress. Just select it in the list if you can't remember the channel. 'Resume' play (from the start or where you've left off watching) ... or skip to live. Either is quick and just a couple clicks.
The 'not being able to rewind' thing would not happen in the situation you describe. This is a specific bug / issue that happens when you have one recording in progress ... it doesn't happen when you have two. It has a specific cause ... and a specific work-around / fix.
The 'last' button is not a usefull way to emulate the 'swap' functionality. The main usefullness of the 'swap' functionality is for the 'dual buffer' ... ie, trick play / buffering between two shows at the same time. For example, flipping between two sports events or ... well, lots of places where it can come in handy. But anyway use of the 'last' button doesn't address these (in fact, use of the 'last' button specifically does not provide dual buffering). You can accomplish 'dual buffering' rather effectively with the Verizon DVR ... but it does have its issues / problems / limitations / whatever. But, those issues / problems / limitations / whatever are totally, completely, different from what you've described above.

I just can't pause with one tuner and swap to the other. Is anyone able to do this with the FiOS QIP6416?Yes.

You have to be recording with both tuners ... but ... then dual buffering can be done.

Trick is, select the show in the recording list and choose 'Resume Play' to swap between the two. That will maintain the buffer / pause point.

Extra button presses ... but certainly do-able.

It has nothing to do with what model is used. this is a cmd embeded in the motorola STB software. However it can be disabled via the headend / hub Controler. These cmds are sent as part of the firmware.

The swap cmd may not be enabled at your location. But trust me the cmd is there in the DVR Control set.

I don't think anyone is debating that the box would have that capability, if it were turned on in the software. However, I have not seen any reports of any FIOSTV customers having that function active on their DVR.

Hopefully, they will have it in the next version which they are supposed to be rolling out soon. We will have to wait and see.

I have a question - when you access the 'favorites' list, will you see program information or just a list of shows? Thanks.

I have a question - when you access the 'favorites' list, will you see program information or just a list of shows? Thanks.The favorites list is just a customized version of the guide with fewer channels, accessible with the press of the remote.

The FiOS STBs and DVRs also let you customize the standard guide to completely remove any channels you don't want to see. I rarely use the favorites guide because I have already removed most channels from the standard guide. If you regularly watch only 30 channels, that's all you need to have in your FiOS guide.

I had FiosTV installed two weeks ago. First, my only remaining issue: I use a Harmony remote and a Denon receiver. Hitting Watch TV of course would normally turn on my TV, Receiver, and cable box. I've never had a problem before, but as soon as I updated my harmony remote with the 6414 (to replace my previous Dish HD box), the receiver would not turn on or off with the activity. Doing more research, I find that the Denon is unresponsive to any remote IR commands for a second or so after any command is sent to the 6414 (try changing channel, then press volume button repeatedly till it obeys is a good test).

Harmony Remote does allow you to adjust inter-device timing delay. I've cranked it up to 4000ms (4sec) on all units, and it doesn't help. They do NOT seem to have a way to allow you o assign the order that the devices are turned on (I should avoid this by turning on the receiver first). I can't get it to work at all and always have to turn the receiver on/off manually afterwards. Very annoying. I emailed logitech support last week and have yet to receive a response. Any ideas?

-----
A week ago, after several days of waking up/coming home from work and finding the 6414 stuck saying HUNT and various errors, tech support scheduled to replace it. They had no clue how to get out of this mode (I later discoverd yanking the power cable), but clearly it was a lemon. A long story and lots of aggrivation: They never showed up for repeated appointments last wednesday, thursday, and friday. Someone finally showed on saturday. Twice I was given the excuse "the ticket fell out of the system." WTF!? At least I have a new box that is working well so far.

And the finaly problem that I can thank those in this thread for: I have 6-year-old CRT HDTV, and it does not auto sense SD/HD signals, I have a separate input mode for each. The fios 6414 by default outputs the native signal it gets; when channel surfing from an SD to an HD channel, I had to get out of my seat and change inputs on my tv! No other HD box, including my previous motorola cable box, did this. I asked tech support and they even asked friends and consulted books and said their head of some combination of power and select but ultimately repeatedly said "That's just the cheap verizon firmware." Thanks to this thread, I learned to hit MENU while the box was off, Changing the 4:3 mode to OFF keeps it at full 1080 regardless of the source.

I am not sure this is the best place for this, but here goes. I have had FIOS for about 2 months and the past 3 weeks or so I have experienced from time to time, static on the phone line. The verizon guy finally came out (don't even ask how many calls that took) and spent 6 hours at my house. He replaced/rerouted several coax cables, replaced the ONT completely.. nothing helped. We finally discovered that if you unplug the coax from the 6416, static goes away. plug in (or just touch the cable to the jack), the noise comes back. replaced entire coax to that box, even tried another 6416. very strange problem. Plus, the noise isn't always there. Can't figure out what makes it come and go. Another clue perhaps - he disconnected the ground wire to the ONT cause he said it got better when he disconnected it.
grounding problem? not sure how to test that.

I had FiosTV installed two weeks ago. First, my only remaining issue: I use a Harmony remote and a Denon receiver. Hitting Watch TV of course would normally turn on my TV, Receiver, and cable box. I've never had a problem before, but as soon as I updated my harmony remote with the 6414 (to replace my previous Dish HD box), the receiver would not turn on or off with the activity. Doing more research, I find that the Denon is unresponsive to any remote IR commands for a second or so after any command is sent to the 6414 (try changing channel, then press volume button repeatedly till it obeys is a good test).

Harmony Remote does allow you to adjust inter-device timing delay. I've cranked it up to 4000ms (4sec) on all units, and it doesn't help. They do NOT seem to have a way to allow you o assign the order that the devices are turned on (I should avoid this by turning on the receiver first). I can't get it to work at all and always have to turn the receiver on/off manually afterwards. Very annoying. I emailed logitech support last week and have yet to receive a response. Any ideas?


That might explain the issue I am having (I posted it in the Remote Control section here, will link when I find it) with the 688 and my Sony 40" XBR2 along with the 6414. 80% of the time when I hit "Watch TV" the 6414 will turn on but the TV will be on the wrong input. It must be that the signals are getting munged because of the 6414. Great hardware, eh?

Just to clear up your WRONG info. The Swap feature is embeded in the STB itself from Motorola. It like everything else can be enabled and disabled by the MSO's via the Firmware.

On my brothers FIOS QIP 3416, the swap feature works just fine via the remote.

Now I dont work for Verizon, but I do work for Comcast, and I Work on these STB every day.

Have a good one!

what is wrong info? we dont have swap on our fios dvrs and noone knows how to enable it and calling verizon they dont know how either.

so if your brother has it on his, why dont you tell us how he did it. It can be enabled by the MSO's? well we dont know what or who an MSO is. via the firmware. ok then nothing we can do till verizon sends an update to our boxes enabling the swap feature.

i've seen nothing about dling and applying a diff firmware yourself to the box.

So in the end unless you know a way to add the swap feature, then we dont have it and there is no known way to add it.

If you do know a way then maybe instead of telling me i'm wrong that we dont have swap, you can tell everyone how to enable it.

Till then it is fact that I and 99% of everyone else do not have a swap feature with fios dvr besides your brother.

Wow ... holy misinformation Batman. Absoultely every point made in this post is incorrect. Have you ever even used this software / service that you speak so authoritatively on? You must be trying to help or something ... but ... I'm not sure what help it is to post so many inaccuracies ...

Seriously, absolutely everything in the following is just plain wrong:Well, excepct I guess what you may have 'heard' or 'thought'. You may have 'thought' that the earth is flat or 'heard' that the earth revolves around the sun ... doesn't make it right.

Where to start ...

The new Verizon remotes have a 'DVR' button. The old ones have a 'List' button that serves the exact some function. You don't have to go through the menu to get to your recordings list ... one button access
You don't have to 'remember a channel' or anything of the sort to get to a recording in progress. Just select it in the list if you can't remember the channel. 'Resume' play (from the start or where you've left off watching) ... or skip to live. Either is quick and just a couple clicks.
The 'not being able to rewind' thing would not happen in the situation you describe. This is a specific bug / issue that happens when you have one recording in progress ... it doesn't happen when you have two. It has a specific cause ... and a specific work-around / fix.
The 'last' button is not a usefull way to emulate the 'swap' functionality. The main usefullness of the 'swap' functionality is for the 'dual buffer' ... ie, trick play / buffering between two shows at the same time. For example, flipping between two sports events or ... well, lots of places where it can come in handy. But anyway use of the 'last' button doesn't address these (in fact, use of the 'last' button specifically does not provide dual buffering). You can accomplish 'dual buffering' rather effectively with the Verizon DVR ... but it does have its issues / problems / limitations / whatever. But, those issues / problems / limitations / whatever are totally, completely, different from what you've described above.


sorry that i did not know that the list button is the same as the dvr button. That still shows a lack of verizon install and phone techs mentiong it and a poor job on verizons part in labeling that button or making it known and noone else on any of these forums about fios dvr and remote ever mentioned it so i'm sure i'm not the only dumb one as you make it seem that didn't know that.

your really being condescending and rude. I dont know every little detail or remember everything. I didn't claim using the Last button in place of swap, that was other ppl and I later found on my own that that was incorrect and doesnt' work only to be more frustrated that a supposed work around didn't work.

in the end of your whole lecture you claim it has its issue and problems using several /'s. so i dont see what your really clarifying helping or anything other thenjust telling us stuff doens't work the way it should or the way comcast does but they we are just wrong in our thinking.

you are prob the same guy that said your bro has a swap feature working on fios dvr and that its enabled by a mos and all this crap but bottom line is noone is saying its not possible in fact we know that it is, and that is why we are more mad it is not enabled and there is no known way to do it and you can't seem to call up to have them enable it. nor do they have any reason why they havne't enabled it other then they are too stupid and prideful to just copy comcast andmatch them before they can even attempt to beat them.

same thing for the unable to rewind problem. I am just repeating what others have said. you clarifying that is just when recording one prog is great but you dont have to scold ppl for not reiterating it exact. again i'm not the one who reported that info wrong in the first place so if you have a clarification it is welcome i'm sure but not with an attitude.

in the end you never explained how to switch between 2 live recording shows and it seems there really is no way to do so without watching it from teh list of recorded programs and then stopping the one and starting the other and hitting live. that is a lot of clicks and not even close to swap feature. Its like youare trying to defend the inexcusable lack of basic features and flame ppl for not explaining it and are more concerned with that then actuallyhelping or clarifying. you do clarify some things but all your emphasis is on how i'm wrong.

i guess ultimately you dont really have a good solution or there isn't one so you just try to defend the service but nitpicking on the details that someone may have got wrong.

Hello all,

I'm new here, so I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place to introduce a new topic. I'm about to install a Slingbox Pro on my home theater system. My signal source is Verizon FIOS using a Motorola QIP6416-2. Slingbox cannot accept an HDMI input -- can only accept Component for HD, which requires a Slingbox proprietary dongle. The dongle receives Component HD video from the cable box (6416) and passes it through to both the Slingbox and to the video monitor.

What I've been told so far is that the 6416 can only output from one HD port at a time (i.e., if the Component port is used, HDMI cannot also be used). I would like to know the following:
- whether or not using the Component output also blocks use of composite and S-Video ports? ... and if not...
- whether or not HD content can be simultaneously output in Component HD and in standard definition to a device connected to an S-Video output port, e.g., to record to a DVD-R?
- whether there is a better solution (hardware suggestions welcome) for saving content from my DVR to free up storage space?

Thanks, psquare11

Harmony Remote does allow you to adjust inter-device timing delay. I've cranked it up to 4000ms (4sec) on all units, and it doesn't help. They do NOT seem to have a way to allow you o assign the order that the devices are turned on (I should avoid this by turning on the receiver first). I can't get it to work at all and always have to turn the receiver on/off manually afterwards. Very annoying. I emailed logitech support last week and have yet to receive a response. Any ideas?

Call Harmony, it's toll free if you don't have unlimited long distance. Their tech support has been great. They have capabilities to customize commands that you don't have. I'm pretty sure that they can fix your problem. The advantage of calling them is that they will log on to your account and walk you through the updating of your remote. They will wait on the phone while you test it out.

That might explain the issue I am having (I posted it in the Remote Control section here, will link when I find it) with the 688 and my Sony 40" XBR2 along with the 6414. 80% of the time when I hit "Watch TV" the 6414 will turn on but the TV will be on the wrong input. It must be that the signals are getting munged because of the 6414. Great hardware, eh?

I have a Harmony 670. With my Sony 46e2000, the TV will sometimes turn on with the previous input, but in a few seconds it will switch to the one programmed in the activity I selected.

in the end you never explained how to switch between 2 live recording shows and it seems there really is no way to do so without watching it from teh list of recorded programs and then stopping the one and starting the other and hitting live. that is a lot of clicks and not even close to swap feature. Its like youare trying to defend the inexcusable lack of basic features and flame ppl for not explaining it and are more concerned with that then actuallyhelping or clarifying. you do clarify some things but all your emphasis is on how i'm wrong.

I'm trying to figure out why the swap feature is so important. If there are two shows on at the same time I want to watch, i record one for later viewing and watch the other. Unfortunately, despite having 100 +channels, it is rare that there is more than one program at the same time I want to watch. Thank goodness for netflix.

what is wrong info? we dont have swap on our fios dvrs and noone knows how to enable it and calling verizon they dont know how either.

so if your brother has it on his, why dont you tell us how he did it. It can be enabled by the MSO's? well we dont know what or who an MSO is. via the firmware. ok then nothing we can do till verizon sends an update to our boxes enabling the swap feature.

i've seen nothing about dling and applying a diff firmware yourself to the box.

So in the end unless you know a way to add the swap feature, then we dont have it and there is no known way to add it.

If you do know a way then maybe instead of telling me i'm wrong that we dont have swap, you can tell everyone how to enable it.

Till then it is fact that I and 99% of everyone else do not have a swap feature with fios dvr besides your brother.

How do you guys like paying for being beta testers. :eek:

If you do know a way then maybe instead of telling me i'm wrong that we dont have swap, you can tell everyone how to enable it.

Till then it is fact that I and 99% of everyone else do not have a swap feature with fios dvr besides your brother.As noted in previous posted, FiOS is currently testing their next-generation STB/DVR software in parts of New Jersey, with all markets slated to receive the update in the first half of 2007.

How do you guys like paying for being beta testers. :eek:


Usually in the English language questions end with "?." By the way I think you and Quatre are a match made in heaven. Maybe you should exchange vows.

Usually in the English language questions end with "?." By the way I think you and Quatre are a match made in heaven. Maybe you should exchange vows.
Does Fios kiss you first?

Call Harmony, it's toll free if you don't have unlimited long distance. Their tech support has been great. They have capabilities to customize commands that you don't have. I'm pretty sure that they can fix your problem. The advantage of calling them is that they will log on to your account and walk you through the updating of your remote. They will wait on the phone while you test it out.

I did finally get an email response, where they told me to increase the delay, completely ignoring that I said I already did that. I wrote them back repeating myself and asking if there is a way to change the order, and they wrote back (quickly this time) that they changed that order from their end (!?!). I will try it when I get home tonight.

But I do not like the fact that they can do things like that ordering that we do not have the ability to do.

All I can guess about the problem is the motorola codes are very close to the denons so the denon thinks it is getting a command but only after some slow error checking chooses to ignore it.

I did finally get an email response, where they told me to increase the delay, completely ignoring that I said I already did that. I wrote them back repeating myself and asking if there is a way to change the order, and they wrote back (quickly this time) that they changed that order from their end (!?!). I will try it when I get home tonight.

But I do not like the fact that they can do things like that ordering that we do not have the ability to do.

All I can guess about the problem is the motorola codes are very close to the denons so the denon thinks it is getting a command but only after some slow error checking chooses to ignore it.

I think they have it set up that way to keep the average consumer from completely screwing things up. It's best you call though. Troubleshooting with tech support is best done over the phone when you have the device at hand. Especially in this case where they can see your configuration on screen with you.

I'm trying to figure out why the swap feature is so important. If there are two shows on at the same time I want to watch, i record one for later viewing and watch the other.I would say 'importance' is in the eye of the user ... how they watch TV, use a DVR, what features they want, etc.

But, the main / most usefull ability of the 'swap' button is for the 'dual buffering'. Yes, it's a 'live TV' thing but ... sometimes even DVR users watch 'live TV'.

There's two sporting events on (Football, Baseball, Olympics, whatever). You don't want to record and watch later because ... you're a big fan, or you're worried about a spoiler on the web or radio or from your friend calling up and yelling "dude, did you SEE that last play?". So, you start watching GameA about 30 minutes after it starts. Eventually (after FF through commercials and time outs and what-not) you catch up to 'live TV' and there's some commercials on you don't want to sit through so ... you flip over to GameB which is nicely paused at the beginning. Start watching, and again, you eventually catch up to 'live TV' so ... you flip back over to GameA which is paused where you left it. Back and forth ... swap, swap, swap ... 'dual buffering'. When the game(s) are over ... well, you've basically watched two games 'live' and can now safely chat with friends, watch SportsCenter, surf the web, etc.

Sports is what many people love 'dual buffering' for (fans, the desire to watch mostly-live, and the worry about spoliers) ... but it comes in handy for other things too. For example, a breaking news event that you want to follow on multiple channels and FF through the (mostly repeated) information. A day trader that wants to keep up with multiple financial shows / information. Or ... heck, I actually know someone who watches (multiple) soap-operas durring the day that way.

Now, 'dual buffering' can be done with the current DVR software that Verizon provides. But, it is a bit of a PITA and does have its shortcomings ... basically, you have to be recording the two channels (which is the main shortcoming), and then you can (yes, with multiple button presses) 'dual buffer' between the two.

How to 'dual buffer' with the Verizon DVR software:
1) First, you have to be recording the two channels. This is the main shortcoming (compared to some other DVRs which automatically allow dual buffering even w/o recording). If it's two 'regularly scheduled' shows (like my friend and her soaps), not such a big deal. Schedule a recording as usual ... or tune to ChannelA and hit record, tune to ChannelB and hit record. However, for things that many people use dual buffering for ... not always so easy. For sports, you're probably going to need to manually pad the recording in case it runs long. In my 'breaking news' example above ... channels probably aren't even following their regular schedule so again, manual padding. And, you start recording two four hour HD football games, you're probably going to start having shows get erased to make space. Etc ...
2) But, once you've got two recordings going ... 'dual buffering' and swapping between the two is (relatively) easy and effective
3) List -> Right Arrow -> OK -> OK (to select one show)
4) watch the show / 'trick play' / FF / RW / do whatever you want
5) List -> Right Arrow -> Down Arrow -> OK -> OK (to 'swap' ... select the other show)
6) watch the show / 'trick play' / FF / RW / do whatever you want
7) List -> Right Arrow -> OK -> OK (to 'swap' ... select the first show again)
8) It will be 'paused' exactly where you stopped watching it ... watch the show / 'trick play' / FF / RW / do whatever you want
9) List -> Right Arrow -> Down Arrow -> OK -> OK (to 'swap' ... select the other show again)
10) It will be 'paused' exactly where you stopped watching it ... watch the show / 'trick play' / FF / RW / do whatever you want
11) Repeat steps 7-10 as you wish
12) And finally, when done, you'll probably want to delete the two recordings.

Ta da, 'dual buffering'. More difficult and / or more button presses than with some DVRs. Then again, easier / less button presses than with some. But the main PITA (quite frankly) is having to deal with 'recordings' in the first place as opposed to more 'automatic' means (like with some DVRs).

The key is that to 'maintain the buffer' you have to access the recording in the list and 'Resume Play' ... using the last button, or typing in the channel number, or other ways of choosing the channel are all going to drop you to 'live' TV and won't 'maintain the buffer'. You can rewind back to where you left off ... but, not what most people want to do. You also risk (in the sports example) seeing a spoiler via live TV.

The same method can be used for 'buffering and surfing' ... which can also be handy. Again, say you're watching sports (football) ... but ... you only care about 'buffering' one thing / show / channel. It's halftime and you want to channel surf ... or watch some other recorded show real quick ... or watch some VOD ... whatever.

How to 'buffer and surf' with the Verizon DVR software:
1) First, you have to be recording the channel / show that you want to buffer. All the shortcomings of #1 (above) come in to play.
2) Channel surf, watch VOD, do whatever you want.
3) List -> Right Arrow -> OK -> OK (to select the show being recorded)
4) watch the show / 'trick play' / FF / RW / do whatever you want
5) Channel surf, watch VOD, do whatever you want.
6) List -> Right Arrow -> OK -> OK (to get back to the show being recorded)
7) It will be 'paused' exactly where you stopped watching it ... watch the show / 'trick play' / FF / RW / do whatever you want
8) Repeat steps 5-7 as you wish
9) And finally, when done, you'll probably want to delete the recording.

Again, more difficult and / or more button presses than with some DVRs. But, easier / less button presses than with some. And the main PITA again is having to deal with a 'recording' in the first place.

Also, 'Recording one show while channel surfing' does lead to a quirk / issue that some people find annoying. Namely, if you 'tune' to the channel that's being recorded (type in the channel number, use last, whatever) you're going to be tuned to the channel live via one tuner / (non-existant) buffer while the other tuner / buffer is paused back where you stopped watching. The end result ... you expect to be able to 'rewind' back, but you can't. Hitting the 'live TV' button can also cause this. Again, selecting the show in the list and choosing 'Resume Play' will get your buffer back. If you don't care about the buffer and just want live TV ... not an issue. I guess one could construct a use case (getting back to the football example above) where you tune back the football game just after half time and want to rewind back to the start of the second quarter ... but can't ... and don't want to have to fast forward in the buffer where you left off watching ... oh well.

Just 'swapping' between two live shows isn't really the big thing that most people are asking about. Although, yes you can certainly come up with uses for that too and I'm sure some people find it usefull (and again, perfectly do-able with the Verizon DVR). Keeping a 'buffer' while channel surfing and doing other things ... or keeping two buffers and swapping between them is what people seem to find most usefull / desireable.

your really being condescending and rude. I dont know every little detail or remember everything.Yes, well ... probably so.

As far as the condescending part ... your post contained several innacuracies that would seem to be easily noticed by someone who had taken the time to:
1) use the service / software
2) looked at the online documentation and / or VOD help menus on the box and / or documentation that installers (are supposed to) leave
3) read / followed this thread a bit (although, it is getting rather long with the same stuff going round and round so ... admitedly not as easy as some other similar threads)

Sorry.

As far as the rude part ... most people posting advice or information on this thread who actually have the service / software take the time to do the above in order to prevent innacuracies and misinformation. I consider not doing so a bit rude (since most people don't really want to have to sift through a bunch of innacuracies and misinformation). Also, most people who are a bit uncertain of something, or asking a question, or who want clarification, make sure to indicate so. Again, I consider not doing so a bit rude for the same reason. And most people, when specifically responding to a question, tend to actually try and read and respond to that question. I find a response that misses the point of the question, and goes off on tangents and diatribes a bit rude as well.

So, I responded in kind.in the end of your whole lecture you claim it has its issue and problems using several /'s. so i dont see what your really clarifying helping or anything other thenjust telling us stuff doens't work the way it shouldTwo different topics there.

Every DVR software from every provider has its own issues / bugs / quirks / strengths / weaknesses / tips and tricks / workarounds / etc. Some are obvious and intuitive and easy to explain. Some less so. Verizon is certainly no exception. The 'Rewind' issue you brought up is one of the less obvious and intuitive issues with the Verizon software. I did find it pretty quick to actually see what is going on when playing with the software, although a little hard to put into words. But, actually discussing a subdtle and difficult-to-exaplain issue in the context of a post containing several easier and more concrete innaccuracies seems rather ... fruitless.

The way things 'should' work and what features are (or aren't) important. Well, that's a personal thing. Different strokes for different folks. I'd say the 'perfect' software doesn't exist ... different people are going to find different software better or worse depending on their own needs. Although, some providers software certainly seem to (on a whole) have more positives ... and some (on a whole) have more negatives ... well, 'should' is a tricky thing.

Focus on how something actually works first ... because without knowing that it's hard to talk about the 'should' part. And, quite frankly, since most people reading this thread are more interested in how the software actually does work, more usefull.

Not that it isn't fun to talk about our own (personal) desires for how something 'should' work. There's my list for Verizon:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8864970&highlight=suggestions#post8864970
Better 'swap' functionality doesn't even make my top 20 ... but as always ... YMMV.in the end you never explained how to switch between 2 live recording shows and it seems there really is no way to do so without watching it from teh list of recorded programs and then stopping the one and starting the other and hitting live. that is a lot of clicks and not even close to swap feature.Do you want to 'buffer' the two shows, or not? If you want to buffer the shows ... which is what most people seem to want ... and, quite frankly seems to most resemble the 'swap' feature ... and what I was addressing (and which is what the post you were responding to was asking) see the above post:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9559103#post9559103

If not ... if all you care about is switching between live TV that happens to be being recorded ... without knowing the channel numbers (which is specifically what I said was possible) or even looking at the screen ...
1) List -> Right Arrow -> OK -> OK (to select one show)
2) List -> Right Arrow -> Down Arrow -> OK -> OK (to select the other show)
3) Last (to switch back to the first show)
4) You'll be watching it live
5) Last (to switch back to the other show)
6) You'll be watching it live
7) Last (to switch back to the first show)
8) You'll be watching it live
9) Last (to switch back to the other show)
10) You'll be watching it live
11) Last (to switch back to the first show)
12) You'll be watching it live
13) Last (to switch back to the other show)
14) You'll be watching it live
15) Repeat steps 3-14 as you wish

If you know the channel numbers ... or are actually willing to look at the screen ... there are other ways to do it and less steps are required.Its like youare trying to defend the inexcusable lack of basic features and flame ppl for not explaining it and are more concerned with that then actuallyhelping or clarifying. you do clarify some things but all your emphasis is on how i'm wrong.I could care less about 'defending' anything. I do try to help and clarify ... but, pointing out how you were wrong seemed like the quickest and easiest way to do so before getting into a more detailed explanation.

You seem more interested in pointing out that 'Verizon is not Comcast' which, I think, most people are aware of. Feel free to start a 'comparison' thread. Many people reading this thread don't live in an area serviced by Comcast. There are also differences between Comcast from area to area (including the DVR software and hardware they use) that would be important to someone looking at the two services. The level of detail to truly and accurately compare between the two providers would seem inapropriate (and for many people, meaningless) in a thread specifically about the Verizon DVR and its software.

I had FiosTV installed two weeks ago. First, my only remaining issue: I use a Harmony remote and a Denon receiver. Hitting Watch TV of course would normally turn on my TV, Receiver, and cable box. I've never had a problem before, but as soon as I updated my harmony remote with the 6414 (to replace my previous Dish HD box), the receiver would not turn on or off with the activity. Doing more research, I find that the Denon is unresponsive to any remote IR commands for a second or so after any command is sent to the 6414 (try changing channel, then press volume button repeatedly till it obeys is a good test).

Harmony Remote does allow you to adjust inter-device timing delay. I've cranked it up to 4000ms (4sec) on all units, and it doesn't help. They do NOT seem to have a way to allow you o assign the order that the devices are turned on (I should avoid this by turning on the receiver first). I can't get it to work at all and always have to turn the receiver on/off manually afterwards. Very annoying. I emailed logitech support last week and have yet to receive a response. Any ideas?

-----



I have a Denon Receiver, Toshiba 65" HD Set and a Harmony 880 Remote.
I neverr turn the DVR off and have never had the problem you report. In the Harmony setup, i just told it to "Leave this device on"

Try it, it may solve your issue.

Yes, well ... probably so.

As far as the condescending part ... your post contained several innacuracies that would seem to be easily noticed by someone who had taken the time to:
1) use the service / software
2) looked at the online documentation and / or VOD help menus on the box and / or documentation that installers (are supposed to) leave
3) read / followed this thread a bit (although, it is getting rather long with the same stuff going round and round so ... admitedly not as easy as some other similar threads)

Sorry.

As far as the rude part ... most people posting advice or information on this thread who actually have the service / software take the time to do the above in order to prevent innacuracies and misinformation. I consider not doing so a bit rude (since most people don't really want to have to sift through a bunch of innacuracies and misinformation). Also, most people who are a bit uncertain of something, or asking a question, or who want clarification, make sure to indicate so. Again, I consider not doing so a bit rude for the same reason. And most people, when specifically responding to a question, tend to actually try and read and respond to that question. I find a response that misses the point of the question, and goes off on tangents and diatribes a bit rude as well.

Wow, you get a medal for patience. I couldn't even figure out what he was trying to say except saying that Comcast is better. Consequently, I didn't even make the effort to dicipher it. You're right, not the point of this thread.

When I got home yesterday, WatchTV still did not work, however OFF now did. I increased the delay to 3000 and it became more clear what was happenening; they only changed the order of the off function not the on. So I called up. Sat on hold for about 12 minutess, and spent another 20 (!) minutes on the phone before we got everything working.

They eventually changed the order but also added three repeated on commands for the receiver. She said they have to manually edit the XML file. I repeatedly complained there should be a way for advanced users to do so, but she said short of finding an old 700 series remote, you just have to contact support each time.

I was also glad to hear (via accent) they are still clearly canadian, as they were before logitech bought them. That means the same people are still behind the technology...I hate it when you have hostile takeovers, the company moves, the brains leave, and the products go downhill.

I have a Denon Receiver, Toshiba 65" HD Set and a Harmony 880 Remote.
I neverr turn the DVR off and have never had the problem you report. In the Harmony setup, i just told it to "Leave this device on"

Try it, it may solve your issue.

Good idea, however I am someone who likes to have things off. And in the case of the DVR, it will always be writing the current channel to the hard drive if left on....premature failure.

When I got home yesterday, WatchTV still did not work, however OFF now did. I increased the delay to 3000 and it became more clear what was happenening; they only changed the order of the off function not the on. So I called up. Sat on hold for about 12 minutess, and spent another 20 (!) minutes on the phone before we got everything working.

They eventually changed the order but also added three repeated on commands for the receiver. She said they have to manually edit the XML file. I repeatedly complained there should be a way for advanced users to do so, but she said short of finding an old 700 series remote, you just have to contact support each time.

I was also glad to hear (via accent) they are still clearly canadian, as they were before logitech bought them. That means the same people are still behind the technology...I hate it when you have hostile takeovers, the company moves, the brains leave, and the products go downhill.



Good idea, however I am someone who likes to have things off. And in the case of the DVR, it will always be writing the current channel to the hard drive if left on....premature failure.

I'm glad that tech support was able to help you. 12 minutes sounds like an outlier. I've called about 4 times and have never been on hold for more than a couple of minutes.

I believe in energy conservation in minimizing my electric bill but I keep my DVR on 24/7 per advice of many on this and other forums.

Good idea, however I am someone who likes to have things off. And in the case of the DVR, it will always be writing the current channel to the hard drive if left on....premature failure.


I am not worried about premature failure because it is a rental. I have one of the original little Blue Harmony remotes and fondly remember being able to edit the xml file myself.

With HDNet's test patterns using an HDMI cable, I was unable to see a very light white "0" on a completely white background, as the Motorola seemed to be clipping the white levels despite moving the contrast setting very low.

I then switched to component and sure enough, the "0" was faintly visible. I also noticed that the transition between successive color bands on the test pattern was a bit cleaner using component.

Next, I went back to using the HDMI cable, but this time, I switched the HDMI output in the service menu from YCC 4:4:4 to RGB and also changed the color space on the TV to RGB as well to match. The test patterns revealed that the "0" was also now visible using this color space. The only thing that needed to be corrected in RGB mode was the brightness level. I moved it 0 to -14 to get comparable results to that with YCC.

So, it seems that using YCC over HDMI results in clipping of white levels, whereas this is corrected by using RGB mode if your TV supports it. Apparently, only those TVs that support HDMI 1.2 or later can accept an RGB input over HDMI.

When are the HDNET test patterns broadcasted?

Sunday at 6:50am for 10 min. In the Fios channel guide it's listed as Off-Air, or something like it.

I just found out that FIOS is now available in my area and I'm getting ready to take the plunge but there are a few things I need to find out first.

1. I want to be able to transfer videos to my PC for eventual processing to DVD. From what I've seen so far, the QIP6416 has limited capability when it comes to sending anything through the IEEE1394 ports, except for some occasional local programming. Will a different Moto box work with FIOS that has the IEEE1394 ports enabled or am I limited to what Verizon gives me?

2. I'd like to connect a HTPC for recording local programming. Do the local channels use QAM256 (I think that's the correct spec but I'm posting this using my befuddled memory)? I'd like to use an ATSC tuner card in my HTPC for recording local HD programming and it would be nice to be able to connect the FIOS cable directly instead of using my OTA antenna.

You could get cable cards for another moto box?

You could get cable cards for another moto box?For the models displayed at CES, yes. No provider yet offers them.

1. I want to be able to transfer videos to my PC for eventual processing to DVD. From what I've seen so far, the QIP6416 has limited capability when it comes to sending anything through the IEEE1394 ports, except for some occasional local programming. Will a different Moto box work with FIOS that has the IEEE1394 ports enabled or am I limited to what Verizon gives me?No major cable provider today allows one to transfer cable video content from DVR to PC. The content providers don't like that, as it promotes distribution of their copyrighted content on the Internet.

From what I've seen so far, the QIP6416 has limited capability when it comes to sending anything through the IEEE1394 ports, except for some occasional local programming.This is not true, or at least, no more true than it is of any other major cable provider. FiOS sends all content out through the IEEE1394 ports, but cable content is DTCP encrypted. If you have an authorized DTCP product, like a HDTV D-VHS VCR or Blu-ray recorder, you can record any content you want. On the other hand, today's PCs are not authorized, so they have no way to decrypt DTCP.

I'd like to connect a HTPC for recording local programming. Do the local channels use QAM256 (I think that's the correct spec but I'm posting this using my befuddled memory)?All of the FiOS channels are delivered using QAM, however, the cable channels are encrypted, and even the locals are encrypted in some (but not all) markets.

I'd like to use an ATSC tuner card in my HTPC for recording local HD programming and it would be nice to be able to connect the FIOS cable directly instead of using my OTA antenna.If you are serious about recording to your PC, you should wait and buy a new PC with Vista and CableCard slots. That way, you can record any program you want from any channel on FiOS. Vista will store the content on your hard drive in encrypted form so it can't be distributed over the Internet.

This is not allowed with existing hardware, nor it is allowed with Windows XP or Mac OSX (at this time), because they don't provide for secure, encrypted storage.

Thanks for the detailed response. I just went down to my local mall today and signed up for all three Verizon services (i.e., TV, internet, and phone, although we already had the phone service) at their kiosk I also got a $100 rebate in the process (sweet!). I decided to get myself a Series 3 Tivo since the recording capacity of the QIP6416 bothers me, not to mention the lack of additional IR codes. At least with the S3 Tivo I know I'll be able to receive all FIOS channels when using two cablecards and I know I'll be able to expand with multiple S3 Tivos in the future should I decide to do so.

I can also expand the recording capacity of the S3 Tivo quite easily, should I decide to do so (and I probably will). The S3 Tivo requires a PROM mod to enable video extraction but that's something I'll have to consider at a later time. The good news is that with HDTivo prices skyrocketing on ebay, I'll be able to recover the cost of the S3 Tivo and still have money left over when I dump DirecTV. :D I plan on using the S3 Tivo to record non-OTA channels whereas I'll probably use the OTA antenna with the HTPC for recording my network shows.

From what I gather about the FIOS service, I will be unable to decrypt any channels for output via Firewire to my PC. The way I understand it, I may be able to record to D-VHS via IEEE1394, but only as encrypted data. The thought of reverting back to a tape-based archiving method is totally unacceptable to me since I have entered the digital age and have renounced videotapes in any way, shape, or format (getting rid of my VHS, Beta, and D-VHS tapes was the best thing I ever did).

All of the FiOS channels are delivered using QAM, however, the cable channels are encrypted, and even the locals are encrypted in some (but not all) markets.


The trend has been to make available in clear QAM the locals (and in some markets even more ;) ) - just what the OP wanted. HTPC recording the clear QAM chs should not be an issue.

Has anybody received this s/w upgrade yet? Has it fixed any of the problems reported earlier on this thread? Does it address any of the wishlist features that BFDTV and others have requested?

Hello, Verizon installed my tv and internet service today. I previously had comcast and now have similar box from verizon with HD DVR. My question is is there a hidden button to push on remote while in guide menu to move from day to day.

It still works on verizon box with comcast remote when if i am looking at todays show and hit + it goes to next day. But there is nothing on the universal philps remote from verizon.

Also In guide, to scroll down a page, if you hit down arrow, it just goes down one channel. Page arrow keys that are for replay and stuff does not do anything.

Finally, like comcast's swap button, does verizon dvr have that feature?

Sorry if i am asking questions already been asked, i looked but did not see anything.

Thanks in advance

Hello, Verizon installed my tv and internet service today. I previously had comcast and now have similar box from verizon with HD DVR. My question is is there a hidden button to push on remote while in guide menu to move from day to day.

It still works on verizon box with comcast remote when if i am looking at todays show and hit + it goes to next day. But there is nothing on the universal philps remote from verizon.

Also In guide, to scroll down a page, if you hit down arrow, it just goes down one channel. Page arrow keys that are for replay and stuff does not do anything.

Finally, like comcast's swap button, does verizon dvr have that feature?

Sorry if i am asking questions already been asked, i looked but did not see anything.

Thanks in advance

Unforunately the Verizon DVR does not have the Day +/- feature mapped to the remote and the signal the remote sends for Page Down is not yet understood by the DVR. You may want to get a learning remote and learn those commands before you return your Comcast remote.

Has anybody received this s/w upgrade yet? Has it fixed any of the problems reported earlier on this thread? Does it address any of the wishlist features that BFDTV and others have requested?It hasn't been deployed outside of certain parts of New Jersey yet.

It still works on verizon box with comcast remote when if i am looking at todays show and hit + it goes to next day. But there is nothing on the universal philps remote from verizon.Verizon ran out of the original remote in some markets. The Philips remote apparently lacks some functions. If you have a universal remote like a Logitech Harmony, you have access to page +/-, day +/i, and other functions not available on the Philips.

From reading the posts in here - it sounded like the Phillips was the preferred (better?) remote over the Motorola. Now it sounds like the Phillips is "lacking" functionality. Does the Phillips have the 30 second skip ahead? I just got FiOS installed and the installer left the Motorola remotes. He said that the Phillips would be out in my area around Feb 2nd and suggested that I "grab one of the installers in the area" (FiOS is new here and almost everyday one or two neighbors are getting installed) ... and he would give me a couple of the Phillips remotes.

It hasn't been deployed outside of certain parts of New Jersey yet.

Verizon ran out of the original remote in some markets. The Philips remote apparently lacks some functions. If you have a universal remote like a Logitech Harmony, you have access to page +/-, day +/i, and other functions not available on the Philips.

I picked up the Harmony 520 this weekend and am loving it. Have a second one on the way for my 2nd DVR.

Hi Folks,

I have a couple of questions that I was wondering if someone could help me with.

1.) Is it possible to connect to the DVR from another PC over the network in order to copy the DVR files for storage, i do not want to watch on the PC(If there is a way to great, but not needed). Of course I would need to be able to put them back to watch them again.

2.) Anyone that has the multi-room dvr feature working could they describe the setup and how it verizon installed it? I have been trying to find out if they needed to do anyting to make it work. For example did they need to run cat5 to the cable boxes, did they activate something in the cable box and so on. I'm thinking about getting it, but need more detail on the setup and configuration.

Thanks everyone.

Hi Folks,

I have a couple of questions that I was wondering if someone could help me with.

1.) Is it possible to connect to the DVR from another PC over the network in order to copy the DVR files for storage, i do not want to watch on the PC(If there is a way to great, but not needed). Of course I would need to be able to put them back to watch them again.

2.) Anyone that has the multi-room dvr feature working could they describe the setup and how it verizon installed it? I have been trying to find out if they needed to do anyting to make it work. For example did they need to run cat5 to the cable boxes, did they activate something in the cable box and so on. I'm thinking about getting it, but need more detail on the setup and configuration.

Thanks everyone.


It Uses a MOCA Nertwork (Multimedia of Coaxile Association) instead of cat 5 for the cable Boxes so your existing coax will stay in place.

We just got FiOS/TV installed, including two DVR boxes (one of each type), a non-DVR HD box, and two standard-def boxes. Bye-bye comcast... I'd been checking every couple of days (township approved in Oct/Nov), and Saturday I suddenly could order - and the install was scheduled for today (Monday). Talk about a short wait...

One problem is that one of the HD boxes is hooked up to the Samsung 910MP LCD TV/Monitor in the kitchen, which is analog RGB in (not DVI). The question is how do I best get HD shown on the 910MP (which is 1280x1024): HDMI->converter->RGB? Component->RGB? I believe there are no HDMI->RGB direct cables. Also, is a separate converter box required for Component (YCrCb)->RGB, or are there "cables" that include the necessary conversion?

Thanks!

Hmmm. Thinking about it, the Samsung 910MP (given it has a computer-oriented analog RGB port) probably wants 1080P@56-75Hz (Samsung specs) (http://www.samsung.com/Products/Monitor/LCD_Multi_Function/MZ19FSSS.asp?page=Specifications) . So (I assume) I'd need some type of transcoder...

The only other solution I can see is to replace it with a dedicated LCD-TV of similar size, or replace it with a Samsung 940MW which is widescreen, "HDTV-ready", and has DVI-D (w/TMDS) inputs (and I could use a HDMI->DVI cable I assume). Then move the LCD to perhaps the den computer to replace the 21" CRT.

1.) Is it possible to connect to the DVR from another PC over the network in order to copy the DVR files for storage, i do not want to watch on the PC(If there is a way to great, but not needed). Of course I would need to be able to put them back to watch them again.

I think you are saying you want to back DVR files up to a PC then pull them back to play them.

Unlike TiVo, I don't think anyone has hacked this box to do that. So, to my knowledge, the front door is the only way to do it. The front door is the firewire port. Problem is that they have 5C implemented on most of the channels, so you won't be able to capture the stream on a PC, you'll need a D-VHS machine to do it.

Also, the firewire in one way, so you cannot use this box as an MPEG2 decoder for content originating from another source.

Dave

Hello All,

I had Fios TV installed last week. I got a 6416-2 and the remote with the giant (mostly useless) backlit "Fios" button. When watching recorded content, I can use the page forward button for a 30 second skip.

Is there a setting for the menus to utilize the widescreen aspect ratio. Whenever I enter the guide for DVR menu, it uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, and that makes text blocks too short to read full titles. If it filled the screen properly, I think this would be minimalized. All of my content is in the correct aspect ratio (sans TNT-HD, but that’s a joke of its own).

How many hours of HD can it hold? I am guessing less than 20, but I am sure someone here has maxed it out. Verizon is nice enough to list it as "Significantly less".

Hello All,

I had Fios TV installed last week. I got a 6416-2 and the remote with the giant (mostly useless) backlit "Fios" button. When watching recorded content, I can use the page forward button for a 30 second skip.

Is there a setting for the menus to utilize the widescreen aspect ratio. Whenever I enter the guide for DVR menu, it uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, and that makes text blocks too short to read full titles. If it filled the screen properly, I think this would be minimalized. All of my content is in the correct aspect ratio (sans TNT-HD, but that’s a joke of its own).

How many hours of HD can it hold? I am guessing less than 20, but I am sure someone here has maxed it out. Verizon is nice enough to list it as "Significantly less".

I do not think there is a way to tell the menu to use the entire 16:9 widescreen.

To answre your other question, a 1 hour show takes up about 5% of the space, so somewhere between 19 and 20 hours would be the HD max.

Hello All,

I had Fios TV installed last week. I got a 6416-2 and the remote with the giant (mostly useless) backlit "Fios" button. When watching recorded content, I can use the page forward button for a 30 second skip.

Is there a setting for the menus to utilize the widescreen aspect ratio. Whenever I enter the guide for DVR menu, it uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, and that makes text blocks too short to read full titles. If it filled the screen properly, I think this would be minimalized. All of my content is in the correct aspect ratio (sans TNT-HD, but that’s a joke of its own).

How many hours of HD can it hold? I am guessing less than 20, but I am sure someone here has maxed it out. Verizon is nice enough to list it as "Significantly less".

I don't think you can stretch the menu but if you could, it would only stretch the text. You would not see more.

Thanks everyone for the other answers to my questions.

I don't klnow if this is the place to ask this but going to try. Has anyone tried the network port on the box? Is it active can you see anyting on the device? I have the ActionTec router from Verizon and i notice that the cable box has an ip address and actually lists a windows share path. I cannot get to the path, but was wondering if I added cable run and plugged the RJ45 into my network could i access the OS on the box? I have heard that it is a version of LINUX.

Also does anyone know of any tips or tweaks for the ActionTec router?

Has anyone watched what Verizon did to activate the home media DVR? Did they manage it remotely or did they need to come in the home and make some changes?

I am attempting to use my own QIP 6416-2 on Verizon and I don't get past a message that says system is updating. Is there any way I can use my own box with Verizon? Will I be able to do so when the integration ban changes in 07/2007.

Has anyone watched what Verizon did to activate the home media DVR? Did they manage it remotely or did they need to come in the home and make some changes?

It is activated remotely, from the office just like a premium channel would be. No hardware needs to be physically set up or changed.

BOb

I just got FiOS last week. I setup Monk and Psych to record on USA each Friday night, but only if they were new episodes. I know there is a bug with this so I went through and erased the extra episodes it was trying to record. Today when I checked it was not going to record the Friday night shows either. Is this a normal occurrence? I went in and changed my series options and that caused the recordings to show back up in the list, but I don't really want to have to keep tabs on this each week. Any suggestions on how to fix this beyond telling it to record all episodes?

So, I just got mine today, and as a few other people here are wondering, is it possible to just hook this up to the computer and watch tv on this? is there a way to use the wireless router to do this? I don't care about video capturing as much as just watching it on my laptop.
What about the Ethernet port? I know with the original Xbox you can hook that up to the computer (I heard there are ways without a mod chip) and access everything on that HD. If there is any way to do this, I would like to know, along with a few others.

So, I just got mine today, and as a few other people here are wondering, is it possible to just hook this up to the computer and watch tv on this? is there a way to use the wireless router to do this? I don't care about video capturing as much as just watching it on my laptop.
What about the Ethernet port? I know with the original Xbox you can hook that up to the computer (I heard there are ways without a mod chip) and access everything on that HD. If there is any way to do this, I would like to know, along with a few others.

Hook what up to a computer? The Verizon box or the analog signal to a tuner card? The xbox will connect with a computer if its either soft modded or hard moded. I have a hard modded one. I think the only way to network the FIOS box is through the MOCA over RG6 but you cant access the programing through a computer that way.

I just got FiOS last week. I setup Monk and Psych to record on USA each Friday night, but only if they were new episodes. I know there is a bug with this so I went through and erased the extra episodes it was trying to record. Today when I checked it was not going to record the Friday night shows either. Is this a normal occurrence? I went in and changed my series options and that caused the recordings to show back up in the list, but I don't really want to have to keep tabs on this each week. Any suggestions on how to fix this beyond telling it to record all episodes?

I get similar problems with new and repeat programs. Im also getting a problem when I have the DVR set to record two shows back to back. For instance one start at 7 pm and the other at 7:30. It doesnt like this and wont record both unless im sitting there to tell it to stop the one show and start the other. Sure wish it had the timing options like Tivo!

I get similar problems with new and repeat programs. Im also getting a problem when I have the DVR set to record two shows back to back. For instance one start at 7 pm and the other at 7:30. It doesnt like this and wont record both unless im sitting there to tell it to stop the one show and start the other. Sure wish it had the timing options like Tivo!

I have not had that problem yet, it seemed to record back to back episodes just fine, but last night both of my DVRs had recording errors at 10:29. One of them picked up the show again after the error, but the other one did not(different show). I must have had some sort of power glitch.

Hook what up to a computer? The Verizon box or the analog signal to a tuner card? The xbox will connect with a computer if its either soft modded or hard moded. I have a hard modded one. I think the only way to network the FIOS box is through the MOCA over RG6 but you cant access the programing through a computer that way.

Well, the thread is hardware specific, but I am referring to hooking up the Verizon FiOS QIP6416-2 DVR to my laptop via any possible connection that would allow me to watch tv on my laptop.

Well, the thread is hardware specific, but I am referring to hooking up the Verizon FiOS QIP6416-2 DVR to my laptop via any possible connection that would allow me to watch tv on my laptop.

As far as I know that is not possible.

This might be a dumb question ... but ... does recording a program diminish the PQ? If it does, does it affect both SD and HD? And is it really noticeable? I'm not sure just how well this DVR handles compression / decompression.

This might be a dumb question ... but ... does recording a program diminish the PQ?All recordings of digital channels (i.e. channel numbers >50) are bit-for-bit identical to the original. The box simply stores the digital bits on the hard drive as they arrive. There is no degradation of any kind.

A question about audio levels with the 6416 DVR:

I just got FIOS TV/Internet installed in Howard County, Maryland with the 6416, mainly for its multi-room capability and media manager. The DVR is connected to my home theatre system, with component video and toslink. I've noticed that as I change channels the audio level changes a great deal, to the point that if I start on a "quiet" channel and hit a "loud" channel, I have to scramble to turn the volume down before I wake the whole house. I haven't had enough time to determine whether the difference is due to local channels versus network channels, etc. All of the channels are non-HD, though.

Still trying to get Media Manager to work if anyone is interested. Starting the service on the STB is problematic (sometimes have to hard power the device to get it back to life.) I can get the media manager on my laptop but not desktop, presumably a firewall or port problem but I haven't had enough time to troubleshoot with Verizon. Will probably turn on packet capturing in my laptop and put my PC and laptop on an old dumb 10Mbit hub so I can see all the traffic going by.

Regards,

Jamie

A question about audio levels with the 6416 DVR:

I just got FIOS TV/Internet installed in Howard County, Maryland with the 6416, mainly for its multi-room capability and media manager. The DVR is connected to my home theatre system, with component video and toslink. I've noticed that as I change channels the audio level changes a great deal, to the point that if I start on a "quiet" channel and hit a "loud" channel, I have to scramble to turn the volume down before I wake the whole house. I haven't had enough time to determine whether the difference is due to local channels versus network channels, etc. All of the channels are non-HD, though.

Still trying to get Media Manager to work if anyone is interested. Starting the service on the STB is problematic (sometimes have to hard power the device to get it back to life.) I can get the media manager on my laptop but not desktop, presumably a firewall or port problem but I haven't had enough time to troubleshoot with Verizon. Will probably turn on packet capturing in my laptop and put my PC and laptop on an old dumb 10Mbit hub so I can see all the traffic going by.

Regards,

Jamie

I have the same audio problems here, mainly with the lower 49 stations being much louder than the rest of the stations.

Question on the Media Manager. Can you watch videos on the DVR via your computer, or does it only go the other direction?

I have the same audio problems here, mainly with the lower 49 stations being much louder than the rest of the stations.

Classic Motorola cable box issue. The audio settings you have for the box are probably something other than "heavy" compression. At other settings, the (analog) channels are roughly 10db louder than the pure digitals - but audio is severely compressed (i.e. worse unless you're listening through little speakers).

Who is supplying Verizon with the program guide? Monk and Psych are showing up as repeats in the guide this Friday and next Friday, but they are not repeats they are new episodes.

I hope Verizon gets around to updating the DVR software, as a DVR does no good when the program info is incorrect.

Who is supplying Verizon with the program guide? Monk and Psych are showing up as repeats in the guide this Friday and next Friday, but they are not repeats they are new episodes.Gemstar/TVGuide.

Monk and Psych do not show as new episodes for this Friday Feb. 2 at TVGuide.com either.

Same problem here with the DVR ... got it installed last week and get a large difference in volume when changing channels ... and the setting on the box is for "heavy" compression.

Same problem here with the DVR ... got it installed last week and get a large difference in volume when changing channels ... and the setting on the box is for "heavy" compression.
It's changeable under the menu - just change the setting.

Ok, without having to read through 42 pages of notes on this box I just got with my FIOS TV install, does anyone have a way to hack this thing and make it to where I can login to it and pull the movies off of the DVR onto my PC? :p

Ok, without having to read through 42 pages of notes on this box I just got with my FIOS TV install, does anyone have a way to hack this thing and make it to where I can login to it and pull the movies off of the DVR onto my PC? :p

That would be a no...

I have seen this brought up before but here is my symptoms. I am getting a very brief stutter(if you blink you miss it) on different channels. It seems to occur more frequently on sports (might just be the additional action). I have seen some info on this but can anybody recommend anything. I do not see the stutter when I rewind and play back from the DVR. Is this possible cabling issue?? Something with the DVR hardware since it is always recording the live show??

EZ

I've only had my FiOS DVR for about a week (had a DISH DVR for about 3 years). I've noticed that 3 times now, I've recorded a program and the recording gets broken into two segments ... ie - I recorded a movie last night that was 1 1/2 hours ... this morning it shows up as being recorded - one recording for and hour and 12 minutes and a second recording for 19 minutes. This has happened on other programs also - one of them was a 30 minute program that got recorded as a 28 minute recording and a 3 minute recording. Anyone else with this happening?

I have the same audio problems here, mainly with the lower 49 stations being much louder than the rest of the stations.

Question on the Media Manager. Can you watch videos on the DVR via your computer, or does it only go the other direction?
At the present time the Media Manager only allows the DVR to pull audio and pictures off your computer (and no copy protected audio from the blurb on Verizon's site). You can't view videos from the DVR on the computer. I've spent most of my time trying to get the Media Manager working on my pc versus my laptop, can't even tell if you can pick some backround music to play while showing jpegs or whether there is any "unusual" interaction with the DVR function and Media Manager.

I'm hoping that Verizon improves the program to the point where I can push AVI or mpeg files out to the DVR, so I can play home recorded movies and slide shows.

FYI the media manager is 7.95 extra a month running only on the multi-room DVR.

Jamie

Classic Motorola cable box issue. The audio settings you have for the box are probably something other than "heavy" compression. At other settings, the (analog) channels are roughly 10db louder than the pure digitals - but audio is severely compressed (i.e. worse unless you're listening through little speakers).
Thanks for the information. I'll try changing the settings, as well as switching from Toslink optical audio to regular analog stereo. And I'll probably complain to Verizon as well.

Jamie

I've only had my FiOS DVR for about a week (had a DISH DVR for about 3 years). I've noticed that 3 times now, I've recorded a program and the recording gets broken into two segments ... ie - I recorded a movie last night that was 1 1/2 hours ... this morning it shows up as being recorded - one recording for and hour and 12 minutes and a second recording for 19 minutes. This has happened on other programs also - one of them was a 30 minute program that got recorded as a 28 minute recording and a 3 minute recording. Anyone else with this happening?

I had that hapen on both DVRs I have one night, they stopped at the exact same time, I assumed it was a power hiccup. Unfortunately only 1 kept recording the rest of the program, the other did not.

I have seen this brought up before but here is my symptoms. I am getting a very brief stutter(if you blink you miss it) on different channels. It seems to occur more frequently on sports (might just be the additional action). I have seen some info on this but can anybody recommend anything. I do not see the stutter when I rewind and play back from the DVR. Is this possible cabling issue?? Something with the DVR hardware since it is always recording the live show??Press power on the remote to turn the box off, then turn it back on. That fixes the problem.

Picked up one of the Comcast remotes in a effort to get the 30-second skip functionality. I was successful with that.

The one thing I noticed is that the '0' button doesn't seem to deliver a '0' to the DVR. It does send a signal which causes the timeline to appear at the bottom of the screen with the "function not allowed" symbol (circle with slash through it). I tried the '0' on the EPG as well but nothing happens there even though I do see the light flash on the DVR that shows it's receiving some IR signal.

Any ideas?

I am not sure this is the best place for this, but here goes. I have had FIOS for about 2 months and the past 3 weeks or so I have experienced from time to time, static on the phone line. The verizon guy finally came out (don't even ask how many calls that took) and spent 6 hours at my house. He replaced/rerouted several coax cables, replaced the ONT completely.. nothing helped. We finally discovered that if you unplug the coax from the 6416, static goes away. plug in (or just touch the cable to the jack), the noise comes back. replaced entire coax to that box, even tried another 6416. very strange problem. Plus, the noise isn't always there. Can't figure out what makes it come and go. Another clue perhaps - he disconnected the ground wire to the ONT cause he said it got better when he disconnected it.
grounding problem? not sure how to test that.

When I first got FIOS installed, I started getting static and cross talk on the phone line. After a while I realized that the cross talk was actually a local news-talk radio station. I live only about a mile from the antenna farm that the station broadcasts from. Once I told the Verizon technician that the cross-talk was a radio station and that I live near the antenna, he knew exactly what the problem was. The Verizon technician said it had to do with the phone line operating at a lower voltage than before FIOS was installed (48V vs. 50-something) that somehow allowed the house wiring to act as a receiver. The cross-talk and static problem was solved by putting a filter in the ONT to filter out the radio frequencies. The technician said that it wasn't common, but he did run into the problem occaisionally. If you live near an antenna farm this might be something to think about.

I'm in Plano, TX and have had FIOS with 2 DVRs for 6 months or so. Recently we got our first HD TV (Vizio 47"). It is capable of 1080p. If I set the DVR for 1080i output and watch a local HD channel (NBC 802 or PBS 804), there is a small squiggly black and white line at the top of the picture. It only happens on SOME local channels and only if they have a SD image being broadcast like a commercial or daytime programming. If they are showing a HD show, there is never any problem. If I set the DVR to 720P output, then the problem goes away. Of course, I'd prefer to see it in 1080i instead of 720p. Verizon tech support says it's a problem with the broadcast stations and there is nothing they can do. I'd be happy if there was a menu selection with a way to cause a slight vertical overscan to push the squiggly line off screen at the top. Suggestions please?

I have two 6416 DVRs with the FIOS TV system. When fast forwarding recorded shows at 3X and 4X the DVRs jump through the programs without showing them all and return to the original menu.

Does anyone else have trouble with the fast forwarding on these DVRs?