Anyone have any information on the deinterlace and mpeg decompression chip used in the 6416? Any info on how it performs with film based 24p content, 3:2 reverse pull-down etc? -thanks

The QIP6416 uses the Broadcom BCM7038, the same chip found in the Motorola DCT3416, Motorola DCT6416, Tivo Series3, and DirecTV HR20.

The Broadcom BCM7038 cannot detect detect film or perform IVTC on a 1080i signal (for 720p output). The chip does support 3:2 detection and reverse pulldown with SD content (when used with firmware that supports that feature), although this processing is not robust, and it does not work much of the time, especially on more heavily compressed signals.

The QIP6416 uses the Broadcom BCM7038, the same chip found in the Motorola DCT3416, Motorola DCT6416, Tivo Series3, and DirecTV HR20.

The Broadcom BCM7038 cannot detect detect film or perform IVTC on a 1080i signal (for 720p output). The chip does support 3:2 detection and reverse pulldown with SD content (when used with firmware that supports that feature), although this processing is not robust, and it does not work much of the time, especially on more heavily compressed signals.

Thanks for the info, I didn't expect much and I was right. So if I set the box to pass 480i SD and 1080i HD will the cadence flags or whatever they are called be passed onto the display properly and then assuming my display properly handles the IVTC, all is well?

No all-native option was added, but some of the common video settings (1080i, 720p, etc) were moved to the GUI.

Well, no FIOS for me. This is so stupid.

I just got my Fios TV yesterday. I previously had business static IP Internet service so they ran a second fiber drop and installed a second ONT, battery and wireless router for the TV service.

I'm impressed with the quality of the video/audio, but the DVR is pretty poor. Issues I've had within an hour of playing around with it:

- Response time to remote control presses is horrendous. I feel like I'm working with some device from 1987, not 2007. Navigating menus, or just skipping forward/backward in a program is tedious and unless the remote is pointed directly at the box, many keypresses don't even register.

- The manual for the DVR shows a setup screen that is inaccessible through the GUI itself. I've browsed through this thread and I think I see how to access it by powering off the box so I'll try that.

- It's an HD box, yet all the menus and EPG are in SD. Does accessing/configuring the hidden menu above resolve this issue? If not, this is a pretty tragic oversight, like buying a Ferrari that's governed to 55 mph. Even the open source Xbox media center has a beautiful HD GUI.

- IT has perhaps the worst EPG display I've ever seen. The titles are all truncated, the page up/down button doesn't work, etc. I understand the new version of the guide that's being released later this month should clear many of these issues up.

- Small HDD. Not expandable due to firmware limitations supposedly? Has anyone successfully increased their storage space yet via firewire or the SATA port yet?

- Default record options for series recording can't be configured so if you are setting up a batch of recordings, you have to go through all the options (slowly and painfully with the unresponsive remote) to make sure it records only new episodes, doesn't automatically delete them, records new episodes at all airtimes, etc.

- No DVR-to-DVR networking -- I was hoping to be able to share content with my roommate's box and vice versa.

- As mentioned above, every channel is at a different volume level. There's a "compression" setting in the audio menu which I'm not sure is what I'm looking for... Rather, where's the "normalization" option.

- The option to scale/stretch 4:3 content to 16:9 is missing. Since I'm using the HDMI connection, my TV won't let me change the aspect ratio.

I'm happy to finally step into the digital age and use my TV the way it was meant to, but I'm having a hard time getting over how poorly implemented this thing is. My 4-year-old DISH DVR, which not the best thing by any stretch of the imagination has had most of these kinks ironed out since day one. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated!

I just got my Fios TV yesterday. I previously had business static IP Internet service so they ran a second fiber drop and installed a second ONT, battery and wireless router for the TV service.


- The option to scale/stretch 4:3 content to 16:9 is missing. Since I'm using the HDMI connection, my TV won't let me change the aspect ratio.


The Hidden PWR/off menu allows you to set the screen size to 16:9, & the 4:3 override to 480i .. which will auto stretch your SD channels, & leave your HD at either the 1080i or 720p setting, your choice ... .....

Well, no FIOS for me. This is so stupid.Of course, the $260 TivoHD works with FiOS and offers all-native output.

I'm impressed with the quality of the video/audio, but the DVR is pretty poor. Issues I've had within an hour of playing around with it:

- Response time to remote control presses is horrendous. I feel like I'm working with some device from 1987, not 2007. Navigating menus, or just skipping forward/backward in a program is tedious and unless the remote is pointed directly at the box, many keypresses don't even register.Note you've got the older FiOS software. Everyone should have the new software by end of August. Navigation on the new guide is a vast improvement.

http://www.verizonfios.com/img

The rollout schedule for the new guide software, as reported on DSLReports.
MA 8/2 (delayed til 8/16 - 8/23)
new customers only NJ/PA/DE 8/2
extisting customers NJ/PA/DE 8/28
other parts NJ 8/7
NY 8/9
CA 8/14
FL 8/16
TX 8/21
MD 8/23 (and N. VA)

The manual for the DVR shows a setup screen that is inaccessible through the GUI itself. I've browsed through this thread and I think I see how to access it by powering off the box so I'll try that.To change the output options, turn the box off and press menu. The output options are also accessible in the new 2.0 UI which you do not yet have.

It's an HD box, yet all the menus and EPG are in SD. Does accessing/configuring the hidden menu above resolve this issue? If not, this is a pretty tragic oversight, like buying a Ferrari that's governed to 55 mph. Even the open source Xbox media center has a beautiful HD GUI.Unfortunately, as far as I know, no DVR from any cable or satellite company has a high-definition guide. Tivo has high-definition graphics for their menus, but even they do the text in SD.

- Small HDD. Not expandable due to firmware limitations supposedly? Has anyone successfully increased their storage space yet via firewire or the SATA port yet?At the moment, there is no way to expand the capacity on the FiOS DVR. The firmware is "hard coded" to support a maximum of 160Gb internally, and the eSATA port is not functional. Firewire expansion is not supported.

Motorola now has a firmware available with eSATA (w/ DRM) support, but there is no word on if or when FiOS will use that.

At the moment, if you want a high capacity DVR, you've got to buy a third-party DVR like the TivoHD, which can be equipped with a 1Tb SATA drive, and is announced to support eSATA expansion before the end of the year.

- As mentioned above, every channel is at a different volume level. There's a "compression" setting in the audio menu which I'm not sure is what I'm looking for... Rather, where's the "normalization" option.That option applies to analog output. Unfortunately, every content provider distributes their channels with a different volume level. Some other providers have equipment installed to adjust volume levels, but Verizon FiOS does not.

Note some A/V receivers have a feature to equalize volume levels.

The option to scale/stretch 4:3 content to 16:9 is missing. Since I'm using the HDMI connection, my TV won't let me change the aspect ratio.Turn off the box and press menu. There you switch between 4:3 and stretch, or you can pass all SD content to your TV as 480i and use your TV's built-in stretch modes.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, no DVR from any cable or satellite company has a high-definition guide. Tivo has high-definition graphics for their menus, but even they do the text in SD.

Dish definitely has an HD guide & menu screens.

I've never seen tivo's menus or guide, but I'm not exactly sure how the graphics can be in HD but the text not ... If the graphics are in HD then the whole screen must be in HD, text included :)

The Hidden PWR/off menu allows you to set the screen size to 16:9, & the 4:3 override to 480i .. which will auto stretch your SD channels, & leave your HD at either the 1080i or 720p setting, your choice ... .....

The 4:3 override setting "STRETCH" is the setting that will auto stretch SD channels, bfdtv was correct; the "480i" setting allows you to use your TV's built-in stretch modes, so long as your hdmi input on your TV allows a 480i signal ...

Dish definitely has an HD guide & menu screens.

I've never seen tivo's menus or guide, but I'm not exactly sure how the graphics can be in HD but the text not ... If the graphics are in HD then the whole screen must be in HD, text included :)You're right, I had forgotten about the 622 with its 3-hour guide.

In my opinion, a guide and menu is not "HD" unless it actually takes advantage of the 16:9 format to display more information. Menus and a guide in 4:3 overlaid on a 16:9 background -- which is what a lot of products do -- is not what I would consider a HD guide. The TivoHD menus use 4:3 SD text on 16:9 720p backgrounds, but the actual guide only uses the center 4:3 of the 16:9 screen.

Screenshot of TivoHD/Series3 Guide (http://www.tivolovers.com.nyud.net:8080/Photos/Series3-Review/Medium/Guide-2.jpg)

You're right, I had forgotten about the 622 with its 3-hour guide.

In my opinion, a guide and menu is not "HD" unless it actually takes advantage of the 16:9 format to display more information. Menus and a guide in 4:3 overlaid on a 16:9 background -- which is what a lot of products do -- is not what I would consider a HD guide. The TivoHD menus use 4:3 SD text on 16:9 720p backgrounds, but the actual guide only uses the center 4:3 of the 16:9 screen.

Screenshot of TivoHD/Series3 Guide (http://www.tivolovers.com.nyud.net:8080/Photos/Series3-Review/Medium/Guide-2.jpg)

Ahhh, so I see ... so where do the "HD graphics" that you speak of come into play? Are you referring to everything else surrounding the text then?

Ahhh, so I see ... so where do the "HD graphics" that you speak of come into play? Are you referring to everything else surrounding the text then?Yes.

The 4:3 override setting "STRETCH" is the setting that will auto stretch SD channels, bfdtv was correct; the "480i" setting allows you to use your TV's built-in stretch modes, so long as your hdmi input on your TV allows a 480i signal ...
On mine, both the "480i" , & the "stretch" settings auto stretch the SD channels, as long as I have the screen size set to 16:9 ... I actually wondered what the difference between the 2 were ... I leave mine on 480i... , 720p for HD, & 16:9 screen size..
I'm hooked up HDMI to my panasonic 50" ... try it ...

On mine, both the "480i" , & the "stretch" settings auto stretch the SD channels, as long as I have the screen size set to 16:9 ... I actually wondered what the difference between the 2 were ... I leave mine on 480i... , 720p for HD & 16:9
I'm hooked up HDMI to my panasonic 50" ... try it ...
I had to set 4:3 Override to off to keep the box from stretching SD with my Pan. RP-LCD.

I had to set 4:3 Override to off to keep the box from stretching SD with my Pan. RP-LCD.
Same Idea, I ASSume all the other settings (480i ect..) Would auto stretch your SD channels ...

Of course, the $260 TivoHD works with FiOS and offers all-native output.

I'm looking at it. Since I don't use on-demand or PPV, those limitations don't bother me. What has me concerned is the possible future incompatibility, not to mention the price of the subscriptions. They've also got some of their features disabled which would have been a bigger incentive to switch. Right now I have 2 DVRs, so buying into Tivo, especially the more expensive model, is a big move.

Right now I'm stalling waiting to see if FIOS brings all the new High-Def channels online and how they compare with Cablevision and Directv, although Directv's high-def offering is pretty weak right now.

OK, I tried searching this thread but could not find any mention of this. (Could mean my search technique sucks.)

Anyway, can the QIP64xx function as a DVR in the absence of FiOS?

Reason for asking is that FiOS is not going to be available in my part of the world until Q2 2008 but I wouldn't mind getting a DVR in the meantime and if it would work in a FiOS vacuum then I could get a 6416 and use it while I am waiting.

On mine, both the "480i" , & the "stretch" settings auto stretch the SD channels, as long as I have the screen size set to 16:9 ... I actually wondered what the difference between the 2 were ... I leave mine on 480i... , 720p for HD, & 16:9 screen size..
I'm hooked up HDMI to my panasonic 50" ... try it ...

480i : the 6416 sends native 480i signal to your tv, as long as your hdmi or DVI input allows it ... your tv must be set to stretch any incoming 480i signal, have you tried using your tv's "format" or "aspect ratio" or "zoom" settings on sd channels?

480p : the 6416 converts the native 480i signal to 480p within the box, then sends it to your tv ... again your tv might be set to "stretch" any incoming 480p signal by default?

Stretch : the 6416 stretches the incoming 480i signal for 16:9 output, not sure if it's progressive or not ... my tv just says "NORMAL" instead of 480p or whatever it is

OFF : the 6416 upconverts the native 480i signal to whatever you have the HD set to(i.e. 1080i, 720p, 480p) adding pillars on the sides to fill the rest of the 16:9 screen

Anyway, can the QIP64xx function as a DVR in the absence of FiOS?No. The box must be activated by Verizon and then it downloads the DVR software from their system. As soon as you unplug the box, the software ceases to work.

480i : the 6416 sends native 480i signal to your tv, as long as your hdmi or DVI input allows it ... your tv must be set to stretch any incoming 480i signal, have you tried using your tv's "format" or "aspect ratio" or "zoom" settings on sd channels?

480p : the 6416 converts the native 480i signal to 480p within the box, then sends it to your tv ... again your tv might be set to "stretch" any incoming 480p signal by default?

Stretch : the 6416 stretches the incoming 480i signal for 16:9 output, not sure if it's progressive or not ... my tv just says "NORMAL" instead of 480p or whatever it is

OFF : the 6416 upconverts the native 480i signal to whatever you have the HD set to(i.e. 1080i, 720p, 480p) adding pillars on the sides to fill the rest of the 16:9 screen
Not how it works for me ...
I have a Panasonic 50X60U hooked up w/ hdmi ...
480 override must be set to "off" as others have also posted, to keep the box from auto stretching the SD channels ... the 480i & 480p settings are stretched by the box (for me) , I leave my box setting on 480i, & my SD channels are stretched to fill the screen .. I am Very WELL aware of how to use my TV's aspect settings, & the TV is not stretching the signal, the box is ..

Not how it works for me ...
I have a Panasonic 50X60U hooked up w/ hdmi ...
480 override must be set to "off" as others have also posted, to keep the box from auto stretching the SD channels ... the 480i & 480p settings are stretched by the box (for me) , I leave my box setting on 480i, & my SD channels are stretched to fill the screen .. I am Very WELL aware of how to use my TV's aspect settings, & the TV is not stretching the signal, the box is ..When 4:3 override is set to 480i, the Motorola DVRs output the original 480i source without any stretching.

Your Panasonic 50PX60 is currently in SD stretch mode. Hit the aspect button on your Panasonic remote to change that. Modern Panasonic plasmas maintain separate aspect settings for SD and HD sources.

When 4:3 override is set to 480i, the Motorola DVRs output the original 480i source without any stretching.

Your Panasonic 50PX60 is currently in SD stretch mode. Hit the aspect button on your Panasonic remote to change that. Modern Panasonic plasmas maintain separate aspect settings for SD and HD sources.
My Panasonic remote's aspect button cycles thru Normal-Wide-Just-Zoom & possibly 1 other (I'm not home right now), & my box's 480i setting sends a stretched picture with TV aspect set to "normal" ...
I can also hit a "display" button on my TV remote That pops up a screen that shows the current settings (480i, aspect "normal" ect .. , or "480i, Zoom ect ..) & that shows correctly that the aspect is in the Normal mode while the picture is still stretched ... (from the box..?)

I believe AcuraCl's post above also stated he had to set the 480 override to "off" w/ his Panny LCD to get the box not to stretch the picture...

I have cycled thru all the TV's aspect settings while watching SD, they all "work", such as using zoom to get rid of letter box , "Normal" is (or seems) to be the box's stretched signal, & the TV's "stretch & Just" modes simply stretch the already stretched box signal.....
I have Triple checked the box is indeed on 480i, & mentioned the TV's aspect settings above ....
Any thoughts, Am I really missing something??

Thanks, BFDTV, for making me dig out the manual when I got home ... :)
I was indeed missing something .. & here's the info that others who posted similar with Panasonic will need to know :

When watching an HD signal, the aspect button cycles thru "Full (Normal), H-fill (stretch), Just, Zoom .."
When Watching SD Channels, the Aspect button cycles thru " Full, Just, Zoom & 4:3".
The odd thing about Panasonic is that "Full" means a Normal, unaltered pass-thru picture on an HD channel, (16:9, 4:3 are seen native), but "Full" means a stretched Picture on an SD channel!
Full is the equiv of "H-Fill" for SD!
I was ASSUming "Full" meant unaltered pic on both types of signals.
This is an odd way for Panasonic to do things, but I verified it in the manual.....

By setting the Moto Box overide to "Off" it was sending an upconverted 720p signal for all SD channels , & that made the TV treat it as HD, & then "Full" setting then was not stretching the signal.. all other settings such as 480i, were being stretched by the "full" setting, which made me think the "box" was stretching the signals when set to 480i ....

Thanks, BFDTV, for making me dig out the manual when I got home ... :)
I was indeed missing something .. & here's the info that others who posted similar with Panasonic will need to know :

When watching an HD signal, the aspect button cycles thru "Full (Normal), H-fill (stretch), Just, Zoom .."
When Watching SD Channels, the Aspect button cycles thru " Full, Just, Zoom & 4:3".
The odd thing about Panasonic is that "Full" means a Normal, unaltered pass-thru picture on an HD channel, (16:9, 4:3 are seen native), but "Full" means a stretched Picture on an SD channel!
Full is the equiv of "H-Fill" for SD!
I was ASSUming "Full" meant unaltered pic on both types of signals.
This is an odd way for Panasonic to do things, but I verified it in the manual.....

By setting the Moto Box overide to "Off" it was sending an upconverted 720p signal for all SD channels , & that made the TV treat it as HD, & then "Full" setting then was not stretching the signal.. all other settings such as 480i, were being stretched by the "full" setting, which made me think the "box" was stretching the signals when set to 480i ....

That's the same way my Toshiba does it.

I need help with this very annoying problem. Some of my HD Channels are constantly out of sync with Audio & Video. It's mostly the TNT HD channel (825) that's giving me this problem. It happens all throughout the day. It even happens when I've recorded a show. Every time I record an episode of 30 Rock on HD the audio is out of sync also. The crazy thing is that it only happens with the program and not the commercials!! I've tried rebooting the box, tried the "output reset" fix for the different resolutions and even had a Verizon tech come to my house. He replaced the guts in my ONT Box outside, replaced my DVR and the problem is still there. I thought it was my TV, I have a PIO PDP-5070, but I even see it on my daughter's TV, and she doesn't even have a HDTV. Is anyone else having this problem? It's not an intermittent trouble, it's every day. I have my DVR hooked up to the TV via Component cable instead of HDMI because the response time for changing between SD & HD channels is faster on component cables. My DVR is still using the old guide, but I don't believe the new guide will fix this issue anyway. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? I love the PQ from FIOS, but I can't see putting up with this forever.....

...

I believe AcuraCl's post above also stated he had to set the 480 override to "off" w/ his Panny LCD to get the box not to stretch the picture...

I have cycled thru all the TV's aspect settings while watching SD, they all "work", such as using zoom to get rid of letter box , "Normal" is (or seems) to be the box's stretched signal, & the TV's "stretch & Just" modes simply stretch the already stretched box signal.....
I have Triple checked the box is indeed on 480i, & mentioned the TV's aspect settings above ....
Any thoughts, Am I really missing something??
Right, I don't have a "recent Panasonic plasma" I have an almost 4-yr-old Pan. RP-LCD. There are no separate stretch modes for SD and HD. Anything other than 4:3 override set to off causes the SD content to be stretched.

I need help with this very annoying problem. Some of my HD Channels are constantly out of sync with Audio & Video. It's mostly the TNT HD channel (825) that's giving me this problem. It happens all throughout the day. It even happens when I've recorded a show. Every time I record an episode of 30 Rock on HD the audio is out of sync also. The crazy thing is that it only happens with the program and not the commercials!! I've tried rebooting the box, tried the "output reset" fix for the different resolutions and even had a Verizon tech come to my house. He replaced the guts in my ONT Box outside, replaced my DVR and the problem is still there. I thought it was my TV, I have a PIO PDP-5070, but I even see it on my daughter's TV, and she doesn't even have a HDTV. Is anyone else having this problem? It's not an intermittent trouble, it's every day. I have my DVR hooked up to the TV via Component cable instead of HDMI because the response time for changing between SD & HD channels is faster on component cables. My DVR is still using the old guide, but I don't believe the new guide will fix this issue anyway. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? I love the PQ from FIOS, but I can't see putting up with this forever.....Audio on TNT-HD is often out of sync. The source is the problem, not FiOS. See the HDTV Programming forum for posts on the same issue from those with other providers. Here are a few links:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=815243
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11176960
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11119536&&#post11119536
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10829482&&#post10829482

Remember, FiOS does not do any rate shaping. They just pass along with they get from the broadcast or content provider. What you see and hear is the original source with all of its flaws, including lipsync if present.

If you are having trouble with audio sync on NBC, you should contact your local affiliate. FiOS can't do anything about sync issues on your affiliate's NBC feed. Local affiliates use separate equipment for the network feed and local ad insertion, so it sounds like a configuration error with the former.

Right, I don't have a "recent Panasonic plasma" I have an almost 4-yr-old Pan. RP-LCD. There are no separate stretch modes for SD and HD. Anything other than 4:3 override set to off causes the SD content to be stretched.
That's what I had thought too, since my Panasonic's remote had just 1 aspect button, & cycled thru similar named choices ( "Full", Just, Zoom ect) weather on an an HD or SD channel ...
But By rereading the Aspect sections of the manual I was able to find out that selecting "Full" , the setting that sends an HD channel unaltered, actually stretches a SD signal to fill the screen, & the "4:3" setting is the normal SD unaltered signal ...
What exact aspect setting are you using for SD?

Thanks BFDTV, it's good to see I'm not the only one having this problem. Unfortunately for my wife she loves that channel for all the Law & Order repeats....

Full.

I can't change aspect ratio on my DVI input. ("When a 1080i or 720p signal is being received, the mode is set to FULL, and aspect switching is not possible." From the manual)

Or are you saying that the HDMI output changes depending on the channel? That it's 1080i (my setting) only for HD channels?

Thanks BFDTV, it's good to see I'm not the only one having this problem. Unfortunately for my wife she loves that channel for all the Law & Order repeats....The problem affects all providers so there isn't much you can do about it. Until TNT fixes the problem on their HD feed, you might want to record the standard (SD) TNT feed instead.

Or are you saying that the HDMI output changes depending on the channel? That it's 1080i (my setting) only for HD channels?Yes, if you enable 4:3 override set to 480i.

With 4:3 override set to 480i, HD channels are output as 720p or 1080i (depending on what mode you've selected) and SD channels are output as 480i.

Modern Panasonic plasmas save separate aspect settings for SD and HD signals.

Yeah, I'm thinking Panasonic changed something in how they do AR control in their sets.

I'll check the settings again tonight, but my manual says flat-out that I can't change Aspect on the DVI input. I don't think it cares what format it's in (480i, 1080i, whatever).

But I'll confirm.

Thanks for all the ... er ... input.

... I have my DVR hooked up to the TV via Component cable instead of HDMI because the response time for changing between SD & HD channels is faster on component cables. ...


You can use your HDMI if you set the 4:3 override to "OFF". That should take the response time down to zero when changing between SD & HD since all of the SD is upconverted to whatever resolution you have your HD set to :)

That's what I had thought too, since my Panasonic's remote had just 1 aspect button, & cycled thru similar named choices ( "Full", Just, Zoom ect) weather on an an HD or SD channel ...
But By rereading the Aspect sections of the manual I was able to find out that selecting "Full" , the setting that sends an HD channel unaltered, actually stretches a SD signal to fill the screen, & the "4:3" setting is the normal SD unaltered signal ...
What exact aspect setting are you using for SD?
Ok, it was "mostly" as I thought.

If I set to 4:3 override to 480i, I can indeed change Aspect to Normal. However, when I change the STB to a HD channel, the tv changes the Aspect to Full. Now if I change back to an SD channel, it remains on Full, stretching the content.

Same with 480p.

The only way to not have to continually change the Aspect back to Normal is to leave 4:3 override Off.

The good news is, the picture looks best that way anyway. 480i was nasty looking, and 480p was better, but 1080i has them both beat. This surprises me somewhat since the tv was much better than my Dish 811 at conversions.

My apologies if this was answered in an earlier post, but admittedly, I didn't read all 60+ pages.

Does the Motorola box have multiple remote codes? I.E. Can I place two boxes on top of one another and address one without affecting the other?
TIA
Ed

My apologies if this was answered in an earlier post, but admittedly, I didn't read all 60+ pages.

Does the Motorola box have multiple remote codes? I.E. Can I place two boxes on top of one another and address one without affecting the other?
TIA
Ed

Nope.

All Moto DCT/QIP/DCH STB use the same single IR code.


Also, you would not want to set 2 STB on top of each other.


Way too much heat.

Came home to an unexpected surprise today! Turned on TV and got fancy graphic saying the system was starting up, NEW GUIDE FIOS 2.0 wahoo!!! This is WAY better than the POS they had on here before, OH what a difference!!! There are some things I don't like but it's a VAST improvement over what I had before! This makes a HUGE difference, my regret factor just went away!!!
Tom

Nope.

All Moto DCT/QIP/DCH STB use the same single IR code.


Also, you would not want to set 2 STB on topof each other.


Way too much heat.
Thank you.

Came home to an unexpected surprise today! Turned on TV and got fancy graphic saying the system was starting up, NEW GUIDE FIOS 2.0 wahoo!!! This is WAY better than the POS they had on here before, OH what a difference!!! There are some things I don't like but it's a VAST improvement over what I had before! This makes a HUGE difference, my regret factor just went away!!!
Tom

Did the DVR keep all of your scheduled reordings, and recorded content, or did it wipe all that out when it upgraded?

For the most part, I'm happy with the changes in the guide. And yes, it did keep all my recordings. I think people would be pretty upset if they lost their recordings.

One feature that was lost unless I overlooked it was the ability to remove channels from the guide. There is a favorites, but the old guide allowed me to actually remove channels like HBO that I do not get in the guide itself. Also several channels are repeated in a higher tier like CNN. Is there a way to remove those channels from the guide?

Also, I could not find where to mark a recorded show as save like I did in the old guide. I see a green plus next to some which I think is what that is for, but I can't see where to change it.

I have two wish list items that I'd like to see. First, I'd like to be able to use my whole screen on my widescreen tv. Seems like it should be able to take advantage of the extra space. I'd also like a playlist for my dvr programs. This would be handy to put 2 or 3 shows for my kids to watch. Oh, I also wouldn't mind some hd on demand content.

I'd also like a playlist for my dvr programs.

Are you saying there is no playlist? How do you locate your saved shows?

OR are you saying you'd like to be able to cue up multiple shows to play in a row? That would actually ne beat.

... Also, I could not find where to mark a recorded show as save like I did in the old guide. I see a green plus next to some which I think is what that is for, but I can't see where to change it ...

when you go to the options for a recorded program, it's called "protect". At least I think this is what you're talking about.?...

I had FIOS installed (in southern NJ) on 8/8. How can I tell if I have the new guide? If I have the "old" one, will the newer one be downloaded to my DVR (6416) automatically? Thanks.

I had FIOS installed (in southern NJ) on 8/8. How can I tell if I have the new guide? If I have the "old" one, will the newer one be downloaded to my DVR (6416) automatically? Thanks.You'll know it when you do. The new guide is colorful. You can view a demo in IE below:

http://promo.verizon.com/img/

Customers in S. NJ should get the new guide towards the end of the month. The new guide will download and install automatically; there isn't anything you have to do.

I just went through a Fios TV install yesterday. I was not home when it happened and the person here with the installer does not know how this stuff works. When I got home I noticed a major audio change.

My setup is a DVI-HDMI cable from Sony TV to the DVR. He also connected a digital audio (Coaxial) cable from the DVR to the receiver. I noticed that even though the receiver always said "dolby digital" the sound was mostly the left and right speakers only. Only a few channels showed true 5.1 sound and even then it seemed to vary by show and time of day.

With just the digital cable installed I could not turn back to analog for pro logic 2 operation. So I installed my analog cable from the DVR to the receiver as well. Now I have them both installed at the same time. When I change any channel it always will start with either left and right sound only or true 5.1 sound. If its just left-right I then use my receiver remote to set pro-logic 2 for surround. Kind of a pain.

Is this normal that the digital sound should come left/right speaker only for many channels? Also is it normal that I can not use the digital cable to get any analog sound. I would like it so that the proper sound is detected automatically and when 5.1 is detected it plays it and when its not a true 5.1 show then pro logic 2 turns on automatically. Do newer receivers do this?

Or would I get a change if I moved from DVI/HDMI to component?

Besides that I noticed the PQ is amazing vs direct TV with the HD channels. The SD Channels look better but only if I don't stretch them. When I set the signal to stretch the 4:3 to my 16:9 screen then the Direct TV beats it in PQ imo. For now I set the stretch to off and will live with the black bars on the 53 inch screen. (Sony rear-projection 1080i) On my 37 inch LCD upstairs stretching the picture by setting 480i looks good, harder to notice maybe due to smaller screen? With stretch on upstairs there is a noticable delay in changing channels from SD to HD.

Also the guide does not seem to have fast skip using channel up/down so I have to keep pressing the down arrow. I miss that function from the DTV guide. When using the guide the channel up/down just changes the channel and shuts the guide. Maybe I am not using the correct button but I searched everywhere for this feature.

Anyway so far so good for the most part. I am saving a lot of money compared to my previous setup. :)

...I noticed the PQ is amazing vs direct TV with the HD channels. The SD Channels look better but only if I don't stretch them. When I set the signal to stretch the 4:3 to my 16:9 screen then the Direct TV beats it in PQ imo. For now I set the stretch to off and will live with the black bars on the 53 inch screen. (Sony rear-projection 1080i) :)

Sony's "wide-zoom" setting on my 50" HD works well - much better than the Verizon "stretch".

JZodda - your setup is similar to mine, however I'm using component video from the DVR to the TV - in this case regarding the sound, it shouldn't matter.

I have the video signal going from DVR -> TV.
I have the audio (via TOSLink) from DVR -> Receiver.

On SD channels and even upconverted HD channels, the audio is always in 2.1 stereo. It comes from left and right only.

On HD broadcasts, it sees the 5.1 audio and my receiver processes that.

I don't have to touch anything - I just let it do the decoding, so unless I misunderstood something - your setup is the same as mine.

Now all that said, I don't understand your question regarding sound. Just because you have it hooked up with the optical cable doesn't mean your receiver is going to automagically make it 5.1. It's got to be broadcast that way - and as such, the SD and upconverted HD stuff is still 2.1 stereo.

Did that answer your question? I'm sure it didn't, I just don't know what your question was or what behavior you were expecting.

JZodda - your setup is similar to mine, however I'm using component video from the DVR to the TV - in this case regarding the sound, it shouldn't matter.

I have the video signal going from DVR -> TV.
I have the audio (via TOSLink) from DVR -> Receiver.

On SD channels and even upconverted HD channels, the audio is always in 2.1 stereo. It comes from left and right only.

On HD broadcasts, it sees the 5.1 audio and my receiver processes that.

I don't have to touch anything - I just let it do the decoding, so unless I misunderstood something - your setup is the same as mine.

Now all that said, I don't understand your question regarding sound. Just because you have it hooked up with the optical cable doesn't mean your receiver is going to automagically make it 5.1. It's got to be broadcast that way - and as such, the SD and upconverted HD stuff is still 2.1 stereo.

Did that answer your question? I'm sure it didn't, I just don't know what your question was or what behavior you were expecting.

First off thanks for the reply.

That partly answers my questions. So the SD channels do not process 5.1 and need something like pro-logic 2 to get surround if I understand correctly. That means I did the right thing by adding my analog connection because with just the digital cable connected the receiver won't let me select Pro logic 2, just digital or stereo. As to the HD channels though they are all not coming in 5.1 for me. Some do but some are coming through the left right only. I just turned to HD Fox 5 news to test it on channel 805 and it was left/right only. The HD-PBS channel which is 803 was playing in perfect 5.1

Are all your HD channels coming in 5.1 sound all the time? Because if they are there is something wrong with my setup.

Sony's "wide-zoom" setting on my 50" HD works well - much better than the Verizon "stretch".

I tried 480i in the DVR menu and wide zoom from the Sony menu but I can see the network logos moving down with wide zoom which means some of my screen is disappearing. At 480i set in DVR menu in the sony menu I have Wide set to Full and 4:3 default set to off. If I set 4:3 default to Full it looks the same to me as 4:3 default set to off. I need to play around some more but I get the entire picture setup using those settings.

Its not looking bad but I notice that some channels are better then others

And I noticed that not using the DVR stretch mode improves the PQ. Using the TV to do it looks better to my eyes.

Off Topic:

I've had FiOS TV for about 6 months, but I've had the Internet and phone for more than a year. When I first signed up all I need was the standard Internet speed which was 5 Mbits down and 2 Mbits up. My friend signed up and he also is getting the standard, but its 10/2. Can I get upgraded at not cost to 10/2?

Thanks,
Gerry

First off thanks for the reply.

That partly answers my questions. So the SD channels do not process 5.1 and need something like pro-logic 2 to get surround if I understand correctly. That means I did the right thing by adding my analog connection because with just the digital cable connected the receiver won't let me select Pro logic 2, just digital or stereo. As to the HD channels though they are all not coming in 5.1 for me. Some do but some are coming through the left right only. I just turned to HD Fox 5 news to test it on channel 805 and it was left/right only. The HD-PBS channel which is 803 was playing in perfect 5.1

Are all your HD channels coming in 5.1 sound all the time? Because if they are there is something wrong with my setup.

5.1 is per program, not per channel, i.e. fox won't broadcast their news in 5.1, but they may show an NFL game in 5.1. same w/ any other HD channel ... an older movie on HDNet Movies may not be in 5.1, but a newer one may be ;)

5.1 is per program, not per channel, i.e. fox won't broadcast their news in 5.1, but they may show an NFL game in 5.1. same w/ any other HD channel ... an older movie on HDNet Movies may not be in 5.1, but a newer one may be ;)

Thats good to know, as it means my receiver is working properly I guess (hope) ;) . I did notice one time sound was coming only through the center channel, and when the next show started it moved to DD2.0. Strange stuff.

I wonder if there are receivers that would allow me to use analog like Pro logic 2 with just a digital cable connected (and no analog cable at all) and then automatically select 5.1 or pro logic 2 depending on the signal? I would rather have pro logic 2 over DD2.0 any day of the week. I guess I have some research to do.

I've had FiOS TV for about 6 months, but I've had the Internet and phone for more than a year. When I first signed up all I need was the standard Internet speed which was 5 Mbits down and 2 Mbits up. My friend signed up and he also is getting the standard, but its 10/2. Can I get upgraded at not cost to 10/2?

There are certain parts of the country that have been upgraded in speed due to cable competition. I know that NY/NJ area have that speed but I don't know about other parts of the country without researching it. If your friend lives in your area then you should be able get the higher speed without an increased price. Call them and see what they can do.

Maybe you should also talk to them about their triple play package if you don't already have it. $99 for all three services.

Off Topic:

I've had FiOS TV for about 6 months, but I've had the Internet and phone for more than a year. When I first signed up all I need was the standard Internet speed which was 5 Mbits down and 2 Mbits up. My friend signed up and he also is getting the standard, but its 10/2. Can I get upgraded at not cost to 10/2?I know Florida upgraded 15/2 customers to 20/5, but I'm not sure they've upgraded 5/2 customers to 10/2 yet. However, if your friend is getting 10/2 in Florida, then clearly they have and you should call to ask for that upgrade.

Are all your HD channels coming in 5.1 sound all the time? Because if they are there is something wrong with my setup.No, they do not. Not all programming is offered in DD5.1. Much of the upconverted SD (and even some HD) is DD2.0.

I would like it so that the proper sound is detected automatically and when 5.1 is detected it plays it and when its not a true 5.1 show then pro logic 2 turns on automatically. Do newer receivers do this?Yes. Virtually all modern receivers will automatically engage Dolby Prologic IIx upon detection of a DD2.0 input.

Off Topic:

I've had FiOS TV for about 6 months, but I've had the Internet and phone for more than a year. When I first signed up all I need was the standard Internet speed which was 5 Mbits down and 2 Mbits up. My friend signed up and he also is getting the standard, but its 10/2. Can I get upgraded at not cost to 10/2?

Thanks,
Gerry
The first Verizon guy that came out to mark my yard for where to lay the fiber cable said they'd be speed-bumping us "soon" to 10/2 from 5/2. He didn't give a date ... if it happens I'm delighted, if it doesn't I'm still delighted.

The 15 Mb service is getting bumped too, but I don't remember to what ....

I could not see if this is in the thread but here goes:

Does the highest end box - the multimedia DVR or plain HD DVR from Verizon support dual (that is simultaneous) HD output?

For example - I am looking to switch from D* and the current HR20 DVR
supports output in HD from the COMPONENT and HDMI connections at the same time.

I have two TV's in a large area and need this feature.

Thanks

Also anyone here ditch an HR20 in favor of FIOS? Thoughts?

One other missing feature it seems is the RF remote...

I could not see if this is in the thread but here goes:

Does the highest end box - the multimedia DVR or plain HD DVR from Verizon support dual (that is simultaneous) HD output?

For example - I am looking to switch from D* and the current HR20 DVR
supports output in HD from the COMPONENT and HDMI connections at the same time.

I have two TV's in a large area and need this feature.

Thanks

Also anyone here ditch an HR20 in favor of FIOS? Thoughts?

One other missing feature it seems is the RF remote...

Yes, but the same channel would be outputted in each connection.

kes601

Thanks. The Verizon tech support guys could not confirm this. I gather you have tried it and there is no HDCP limitation by default?

Any idea on the RF remote?

The HR 20 comes with a dual IR/RF remote standard. That is a key sticking point for me. I need the RF feature of the remote since the box is not line of sight in the current install.

kes601

Thanks. The Verizon tech support guys could not confirm this. I gather you have tried it and there is no HDCP limitation by default?

Any idea on the RF remote?

The HR 20 comes with a dual IR/RF remote standard. That is a key sticking point for me. I need the RF feature of the remote since the box is not line of sight in the current install.


No RF remote, sorry :(

Are you saying there is no playlist? How do you locate your saved shows?

OR are you saying you'd like to be able to cue up multiple shows to play in a row? That would actually ne beat.
Yes, I'd like to cue up multiple shows so I could put a couple shows on for my kids when I leave for work so the person taking care of them can sleep a little longer.

when you go to the options for a recorded program, it's called "protect". At least I think this is what you're talking about.?...
Yes I see the protect, but is there a way to set it so certain shows are labelled protected when you record them or do you have to do it after it's recorded? Some shows are important to me that they aren't deleted if I run out of space, but others I don't care about.


I have a few other gripes after using the system a little longer. 2 are annoyances and 2 are bugs:
The page up and page down do not appear to work when you're in the list of your recorded programs.
When you finish watching a recorded program, the old guide gave you the option to delete it. Now it goes back the first item in the list so you have to go find the show again.
Although the menu has the option to set the amount of time you want to use for skip or go back, it doesn't use the value. I have it set to 30 seconds for skip and 10 to go back, but it still uses 30 to go back.
I have a setting for some shows that says to save on 2 of that particular show. It's recording more than the 2 shows that I want.

I could not see if this is in the thread but here goes:

Does the highest end box - the multimedia DVR or plain HD DVR from Verizon support dual (that is simultaneous) HD output?

For example - I am looking to switch from D* and the current HR20 DVR
supports output in HD from the COMPONENT and HDMI connections at the same time.

I have two TV's in a large area and need this feature.

Thanks

Also anyone here ditch an HR20 in favor of FIOS? Thoughts?

One other missing feature it seems is the RF remote...


I recently left DirecTv and went with FIOS after moving to my current house; I was a DTV customer for 6 years, and I enjoyed the service for the most part (Cox Cable in Fairfax County, VA truly is the worst).

I had the HR20, and I was getting frustrated with the software updates that seemed to fix some problems, but would cause other problems later on (audio drops on clear days, pixelation problems, loss of signal, etc.), and the 5-10 minute process of resetting the machine for each problem was really starting to get old. Ultimately, the offer that Verizon made for the full FIOS TV / Internet / Phone package was hard to beat, and lots of folks in my neighborhood had great experiences over the past year with FIOS. Once I saw the quality of the HD picture with FIOS compared to DTV, I was sold.

I'm not looking for a giant list of features for an HD-DVR, I just want to record some stuff and watch it later - that's all. Keep it simple (that's why, in my opnion, the TiVO recorders and software seemed to win over lots of people).

New to the thread (and FIOS TV), so aplogies if this is already discussed elsewhere....


Is there any way to page up and down in the channel guide screen, instead of moving only one line at a time with the up/down arrows?

I don't have the upgraded menu/guide setup yet - I should get the download later this month, I guess...

New to the thread (and FIOS TV), so aplogies if this is already discussed elsewhere....


Is there any way to page up and down in the channel guide screen, instead of moving only one line at a time with the up/down arrows?

I don't have the upgraded menu/guide setup yet - I should get the download later this month, I guess...

Not w/the old guide and FiOS remote. The new guide does support it, and a universal remote, like one by Harmony, will allow you to page up/down with the old guide.

New to the thread (and FIOS TV), so aplogies if this is already discussed elsewhere....


Is there any way to page up and down in the channel guide screen, instead of moving only one line at a time with the up/down arrows?

I don't have the upgraded menu/guide setup yet - I should get the download later this month, I guess...As noted above, you have two options:

1) Use a universal remote so you get page +/- and day +/- with the current guide, or

2) Wait two weeks for the new guide, where the channel +/- buttons double as page +/- (as on Tivo) and the skip buttons double as day +/-.

Anyone know when the new guide will come to southern New Jersey? I had a new installation last week, and have the "old" guide.

kes601 & bfdtv:

Thanks to you both - looks like I'll wait for the new guide to download.....

Ok aesthetically the new guide is much better, and it seems more responsive, but I have some gripes. The first is that, when stopping a show at the end. or when it stops automatically, it doesn't give you the option to delete the program. This ANNOYS ME GREATLY. EVERY other DVR I've ever used on any provider had this! Is there any way to turn this on? Also, I have a standing scheduled recording for So You Think You Can Dance and I happened to look at it tonight a few minutes after the show started, and noticed that it was 0 secs. The details said it was an invalid recording when I tried to play it! I tried stopping the recording but the guide said it was recording even though the recording was invalid. I then tried to cancel the recording and start it recording, it wouldn't respond to that. I pulled the plug thinking maybe when it powered back on it'd reset and start recording, then it was sowing a "request pending" or something at the bottom and it still wasn't recording!!!! I ended up setting it to record on the Fox HD channel but this is infuriating!!! I also noticed that in the channel guide it doesn't like to go down, unless I go up first, then it will allow me to arrow down. This thing appears to have BUGS and I'm a bit concerned. Some are annoyances but if it starts missing my recordings, that's a different story entirely and is completely unacceptable!!! Anyone else with the new guide see these 3 problems?
Tom

Ok aesthetically the new guide is much better, and it seems more responsive, but I have some gripes. The first is that, when stopping a show at the end. or when it stops automatically, it doesn't give you the option to delete the program. This ANNOYS ME GREATLY. EVERY other DVR I've ever used on any provider had this! Is there any way to turn this on? Also, I have a standing scheduled recording for So You Think You Can Dance and I happened to look at it tonight a few minutes after the show started, and noticed that it was 0 secs. The details said it was an invalid recording when I tried to play it! I tried stopping the recording but the guide said it was recording even though the recording was invalid. I then tried to cancel the recording and start it recording, it wouldn't respond to that. I pulled the plug thinking maybe when it powered back on it'd reset and start recording, then it was sowing a "request pending" or something at the bottom and it still wasn't recording!!!! I ended up setting it to record on the Fox HD channel but this is infuriating!!! I also noticed that in the channel guide it doesn't like to go down, unless I go up first, then it will allow me to arrow down. This thing appears to have BUGS and I'm a bit concerned. Some are annoyances but if it starts missing my recordings, that's a different story entirely and is completely unacceptable!!! Anyone else with the new guide see these 3 problems?
Tom

I have not seen the down/up problem, but the others...yes. There is no way to fix them unfortunately.

Ok aesthetically the new guide is much better, and it seems more responsive, but I have some gripes. The first is that, when stopping a show at the end. or when it stops automatically, it doesn't give you the option to delete the program. This ANNOYS ME GREATLY. EVERY other DVR I've ever used on any provider had this! Is there any way to turn this on?
Tom

Unless that's a *feature* of the new guide, then you must be doing something weird.

I still have the old guide (apparently until next week) and it alway's gives me the option to delete the show once you hit stop (or the FiOS button), or the recording ends. The only time this does not happen is when you hit stop while the program is still recording.

Verizon Fios in Montclair, NJ. Trying to access channel 801 (WPIX HD) from guide or direct input of digits. Only way I can get to it is by going to channel 11, selecting other showings of program and then choosing channel 801 from that list. I do this to watch Mets games. Is anyone getting channel 801 on their guide in NYC area?

Thanks

I guess one possible side effect of the guide update may be that my wife will give the green light for moving up to a home media PC. Won't take too much sucking to shake her off of the "nearly free" DVR. :)

Unless that's a *feature* of the new guide, then you must be doing something weird.

I still have the old guide (apparently until next week) and it alway's gives me the option to delete the show once you hit stop (or the FiOS button), or the recording ends. The only time this does not happen is when you hit stop while the program is still recording.

Trust me I'm not doing anything weird, it's a "feature" of the new guide. UTTERLY REDICULOUS. I had the old guide for about a week and yes, it did let me delete when I stopped or the end of the show was reached. OH NO not the new one. Believe me you'll see! Even if they made it an OPTION, I almost wish MOST of the features they have implemented were options, so you could tailor it the way you wanted, not the crappy jam it down your throat changes they appear to have implemented.
Tom

Hello Kids,

It's been a few months since I posted here.
I just hung up with Tech Support and they said the new firmware scheduled for Ny on 8/9 will be done tonight around 3am 8/15

The Million dollar question is Does the new firmware support External Hard Drive Storage???????????

They said there are newer boxes coming down in a few months with larger drives for addittional cost

Hello Kids,

It's been a few months since I posted here.
I just hung up with Tech Support and they said the new firmware scheduled for Ny on 8/9 will be done tonight around 3am 8/15

The Million dollar question is Does the new firmware support External Hard Drive Storage???????????

They said there are newer boxes coming down in a few months with larger drives for addittional cost

The answer is no and it actually holds less programming, not sure why but the max is around 40 hrs of SD now.

Ok aesthetically the new guide is much better, and it seems more responsive, but I have some gripes. The first is that, when stopping a show at the end. or when it stops automatically, it doesn't give you the option to delete the program. This ANNOYS ME GREATLY.


How do you delete the program once it gets to the end? What options appear when the recording stops? I don't get it.....

How do you delete the program once it gets to the end? What options appear when the recording stops? I don't get it.....

No option, you get dumped back to the first item in your recorded list.

No option, you get dumped back to the first item in your recorded list.

Then what? Scroll back down to the program, highlight it, and then delete it?


I wish they would spend more time in planning BEFORE they release this kind of BS!! I have used every dvr except dish and have never heard of anything so RIDICULOUS!!

I only hope they move quickly to fix these "bugs". (if you can call missing basic dvr functions "bugs".)

Very weak....

Come on V* - you can do better.

Then what? Scroll back down to the program, highlight it, and then delete it?


I wish they would spend more time in planning BEFORE they release this kind of BS!! I have used every dvr except dish and have never heard of anything so RIDICULOUS!!

I only hope they move quickly to fix these "bugs". (if you can call missing basic dvr functions "bugs".)

Very weak....

Come on V* - you can do better.

Yep.

Then what? Scroll back down to the program, highlight it, and then delete it?


I wish they would spend more time in planning BEFORE they release this kind of BS!! I have used every dvr except dish and have never heard of anything so RIDICULOUS!!

I only hope they move quickly to fix these "bugs". (if you can call missing basic dvr functions "bugs".)

Very weak....

Come on V* - you can do better.

You got it, scroll down, select show, select Delete, CONFIRM to delete (default is NO so it's ANOTHER step!). You said exactly what I did, REDICULOUS! HOW this made it past QA/UAT I have absolutely NO idea, FIRST thing my wife and I noticed we were like WHAT THE F&@%! They did such nice things with the aesthetics they borked some of the basic functionality!!!
Tom

Ok this one's even better. I LOVE how when I'm watching a PRERECORDED show, if there's a scheduled recording coming up it comes up and ASKS ME IF I WANT TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL! I don't hit anything and after a minute or two the message goes away and I think everything's fine, THEN I notice that when I pause it thinks I'm watching something COMPLETELY different than the show I'm starting, and it's showing blue for SD instead of red for HD which is what the show actually is. THIS THING HAS BUGS PEOPLE! Verizon, WHY OH WHY did this make it through your testing! DO NOT TELL ME this went through thorough testing.
Tom

OK so it looks like it's a small world. It appears that, when watching a prerecorded show that the tuner is still on the channel of, and when you see that message, if you don't tell it to change channels THAT is when you get the 0sec invalid recording. I haven't confirmed that it works if you say yes to the change channel message but I'm hoping that's the case. Someone else confirm for me!
Tom

I just confirmed it myself, that's the bug. If you're watching a recorded show and the tuner is on the same channel which you recorded, and you don't select YES when it asks you to change tuners, it ends up in a goofy state where first, it won't record the show you want recorded, and second it thinks it's watching live TV even though you are watching a prerecorded show. GHEY.
Tom

Ok aesthetically the new guide is much better, and it seems more responsive, but I have some gripes. The first is that, when stopping a show at the end. or when it stops automatically, it doesn't give you the option to delete the program. This ANNOYS ME GREATLY. EVERY other DVR I've ever used on any provider had this! Is there any way to turn this on? Also, I have a standing scheduled recording for So You Think You Can Dance and I happened to look at it tonight a few minutes after the show started, and noticed that it was 0 secs. The details said it was an invalid recording when I tried to play it! I tried stopping the recording but the guide said it was recording even though the recording was invalid. I then tried to cancel the recording and start it recording, it wouldn't respond to that. I pulled the plug thinking maybe when it powered back on it'd reset and start recording, then it was sowing a "request pending" or something at the bottom and it still wasn't recording!!!! I ended up setting it to record on the Fox HD channel but this is infuriating!!! I also noticed that in the channel guide it doesn't like to go down, unless I go up first, then it will allow me to arrow down. This thing appears to have BUGS and I'm a bit concerned. Some are annoyances but if it starts missing my recordings, that's a different story entirely and is completely unacceptable!!! Anyone else with the new guide see these 3 problems?
Tom
agreed on the deletion issue you brought up. total pain in the arse. hopefully they'll address this.

about a week after I received the new guide, I experienced the *same* issue you are having. I received the error "processing request" when I tried to record a program whether manually or via the season pass thingy...sorry, I'm an old tivo guy, but you get my point. after two calls to fios support (which I'm still impressed with), they were unable to fix the problem and sent a tech out to replace the dvr.

my biggest gripe consists with the tv listing guide. in the menu I setup the channels I receive and the favorites of those channels. when I hit the guide button every channel will show up...even hbo, skinemax, etc and I don't subscribe to them and were removed from the channels I receive menu.
fine. I can deal with this. I changed my harmony remote to change the "guide" button to "favorites". when I hit my favorites button the guide appears, but it's scrolled all the way up to the top of the channel list (starting with channel 1) even though I'm not currently watching or recording anything on that channel. at this point I can't even type in "800" to get to my HD channels; I have to scroll all the way down. on top of that it doesn't even show all my channels! the issue isn't with the dvr since the same thing happened on the one that was replaced.

also, it's not as responsive as the old guide, but not exactly unacceptable.

sure, the new guide is aesthetically pleasing, but I'd rather have the old one back since it worked.

has anyone else had the same tv listing problem I've had?
thanks in advance.

agreed on the deletion issue you brought up. total pain in the arse. hopefully they'll address this.

about a week after I received the new guide, I experienced the *same* issue you are having. I received the error "processing request" when I tried to record a program whether manually or via the season pass thingy...sorry, I'm an old tivo guy, but you get my point. after two calls to fios support (which I'm still impressed with), they were unable to fix the problem and sent a tech out to replace the dvr.

my biggest gripe consists with the tv listing guide. in the menu I setup the channels I receive and the favorites of those channels. when I hit the guide button every channel will show up...even hbo, skinemax, etc and I don't subscribe to them and were removed from the channels I receive menu.
fine. I can deal with this. I changed my harmony remote to change the "guide" button to "favorites". when I hit my favorites button the guide appears, but it's scrolled all the way up to the top of the channel list (starting with channel 1) even though I'm not currently watching or recording anything on that channel. at this point I can't even type in "800" to get to my HD channels; I have to scroll all the way down. on top of that it doesn't even show all my channels! the issue isn't with the dvr since the same thing happened on the one that was replaced.

also, it's not as responsive as the old guide, but not exactly unacceptable.

sure, the new guide is aesthetically pleasing, but I'd rather have the old one back since it worked.

has anyone else had the same tv listing problem I've had?
thanks in advance.

I haven't customized much yet so I can't comment on your bug. All I can say is that swapping your DVR will probably not fix the problem you saw before. I believe it's a bug in the software, relating to when watching a prerecorded show while the tuner is still on that channel and it tries to record something with that tuner on a different channel. Rather than just changing the channel it apparently thinks that you are watching live TV rather than a prerecorded show, and asks you if it should change the channel. If you don't select YES to this (it's not the default) it changes the info at the bottom of the screen of what you are watching to what's live, even though you are still watching the prerecorded show! In addition, the 0sec invalid recording will appear in your DVR as if it couldn't change the channel. If you stop watching the prerecorded show, amazingly enough it's actually on the right channel for what it should have been recording! This is nuts to me, and I'm guessing it can be replicated. If it can, hopefully Verizon can address it. Someone else try it and post the results here please!
Tom

Note Verizon is producing a new guide build -- fixing issues reported -- almost every other week. Customers will receive a handful of updates to the new software before the year is out. If you've already received the new guide, you'll probably get an update within the next 3-4 weeks.

If there's something about the new guide you don't like, now is the time to call and have your feedback heard. You can also send any problems you have directly to Verizon using this forum (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzdirect).

New guide this AM in Reston, VA - haven't had a chance to play around with it.

New guide deployed this morning in Silver Spring, MD.
I took a quick glance around, to verify tht my recordings were intact. (Thankfully, they all were fine).
They changed the numbre of episodes you can save - max is now 5 (or you can choose to save all recordings). I noticed that you can now adjust the skip forward and backward. there are a few options, but I'll stick with 30 seconds forward, 10 seconds back.
Strangely, the DVR showed 31% full last night (before the updrade). Now it reports approximately 21 SD hours used, 1 HD hour used, 22 SD hours available. I'm wondering what it thinks I have in HD, since I never record in HD (I don't have an HDTV, so what's the point?).

Got the new IMG here in Sterling, VA last night. Release 1.03, Build 03.40.

First reactions: all recorded DVR programs are shown, but have not confirmed this except by playing one recording for a few seconds. Last night I had around 70% used, this morning it shows total hours used for SD and HD, but only a few hours of SD or ~ 1 hour of HD of free space left. Given that 1 hour of HD recording varies between 3% and 6% in the old guide, depending on the channel and material, showing hours remaining for HD is never going to be more than a wild ass guess. I hope they restore a % used & remaining option in a future update.

Stepping through the options, I do not see any menu controls for setting how many minutes to record before and after a scheduled program. It was wired to 1 minute before and after in the old guide, IIRC. Surely this would be a option they would have added to the new IMG?

Bug: the update blew away my closed caption settings. It left the captions on, but reset the captioning to the default block text with black background. Fortunately, because I had read this on the net, I was able to access the setup menu by turning the box off, press Select, then press Menu. I then reset my caption settings to small text, transparent background to make them take up less of the screen.

The guide shows HDNet playing Dan Rather Reports all day long until midnight. Probably a glitch in the guide data, which is nothing new, than in the IMG.

Besides the prettier looking screen, what new features do I get with the IMG? Presumably lays the foundation for HD VOD and better search functions, but call me unimpressed.

Note Verizon is producing a new guide build -- fixing issues reported -- almost every other week. Customers will receive a handful of updates to the new software before the year is out. If you've already received the new guide, you'll probably get an update within the next 3-4 weeks.

If there's something about the new guide you don't like, now is the time to call and have your feedback heard. You can also send any problems you have directly to Verizon using this forum (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzdirect).



OR CALL 1-888-811-1371

There is no hold time. Let them know how you feel.

I am VERY concerned about reports of lost/degraded recording space with the new IMG! My primary DVR is currently at 70% with a couple of movies and several Planet Earths waiting for viewing, and reports above seem to indicate that unless I watch some stuff quickly (before next week's scheduled update here in TX) I may find out I have no space left to record anything.

Turning on the eSATA port would be a nice compromise, of course, but I am not expecting that to happen.

OR CALL 1-888-811-1371

There is no hold time. Let them know how you feel.

So I just called. Lemme tell you how FUN it is to explain an obvious bug in a DVR system to someone who has NEVER HAD A DVR BEFORE! HOW can they POSSIBLY have someone answering these calls who doesn't have one, nor has EVER had a DVR before! I'm simply astounded! So right now I'm on hold, I think she's trying to type up what I just told her as far as the bugs I'm seeing... ARGGGGG!!! Now she just asked information about the TV I'm using, I explained that I have 2 DVR's and they both do this. I'm beyond words. I figured they'd just forward the information on as bugs with their DVR system, which they obviously are. I sure hope they update this soon, my wife is FUMING right now because the DVR doesn't work the way she likes. OH GREAT now they are transferring me to tech support how loverly. Maybe someone there has seen a DVR before. I have a feeling that I'm about to lose an hour of my life that I'll never get back...
Tom

I am VERY concerned about reports of lost/degraded recording space with the new IMG! My primary DVR is currently at 70% with a couple of movies and several Planet Earths waiting for viewing, and reports above seem to indicate that unless I watch some stuff quickly (before next week's scheduled update here in TX) I may find out I have no space left to record anything.

Turning on the eSATA port would be a nice compromise, of course, but I am not expecting that to happen.

When I got the upgrade it showed my DVR as nearly full and it had maybe 3 shows on it, none of which were HD. I don't know how but I think something gets goofed up when they upgrade the IMG. After a few days it seemed to fix itself but I'm not sure what might have caused that, if it was just dumb luck or if it was my deleting old shows and them getting replaced...
Tom

Ok tech support just confirmed that they do know about the 2 bugs I mentioned (No delete option after watching a show and goofy tuner behavior when watching prerecorded show on the same channel that tuner is on). Supposedly they are doing weekly fixes and hopefully they will fix this soon...
Tom

I am VERY concerned about reports of lost/degraded recording space with the new IMG! My primary DVR is currently at 70% with a couple of movies and several Planet Earths waiting for viewing, and reports above seem to indicate that unless I watch some stuff quickly (before next week's scheduled update here in TX) I may find out I have no space left to record anything.



you have a right to be concerned.

got the IMG in Maryland this morning. one of my DVRs lost all recordings. apparently the IMG eats up a bunch of the hard drive to the point where ~100 hours of recording time available turns into ~40 or 50 hours. hopefully there's a fix for this ASAP.

you have a right to be concerned.

got the IMG in Maryland this morning. one of my DVRs lost all recordings. apparently the IMG eats up a bunch of the hard drive to the point where ~100 hours of recording time available turns into ~40 or 50 hours. hopefully there's a fix for this ASAP.
Are you guys basing your statements on actual experience (i.e. what gets deleted) or what the capacity screen says? The capacity screen may not be correct.

Verizon increased the buffer time with the new guide software, and may have allocated space for a second buffer, so some loss is to be expected, but it shouldn't be anything like what members are describing.

Can someone tell me how to record a season pass with the new guide? I want to record a pass knowing only the name of the show. It has always been possible to spell the name, and then get a season pass, but I can't figure out how to get that to work with the new guide.

Can someone tell me how to record a season pass with the new guide? I want to record a pass knowing only the name of the show. It has always been possible to spell the name, and then get a season pass, but I can't figure out how to get that to work with the new guide.

Menu
Search
Keyword
Put in title of show
Go to search results
Keep going until you get to an individual episode
Record Series

I just did this for NCIS.

Are you guys basing your statements on actual experience (i.e. what gets deleted) or what the capacity screen says? The capacity screen may not be correct.


The post right above yours looks like actual experience to me:


got the IMG in Maryland this morning. one of my DVRs lost all recordings.

Where does the new DVR menu show the percentage full?
Oh never mind.. found it, a separate screen!! :rolleyes:
But no percentages.

wow, like others here, I'm pretty thoroughly disappointed with the new guide. They've made a few cosmetic fixes and upgrades at the loss of some major functionality. the page up/down isn't that important to me, for sure.

in addition to the not being able to delete shows at the end of watching them, the titles in general seem to be gone from the programs, only the date and program description show up.

when I hit my favorites on the remote (how I did everything in the past) it takes me to five channels into the top of my favorites, regardless of the current channel. Hitting my favorites a second time takes me to the current channel, but in the full guide with all the channels.

the my favorites includes the english and spanish channel numbers deleting/adding does it to both, I can't get them to be removed of the 500 level channels without losing the lower numbered channel as well.

it seems to always cut off a channel or two in the favorites list, frequently it'll stop at HDNet although my favorites go all the way to the end of the HD channels.

there are other minor things I've noticed, I still can't believe how untested this seems, they've really blown this, IMO.

After playing with the new guide for a couple of hours, here are some of my gripes and what I've figured out so far (FYI, I have the Scientific Atlanta remote and not the Philips one, so your experience may vary):

1) You can delete a recording without getting dumped to the list of saved programs and having to re-navigate to delete it. It's a bit hokey, but instead of hitting stop, hit Info twice. The second button press gets you to a screen that allows you to stop, play from beginning, delete, or protect the recording.

2) Dual buffering works to some extent. I recall someone posting that they got it to work but I managed to come up with a procedure that works for me, which I posted over on dslreports. Since I can't post links yet, here is the text.

Tune to a channel (ch1) and hit the record button.
Switch to another channel (ch2).
Hit Last to go back to ch1.
Hit Live to activate the buffer. You can now rewind.
Hit Last to go back to ch2.
Hit Live to activate the buffer. You can now rewind.
Repeat Last/Live as desired.

The one thing that doesn't "work" is that you aren't returned to the same point where you left off. Last/Live always returns you to the end of the buffer.

Gripes (so far)
1) I have the switched power outlet set to turn off when the box is turned off, but it doesn't do that anymore. The TV always gets juice. Someone else had the same complaint.

2) Just the channel number is shown on the LED display while playing a recording that is still in progress. Once the recording completes, it switches over to "Play". Not a big deal, but understandable once you figure out that the dual buffer works.

3) Along the same line as 2), the status bar display for playback of an in progress recording is the same as that of live video. Only after the recording completes does it start showing elapsed/remaining time. Again, not a big deal given dual buffering.

4) Hitting play doesn't show the status bar. I have to hit select to see it.

5) Can't get closed captioning to work. I have the DVR connected a standard def TV through an S-Video cable.

6) Cell Phone predictive search is odd. Rather than showing predicted letters or words the search box only shows numbers, though the search results are correct.

Stuff I Like (so far)
1) The search function rocks! You can select an actor and it will list all results. From there you can navigate to other actors or shows. Very cool way to play six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Menu
Search
Keyword
Put in title of show
Go to search results
Keep going until you get to an individual episode
Record Series

I just did this for NCIS.

This is strange. I have two DVRs and neither gives that option. When I get to an individual episode the choices are:

Add Bookmark
Watch Now
Back
Exit

Could Virozon have given me a different version of the update? Did it not download properly? I anticipate several hours on the phone with a Verizon "expert."

Menu
Search
Keyword
Put in title of show
Go to search results
Keep going until you get to an individual episode
Record Series

I just did this for NCIS.

Well this is strange. I went back and tried again, with the program you mentioned (NCIS), and it worked just as you said. Then I tried a few more, and they worked. So I went back to the program I wanted, Pardon the Interruption, and it didn't work! I would be interested in finding out if others can get a series pass set up for Pardon the Interruption. Maybe there is some problem with the guide listing for that program.

Well this is strange. I went back and tried again, with the program you mentioned (NCIS), and it worked just as you said. Then I tried a few more, and they worked. So I went back to the program I wanted, Pardon the Interruption, and it didn't work! I would be interested in finding out if others can get a series pass set up for Pardon the Interruption. Maybe there is some problem with the guide listing for that program.

I think I heard there is some issue with ESPNHD...somewhere back in this thread

Hi all I just had verizon tv added to my existing verizon internet account now that its available in my town. I have the HD package and as a result bought 2 new lcd phillips tvs .
The issue i am having with the motorola box is that the verizon fios tech was able to get the menus off the stb to display just once on my TV. We set up the picture for the 4:3 over ride, but now neither I nor he was able to get the menu to display .
I believe (its been only 3 days since install) the way to get the menus up is to power off the fios box (motorola) and leave the tv on . Then press down the menu button on the box which will in theory bring up the menu option for configuring the box . Seems like a simple request ? The Fios guy said on earlier version that menu could be displayed at will , but for some reason its not happening now - any tips or tricks/ workarounds or best practises?
thanks
i can't stand seeing the 4;3 when i specifically specify widescreen format on the tv remote - driving me nuts

After playing with the new guide for a couple of hours, here are some of my gripes and what I've figured out so far (FYI, I have the Scientific Atlanta remote and not the Philips one, so your experience may vary):

1) You can delete a recording without getting dumped to the list of saved programs and having to re-navigate to delete it. It's a bit hokey, but instead of hitting stop, hit Info twice. The second button press gets you to a screen that allows you to stop, play from beginning, delete, or protect the recording.

.
Other People have mentioned that with the "info" button delete method you describe, the %time remaining on the disk does not update or update correctly ...
you may want to check that ....

So I just called.

:
:
:
:
OH GREAT now they are transferring me to tech support how loverly. Maybe someone there has seen a DVR before. I have a feeling that I'm about to lose an hour of my life that I'll never get back...
Tom

It is a day after your post so I hope you did not beat the dog after you got off the phone :D

I break into a cold sweat if I am told that I have to call Customer Service for anything other than my Mortgage or Credit Card company.

The worst is what you are trying to do - talk to tech support for help with a device with a Computer in it.
I take that back - the worst is tech support for a Computer based device with someone in another country where you can not understand what they are saying.

Outsourcing sucks!

Hi all I just had verizon tv added to my existing verizon internet account now that its available in my town. I have the HD package and as a result bought 2 new lcd phillips tvs .
The issue i am having with the motorola box is that the verizon fios tech was able to get the menus off the stb to display just once on my TV. We set up the picture for the 4:3 over ride, but now neither I nor he was able to get the menu to display .
I believe (its been only 3 days since install) the way to get the menus up is to power off the fios box (motorola) and leave the tv on . Then press down the menu button on the box which will in theory bring up the menu option for configuring the box . Seems like a simple request ? The Fios guy said on earlier version that menu could be displayed at will , but for some reason its not happening now - any tips or tricks/ workarounds or best practises?
thanks
i can't stand seeing the 4;3 when i specifically specify widescreen format on the tv remote - driving me nutsWith the older software, you just press the power button to turn off the box and then press the menu button within a few seconds.

The new guide moves (copies) many of the display options to the main UI under Options. If you want to see the old options, unplug the box briefly, power it on, power it off, then press menu.

The issue i am having with the motorola box is that the verizon fios tech was able to get the menus off the stb to display just once on my TV. We set up the picture for the 4:3 over ride, but now neither I nor he was able to get the menu to display .
I believe (its been only 3 days since install) the way to get the menus up is to power off the fios box (motorola) and leave the tv on . Then press down the menu button on the box which will in theory bring up the menu option for configuring the box . Seems like a simple request ? The Fios guy said on earlier version that menu could be displayed at will , but for some reason its not happening now - any tips or tricks/ workarounds or best practises?
Confirmed issue here in Northern VA as well. Can no longer access the "hidden menu" by powering off and pressing MENU (either on the remote or STB). Tried pressing it quickly, holding down, etc. and no dice. It used to come right up. Anyone know a new shortcut to bring up the hidden settings menu?

I'll add another gripe about the new Interactive Media Guide: they have gotten rid of the "keep until" option for series recordings. It seems there's no longer a way to do "keep until I delete," which means new recordings will always overwrite old ones unless you manually go in and protect each one. For updates like this I can understand reorganizing features, but they shouldn't be removing useful functionality. VZN had better start pushing out regular updates to get the new IMG in shape.

It is a day after your post so I hope you did not beat the dog after you got off the phone :D

I break into a cold sweat if I am told that I have to call Customer Service for anything other than my Mortgage or Credit Card company.

The worst is what you are trying to do - talk to tech support for help with a device with a Computer in it.
I take that back - the worst is tech support for a Computer based device with someone in another country where you can not understand what they are saying.

Outsourcing sucks!

Nope I thought I posted again, anyway they confirmed that my gripes are both known issues that they are working on addressing. Neither of the people I spoke to was offshore I don't think but I completely know what you mean. Being a computer engineer myself I DREAD having to call support, I almost always just ask for their second tier support right away to save time.
Tom

1) You can delete a recording without getting dumped to the list of saved programs and having to re-navigate to delete it. It's a bit hokey, but instead of hitting stop, hit Info twice. The second button press gets you to a screen that allows you to stop, play from beginning, delete, or protect the recording.Other People have mentioned that with the "info" button delete method you describe, the %time remaining on the disk does not update or update correctly ...
you may want to check that ....NoVA / DC area
Release: 1.0.3
Build number: 03.40

I used the INFO -> INFO -> DELETE method of deleting a few shows last night. Didn't seem to cause any problems. Hours remaining always (eventually) went up accordingly / appropriately. No 0 hrs recordings or unplayable recordings in my playlist or anything too terribly wacky that others have reported. This is of course just one night of playing around but ...

One goofy thing seems to be that if you do INFO -> INFO -> DELETE ... well, you're still playing the deleted show. Press EXIT and ... there's the show you deleted still playing. Easy to see how the software might get a bit 'confused' at that point and not reclaim space immediately or whatever ...

Also, based on various comments / observations ... I don't think the STATUS -> Hours recorded / hours remaining is quite the 100% accurate / bug free / immediate thing people would like it to be. Hours recorded / hours remaining when you've got SD / HD content, different bit rates, a buffer that may or may not be in use, partial blocks, etc. etc. etc. and making that all add up to a nice consistant number ... well, it's not trivial and it's easy to see where that status screen may not be a 100% accurate view of what's going on.

Who knows ... maybe we've got a more recent patched version that addresses some of the issues others have reported.

But anyway, untill I notice a problem or someone comes up with a specific, reproduceable issue ...

I'm going to use INFO -> INFO -> DELETE. Hasn't caused me any problems (yet), and hunting around in the list is way too much of a PITA (not to mention error prone ... which one of those 5 episodes of Myth Busters was I watching again?). YMMV of course.

On the DVR status (or whatever name they've given it) on the "great new" IMG is anyone else showing many hours of SD Content? Mine shows I have over nine hours, however, I only have one half hour show recorded.

After one day of dealing with this new IMG, I've gone from a HUGE FIOS FAN to a HUGE FIOS HATER!!!

With the older software, you just press the power button to turn off the box and then press the menu button within a few seconds.

The new guide moves (copies) many of the display options to the main UI under Options. If you want to see the old options, unplug the box briefly, power it on, power it off, then press menu.Confirmed issue here in Northern VA as well. Can no longer access the "hidden menu" by powering off and pressing MENU (either on the remote or STB). Tried pressing it quickly, holding down, etc. and no dice. It used to come right up. Anyone know a new shortcut to bring up the hidden settings menu?NoVA / DC area
IMG
Release: 1.0.3
Build number: 03.40

I'm able to get into the old "hidden menu" by:
1) With TV on, turn box off.
2) Press OK on remote (or SELECT on box)
3) Press MENU on remote (or MENU on box)
4) The ole "hidden options" screen should come up

Notes:
- You have to do it fairly quickly after turning box off. Wait too long ... won't come up
- Certain actions by the box can cause it not to come up. For example, if the box is recording something ... won't come up.
- I'm 90% certain it's MENU. If not ... it's OK -> (SOMETHING) ... not at home right now to confirm that SOMETHING = MENU

What I HAVEN'T been able to get to is the old diagnostics screen. Used to be OFF / GUIDE ... or OFF / something ... again, forget the exact combo. But it was the screen with the whole d1, d2, d3, etc. etc. with all kinds of usefull info. Hard drive capacity, encryption status, signal strength, etc. etc. etc.

bfdtv: You have always seemed to speak with a lot of knowledge and insight concerning what Verizon is up to. I don't know if you work for them or not, but it might be a good idea for them to reconsider pushing what appears to be such a flawed offering out much further. A lot of people who are satisfied or even delighted right now will quickly go to looking for other options.

To allow the TV to control aspect ratio:

TV on. Turn STB off, hit menu button. In cable box menu: go to 4/3 overide and select "off". exit. Power STB on. TV should now control aspect automatically if you have chosen auto on set menu. This works on my 6416 (six mos old) and year-old Hitachi RPLCD.

To allow the TV to control aspect ratio:

TV on. Turn STB off, hit menu button. In cable box menu: go to 4/3 overide and select "off". exit. Power STB on. TV should now control aspect automatically if you have chosen auto on set menu. This works on my 6416 (six mos old) and year-old Hitachi RPLCD.

Thanks I can't wait to get home to try out the suggestions. I had the best FIOS guy get tripped up on this last night as he could only get the menu up just once and was stumped there after. I did notice he had to power cycle the STB so maybe his timing was just right per some of the earlier thread to get it to display.

Are there "hidden" settings in the menu ? Seems odd that they would be hidden if they are defined in the Guide as the means to get the best out of your HD TV.
The Fios guy even swapped out my HD recorder box with yet another one still in plastic etc to see if the menu could work. Its very poor design when something old and essential is dropped from a new release and over looked in terms of end user usability.

Thanks for the info this forum is a fantastic source

NoVA / DC area

What I HAVEN'T been able to get to is the old diagnostics screen. Used to be OFF / GUIDE ... or OFF / something ... again, forget the exact combo. But it was the screen with the whole d1, d2, d3, etc. etc. with all kinds of usefull info. Hard drive capacity, encryption status, signal strength, etc. etc. etc.

Try pressing Off / OK / OK

That got me into a screen, not sure if it is the one you are referring to.

I am in Richmond VA and got the new Software last week. I was waiting to see how it was before I got a new Tivo HD. After using it extensively for a week it was horrible. I had most of the before mentioned problems. Deletion problems, storage capacity issues, amongst others. I did find a few ones not mentioned so far. When in the HD channel menu I could page down but not up, also all of my HBO recorded shows now required that I set up parental controls. I never turned them on and it forced me to in order to watch the programs. Anyway I ordered the new Tivo HD with an upgraded hard drive and have left the Fios DVR behind.

I heard from an anonymous source that the reduction in available recorded storage is a real, but temporary phenomenon. For reasons I dont quite understand they have throttled back on the recording capacity until October with the introduction of the IMG. Apparently it will go back to its original capacity in October. I expect that the technicians will be aware of this over the next 48 hours or so.

Please don't ask my why or say "That doesn't make sense". I don't understand it myself. All I know is it is true.

FiOS has had some problems with updating the IPG on DVRs at or near full capacity. A number of customers with DVRs at or near full capacity lost all of their recordings with the update due to partition changes.

I know that FiOS expects to update the IMG at least a handful of times before the end of the year. It's entirely possible that the reduction in recording time is meant to avoid similar problems with updates in the future. Once they've got the IMG software where they want it, they can make that capacity available again.

Try pressing Off / OK / OK

That got me into a screen, not sure if it is the one you are referring to.Yah ... thanks ...

Thinking about it ... I realized that's what it would likely be (and the one combo I didn't try). Will try when I get home.

FiOS has had some problems with updating the IPG on DVRs at or near full capacity. A number of customers with DVRs at or near full capacity lost all of their recordings with the update due to partition changes.

I know that FiOS expects to update the IMG at least a handful of times before the end of the year. It's entirely possible that the reduction in recording time is meant to avoid similar problems with updates in the future. Once they've got the IMG software where they want it, they can make that capacity available again.
That is bad news indeed. In the fall season we are always short on space, it's all we can do to keep it in the 90% full range.

Curious question...

Had Fios installation today and got the DVR box. It has the new IMG and appears to be all up to date.

Quick concern---
- hooked up via HDMI with optical to receiver. Receiver sees a digital signal but gets no sound. Searching this thread appears that there was similar issue over a year ago. Anyone else see anything similar?

Note Verizon is producing a new guide build -- fixing issues reported -- almost every other week. Customers will receive a handful of updates to the new software before the year is out. If you've already received the new guide, you'll probably get an update within the next 3-4 weeks.

If there's something about the new guide you don't like, now is the time to call and have your feedback heard. You can also send any problems you have directly to Verizon using this forum (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzdirect). I called this number to register a complaint about the wacky delete process.

I also complained about a new problem I suspect (but can't prove) was caused by the IMG software upgrade. One of my programs in Series manager inexplicably missed an episode tonight. It has successfully recorded prior episodes, and the next one is on the schedule. But tonight's episode - not recorded.

No other explanation I can see - plenty of hard drive space, less than the 5 eppie limit - I think the software just screwed up. I've recorded tons of shows in SM for 7 months under the old software with nary a hitch.

Anyone else see this?

One of my programs in Series manager inexplicably missed an episode tonight. It has successfully recorded prior episodes, and the next one is on the schedule. But tonight's episode - not recorded.

Anyone else see this?

I had the same problem with the scheduling of Top Chef last night. Everything else appears to be okay.

First , let me say that this post is NOT about copying shows on the 6416 for anything more than trying to figure out a way to handle the small 160 Gbyte disk for personal use.

I have learned a lot recently about this DVR and the latest Guide update proved to me what I had suspected.

The OS and all the features are contained in Firmware on an Eprom on the Mother board. If you boot the 6416 with the internal disk unplugged, the system will function just fine but merely says that you have not subscribed to the DVR service.

ie. You end up with a standard High Def STB .

If you start with a blank disk or a disk with any kind of real File system on it, when you unplug the working disk and plug in the other (in my case, totally brand new and just out of the box) , the firmware will format the disk upon boot up.



I have a Linux 2.6 machine and have hooked the disks to it to study what was on them.

What I have found by plugging the disk into that Linux machine is that 2 paritions are created.
According to 'partimage' the first partition is 2.79 Gbytes in size and the other it makes is 144.12 Gbytes in size.

I am not sure yet where the complete 160 Gbytes are (they do use powers of 10 and not powers of 2 for disk sizing) but I am working on that sinc eI am sure that the large parition is where the actual recorded progarms are.

Linux will complain big time because the partition table has an unknown partition type for both of them so you can not mount the disk and are rather limited in what can be done.
I am convinced that this is part of the overall encryption scheme and I believe that these partitions are basically RAW partitions used to hold the recorded Movies as well as other settings such as Season passes and user defined settings like skip time.

Until I try a test with another 6416 using MY disk, I suspect that the disk has a signature based upon the particular 6416 that it was created in so it is in effect 'married' to that 6416.

All of this prevents one from copying to give to other people and I have NO problem with that as that is NOT my goal.

My idea is to have 2 disks and use them in a round robin fashion so that I can effectively have double the disk capacity.

It would work this way.
When disk one gets 90% full, clone it to another disk and then delete half of the shows on one of the 2 disks and then sawp it out. I think the logic behind this is self explanatory.


I have been really stuck on the darn invalid parittion issue but an idea occurred to me in Linux as a starting point.

I put a blank 160 Gbyte disk in the 6416 and let it boot.
I then made a few recordings and setup a few season passes as well as changes to some user settings.

So here was my big breakthrough:

Using the 'dd' command in Linux, I cloned that disk to another disk. 'dd' does not need the disk mounted so that is why it worked.
When I put the cloned disk back into the 6416 DVR, it came up with everthing intact. The season passes were still there as was the 2 recordings that I had made.


I am watching off of ther cloned disk as I write this.

I know it sounds simple but it is a start at defining a simple strategy for being able to record more than 160 mGbuytes of data.
This was proof of coencept and aI have a wau to go to make this simple. But I will.

As a point of interest, the disk that I cloned from was a 300 Gbyte Sata disk which the 6416 only creates as a 160 Gbyte disk.

If there is no interest in my little project in here , I will not bother to post furthere status as it does take time to type this stuff up .
Of course. I will continue to work out a user friendly workflow for this.

If there is an interest, I will be very happy to keep folks up on my progress. Just letting you know that using the Linux dd command makes a perfect copy of the disk should get th ewheels turning on other lInux folks in here.

I can also desribe how to make a fully functional Linux OS to use for this task on a USB flash memory card so all you have to do is boot your PC from the Flash disk to have Linux running.

I have laid out a Sata Power ad Data switch design (about $15) so I can have two disks sitting in the 6416 and I merely hook up the disk to my Linux box to simplify the whole swapping and cloning part.


It looks like it will be awhile before we get larger disks in our 6416 so I am happy that I am coming up with a way of getting more storage in a logical rather than a physical way.


Joe

Hi.
I tried searching this thread for TiVo use and found nothing.
Sorry if this has been asked before.

Can a TiVo unit be used with Fios like it can with cable, or is Fios 100% proprietary, even down to the moto box? I'd like to use my TiVo when Fios gets rolled out to my city... hopefully.

Thanks.

shane

Tivo works with Fios. A series 2 stand alone Tivo can be used with a Fios set top box. If you have a series 3/TivoHD, cable cards can be installed into the Tivo and a Fios set top box is not required.

Can a TiVo unit be used with Fios like it can with cable, or is Fios 100% proprietary, even down to the moto box? I'd like to use my TiVo when Fios gets rolled out to my city... hopefully.Yes, the $260 TivoHD works great with FiOS. FiOS uses standard Motorola CableCards (which they rent at $2.99).

Before the most recent software update, the TivoHD suffered from intermittent pixelization (about five times per hour). I've seen no pixelization on any channel since the latest software update. Picture quality is as good or slightly better than the Motorola DVR in fixed mode, and noticeably better on my screen in native mode.

I upgraded my TivoHD with a 750Gb drive and plan to add another 500-750Gb eSATA drive later this year.

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/7127/sysinfoic8.jpg
Note the above image reflects a 750Gb drive upgrade.

Joe Q, very interesting read. Keep us updated for sure!

I'm not familiar with the 6416 much at all. Does it use a SATA or IDE Interface? I have done a lot of work on the Xbox and awhile ago there was a project where someone drilled a hole in the case of it and extended the IDE cable so they could hook up drives externally. Next they built an enclosure, had several hard drives on a switch, and at the click of the switch could switch between hard drives. If I remember correctly they got over 1TB with it. Couldn't something like this be adapted for the DVR? Only thing is these machines are rented and I don't think Verizon would be too happy about modification done to the case. ;)

First , let me say that this post is NOT about copying shows on the 6416 for anything more than trying to figure out a way to handle the small 160 Gbyte disk for personal use.

I have learned a lot recently about this DVR and the latest Guide update proved to me what I had suspected.

The OS and all the features are contained in Firmware on an Eprom on the Mother board. If you boot the 6416 with the internal disk unplugged, the system will function just fine but merely says that you have not subscribed to the DVR service.

ie. You end up with a standard High Def STB .

If you start with a blank disk or a disk with any kind of real File system on it, when you unplug the working disk and plug in the other (in my case, totally brand new and just out of the box) , the firmware will format the disk upon boot up.



I have a Linux 2.6 machine and have hooked the disks to it to study what was on them.

What I have found by plugging the disk into that Linux machine is that 2 paritions are created.
According to 'partimage' the first partition is 2.79 Gbytes in size and the other it makes is 144.12 Gbytes in size.

I am not sure yet where the complete 160 Gbytes are (they do use powers of 10 and not powers of 2 for disk sizing) but I am working on that sinc eI am sure that the large parition is where the actual recorded progarms are.

Linux will complain big time because the partition table has an unknown partition type for both of them so you can not mount the disk and are rather limited in what can be done.
I am convinced that this is part of the overall encryption scheme and I believe that these partitions are basically RAW partitions used to hold the recorded Movies as well as other settings such as Season passes and user defined settings like skip time.

Until I try a test with another 6416 using MY disk, I suspect that the disk has a signature based upon the particular 6416 that it was created in so it is in effect 'married' to that 6416.

All of this prevents one from copying to give to other people and I have NO problem with that as that is NOT my goal.

My idea is to have 2 disks and use them in a round robin fashion so that I can effectively have double the disk capacity.

It would work this way.
When disk one gets 90% full, clone it to another disk and then delete half of the shows on one of the 2 disks and then sawp it out. I think the logic behind this is self explanatory.


I have been really stuck on the darn invalid parittion issue but an idea occurred to me in Linux as a starting point.

I put a blank 160 Gbyte disk in the 6416 and let it boot.
I then made a few recordings and setup a few season passes as well as changes to some user settings.

So here was my big breakthrough:

Using the 'dd' command in Linux, I cloned that disk to another disk. 'dd' does not need the disk mounted so that is why it worked.
When I put the cloned disk back into the 6416 DVR, it came up with everthing intact. The season passes were still there as was the 2 recordings that I had made.


I am watching off of ther cloned disk as I write this.

I know it sounds simple but it is a start at defining a simple strategy for being able to record more than 160 mGbuytes of data.
This was proof of coencept and aI have a wau to go to make this simple. But I will.

As a point of interest, the disk that I cloned from was a 300 Gbyte Sata disk which the 6416 only creates as a 160 Gbyte disk.

If there is no interest in my little project in here , I will not bother to post furthere status as it does take time to type this stuff up .
Of course. I will continue to work out a user friendly workflow for this.

If there is an interest, I will be very happy to keep folks up on my progress. Just letting you know that using the Linux dd command makes a perfect copy of the disk should get th ewheels turning on other lInux folks in here.

I can also desribe how to make a fully functional Linux OS to use for this task on a USB flash memory card so all you have to do is boot your PC from the Flash disk to have Linux running.

I have laid out a Sata Power ad Data switch design (about $15) so I can have two disks sitting in the 6416 and I merely hook up the disk to my Linux box to simplify the whole swapping and cloning part.


It looks like it will be awhile before we get larger disks in our 6416 so I am happy that I am coming up with a way of getting more storage in a logical rather than a physical way.


Joe

First of all, I want to thank you for providing us with new, and useful (at least to some people) information.
A few things I was unclear on from your post:
1) When you put a brand-new, blank drive into the DVR, it formatted it, and it worked like the original (minus the stored recordings and schedule)? did you have to do anything more than jsut plug it in and turn on the DVR? How long did it take to get it up and running?
2) If I'm correct in understanding #1, did you try it with a new, larger drive, and see if it would format it to the full size, or limit it to the 160 GB? If so, that's probably the easiest way to get larger recording capacity.
3) is there a way to hook up a second drive inside the unit? How does the unit behave if you put a second (blank) drive in it? Does it format it and set it up to work with the unit? Does it ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist? Does it refuse to start up, or give any errors?

We had gotten earlier reports (not sure how they knew this) that the 160GB limit on the FiOS DVR is locked into the firmware, and that a larger drive will be formatted (i.e. partitioned) the same as a 160GB drive, giving you the same effective recording space.

I am also interested in this saga to extend the FiOS DVR. I am pretty sure there is something in some terms-of-service somewhere about Verizon getting ticked about breaking into your DVR, but I guess that worst thing that could happen is that they will charge you for the box (which apparently costs a lot more than the TiVo HD despite not really having any better or enhanced features).

What I would like to really see if for FiOS to turn on that darned eSATA port. The drop in recording space with the new IMG just makes a bad situation worse, and is likely to force me to an alternative DVR solution.

Confirmed issue here in Northern VA as well. Can no longer access the "hidden menu" by powering off and pressing MENU (either on the remote or STB). Tried pressing it quickly, holding down, etc. and no dice. It used to come right up. Anyone know a new shortcut to bring up the hidden settings menu?

I'll add another gripe about the new Interactive Media Guide: they have gotten rid of the "keep until" option for series recordings. It seems there's no longer a way to do "keep until I delete," which means new recordings will always overwrite old ones unless you manually go in and protect each one. For updates like this I can understand reorganizing features, but they shouldn't be removing useful functionality. VZN had better start pushing out regular updates to get the new IMG in shape.


So armed with some print outs from this forum i went home tried every combo under the sun to get it to work - no luck. I called the FIOS tech who hooked everything up and he said he had indeed heard there is an issue on the HD DVR box only when trying to get the menu up, and there was a service bulletin sent out to the field. At the same time i was on the other line with the FSC and he esculated the issue to a Tier2 with a promise of resolution within 48 hours or atleast a call back with more info. i am glad they confirmed that i was not going mad - i have near blistered fingers from pressing all those combos. Once a method to describe how to on these new boxes is made available I will send an update - however most likely they'll push a patch out to the boxes needing it.

I'm not familiar with the 6416 much at all. Does it use a SATA or IDE Interface? I


:
:Only thing is these machines are rented and I don't think Verizon would be too happy about modification done to the case. ;)

It is a SATA 3 interface.

The worst that would happen is that they would charge me for the box which I have been trying to buy anyway.

First of all, I want to thank you for providing us with new, and useful (at least to some people) information.
A few things I was unclear on from your post:
1) When you put a brand-new, blank drive into the DVR, it formatted it, and it worked like the original (minus the stored recordings and schedule)? did you have to do anything more than jsut plug it in and turn on the DVR? How long did it take to get it up and running?
2) If I'm correct in understanding #1, did you try it with a new, larger drive, and see if it would format it to the full size, or limit it to the 160 GB? If so, that's probably the easiest way to get larger recording capacity.
3) is there a way to hook up a second drive inside the unit? How does the unit behave if you put a second (blank) drive in it? Does it format it and set it up to work with the unit? Does it ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist? Does it refuse to start up, or give any errors?

I wrote that kinda of late so it was going to short on detail.

1) Yes - I put a brand new, just out of the box SATA disk into the DVR.
After I turned it back on, it said that it was 'busy' and after about 10 or 15 minutes, I had a fully operational system that showed 0% disk space used.
When I plugged that disk into my Linux box, I found that the Moto box had created those 2 partitions that I mentioned.


To summarize, I did NOTHING to the disk.
As I said, this confims that unlike the TIVO which has the OS on a boot partition on disk , the OS on the Moto box is in Firmmware and just uses the disk for storing movies and user preferences like season passes.

As an experiment, again using the Linux disk commands, I destroyed the partition table and stuck the disk back into the 6416. Same results that I just described after it was done it's power up/init sequence as described.

2) I stuck a brand new 300 Gbyte Sata disk into the Moto box. Upon reboot and the 10-15 minute init sequence, I had a fully operational system that showed 0% disk space used AND it showed up as a 160 Gbyte disk.

When I put that newly Motorola formatted 300 Gbyte disk into my linux box, I had those same 2 patitions and the same same sizes on it.

If I could somehow get this disk to mount (With an unknown Partition tabel type, Linuz refused to mount it), I was hoping to resize the partition and see what the Moto box did.
That darn partition type is preventing me.




3) There is no way to add a second disk inside the box. The motherboard has a single Sata connector. I Looked carefully where it is attached to the Mboard hoping to spot another set of pins or something that would allow me to hook up another Sata cable. No dice.

We had gotten earlier reports (not sure how they knew this) that the 160GB limit on the FiOS DVR is locked into the firmware, and that a larger drive will be formatted (i.e. partitioned) the same as a 160GB drive, giving you the same effective recording space.

.

I tend not to believe what I read until I can verify it myself.

There is some yahoo on a Canadian Home Theater forum who states emphatically that he hooked the 6416 disk to a Linux PC and that the 6416 has 3 partitions each properly set to Ext2. He even claimed that he could see .ts files on one of the paritions.
That is so totally wrong on two fronts.
1) It is just false data
2) Motorola's disk is from a new series that is being rooled out that do DRM by the disk so that tells me that Motorola at a bare minimum would never have gotten approval for a decice that does not have encrypted data on disk.

I emailed him about this and got an answer that said "well I got this from a guy I knew"
I mention this becaus you will stmble upon that post if you Google upon the correct phrase.
I spent literally over 20 hours of time searching Websites,IRC,Yahoo Groups,the famous Deald**base and Google groups for info on this topic before I decided to open my machine up.


Let's put this 160 Gbyte barrier that I read a zillion psts about every day to bed once and for all:
I can verify with 100%v certainty that if you put a >160 Gbytes disk into the 6416, the Firmware/operating system will format the disk as a 160 Gbyte disk.

I tried exactly this with a 300 Gbyte Sata disk.


It did NOT change wth this Verizon program guide load.

I tend not to believe what I read until I can verify it myself.

There is some yahoo on a Canadian Home Theater forum who states emphatically that he hooked the 6416 disk to a Linux PC and that the 6416 has 3 partitions each properly set to Ext2. He even claimed that he could see .ts files on one of the paritions.
That is so totally wrong on two fronts.
1) It is just false data
2) Motorola's disk is from a new series that is being rooled out that do DRM by the disk so that tells me that Motorola at a bare minimum would never have gotten approval for a decice that does not have encrypted data on disk.

I emailed him about this and got an answer that said "well I got this from a guy I knew"
I mention this becaus you will stmble upon that post if you Google upon the correct phrase.
I spent literally over 20 hours of time searching Websites,IRC,Yahoo Groups,the famous Deald**base and Google groups for info on this topic before I decided to open my machine up.


Let's put this 160 Gbyte barrier that I read a zillion psts about every day to bed once and for all:
I can verify with 100%v certainty that if you put a >160 Gbytes disk into the 6416, the Firmware/operating system will format the disk as a 160 Gbyte disk.

I tried exactly this with a 300 Gbyte Sata disk.


It did NOT change wth this Verizon program guide load.

Joe -
Thanks for the clarification.
Please let us know if you figure out how to stretch that partition and get increased capacity. THAT would be really cool!

Since the new IMG software rolled out to my set-top box, I now have a noticeable (~5 pixels) vertical green bar at the far right of the screen. On the far left side of the screen, the leftmost 2 inches or so of the image is noticeably discolored, also in a vertical band. These flaws only appear with my set-top box resolution set to 1080i, and they appear on both live TV and when playing back recorded shows. The flaws do not appear in 480i/p or 720p mode.

My STB is connected to my TV over HDMI. I didn't have these display issues with the previous IMG software and I don't get them on this TV with other HDMI devices. My TV is a Westinghouse TX42F430S, a 1080p HDTV. I have shows that were recorded with the old IMG software and used to play back with no vertical bands, that now show the display flaws when played back under the new IMG. This points to another bug in the new software.

Has anyone else experienced this issue since the IMG update?

Hi ALL,

In a previous posting I thought I saw 8/16 as the roll out date for Florida. Its now 8/17 and I still have the old program. Is there an updated roll out date for Florida?

Thanks,
Gerry

So armed with some print outs from this forum i went home tried every combo under the sun to get it to work - no luck. I called the FIOS tech who hooked everything up and he said he had indeed heard there is an issue on the HD DVR box only when trying to get the menu up, and there was a service bulletin sent out to the field. At the same time i was on the other line with the FSC and he esculated the issue to a Tier2 with a promise of resolution within 48 hours or atleast a call back with more info. i am glad they confirmed that i was not going mad - i have near blistered fingers from pressing all those combos. Once a method to describe how to on these new boxes is made available I will send an update - however most likely they'll push a patch out to the boxes needing it.

I Have the new img, I powered the box off, hit select, then0
menu, and after a noticeable delay, the user settings menu came up. I got the diag menu by hitting menu twice, after powering off.

Joe -
Thanks for the clarification.
Please let us know if you figure out how to stretch that partition and get increased capacity. THAT would be really cool!

That one does have me stumped so I am putting it aside for a bit.
This is all because Motorola is using that partition in a proprietary way so none of the Partition types are valid so it can NOT be mounted,

I have not even been able to figure out what the partition type value is.
I did find a string in the dump of [partition one that saud "

Until I have that figured out(if ever) , I find that the dual disc workflow is very straightforward and that is very important because my philosophy about my 'down time' for entertainment is that if something is a PITA then I won't do it. This will apply to this DVR project
Just wanted to let folks know that I will not come up with a procedure that drives me or you nuts. it is called KISS.

Here is what I have come up with so far for a workflow:
1) When the disk in the 6416 is close to being full, I clone the disk that is IN the 6416 (call it A) to another disk (call it B)
2) I delete a bunch of stuff from A so it can continue to fill up.(Remember what I delete is still on B so no need to be careful of what gets deleted)
3) When A is close to being filled up, I put B into the 6416 and delete stuff I already watched from A. If you do not get them all, it does not matter since all you are trying to do is free up disk space for further recording
4) When B is close to being filled up, go back to step 1

Subjectively ie. Not measured yet, The reboot time is on the order of about 3 minutes from power on to being able to get a list from the DVR button in order to watch something.
So swapping back and forth is NOT a PITA




I am supposed to be on vacation today and go out in my boat but I have been having too much fun working on this little project. My profession is a SW Engineer at a Defense Company so I guess you could call me a bit of a geek:)

Today, I have been experimenting with ways to make the clone a quicker operation as well as setting up up my HTPC for use as the device to do the cloning, simplifying the ease of disc connection/disconnection as well as making my HTPC dual booting into Linux to execute the dd command.

Long list for a single day and I did not get all the far but I have lots of ideas and did get a few things completed.

The very first whole clone process that I did yesterday took several hours.
However, I was sure that I did not use 'dd' optimally as I was afraid of missing some bits and messing up the encryption scheme so I used a very small blocksize argument.
The idea being that if you use too big a blocksize in the dd command , as you get near the end of the disk, the dd operation will try and grab too much data and quit because it overshot the end of the data.

Seemed to me that unless the disk is 100% full then so what if that happened.

To prove that, I did a clone earlier today using a blocksize of 4096 in the dd command syntax and it only took 45 minutes.

The cloned disk booted just fine on the 6416. All my recordings were there as well as the season passes and anything else I could think of that was user settable and was held on the disk.

Eg. the 16x9/4:3 setting is stored in firmware howevere the recording info and it's metadata is stored on partition 1 of the disk.

See next post for info on that


Next step is to see where the optimal blocksize is for a disk that is 96% full.


I know a lot of you know the answer to this but I am sure this question will come up so while I think of it, here it is:
"Doesn't the clone time depend upon how full the disk is?"

The answer is NO. The Linux 'dd' command merely makes a bit for bit copy of the source to the target device and It has no knowledge of the disk except for it's geometry.
So in the case of our 6416 box, the 'dd' command simply copies 160 Gbytes of ones and zeroes in those 2 partitions.

These posts of mine and your questions/comments/ideas are being saved in Word so I will have this well documented.



If someone who knows Linux is willing to help, here is something you could see if you could figure out.
I am sure there is a way of getting the number (aka the partition id) assigned to the two partitions on the disk but I am stuck on that one.
See if you can figure out how to get that info

If you do not have a Linux machine, You can get the Knoppix Linux ISO and in 5 minutes be able to boot your PC from the CD into a full Debian 2.6 version of Linux. Knoppix makes a ramdisk as it is booting and runs 100% from the CD and Ramdisk so you do not have to worry about it messing up your PC.

You can find it here:
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
Grab the .ISO type and using a tool like Nero, burn the ISO to disc.


My aplogies in advance if parts of this post don't make sense or get a bit 'rambling'
This is a lot to type up and knowing that Linux folks will be reading it, it forces me to be correct in what I say about the OS that will replacing Windows sometime before I retire.

Joe

I did a Linux 'dd' to a file of Partion 1 and 2 so I could poke around in an editor and see if I could make any sense of those 2 partitions.

My theory has been that the small, 2.79 Gbyte partition 1 is used for holding those things that either do not belong in firmware or are too big for the Firmware chip's capacity.

One of those items would be the Metadata about the recordings.

Obviously, this data is not in a human readable form so most of it is just a bunch of 1's and 0's (displayed herein in it's Hex format) but often such things as descptions about a show will have to be in ascii.


I also stumbled upon a string that reapeats in a failry ryhtmic fashion in the data. It is 'PFS' which I am asusming stands for something like 'Proprietary File System"

I am just guessing of course but it is interesting that it shows up so often.


Linux has a command that lets you dump a file in ascii and does a darn good job at doing so.

Take a look at the file I enclosed which is a screen snapshot of a copy/paste from a dump of a small part of Parition 1 that I did:
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/3200/snap1mn7.th.jpg (http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snap1mn7.jpg)


Anything look familiar?

It says "King of the Hill I Never Promsed You a n Organic Garden Peggy takes over the organic garden at Bobby's school, ETC"

This is the desciption that is displayed on my TV when I hit the info button on my Verizon Motorola Remote when I watch this 1/2 hour episode of "The King of the Hill" (no smart a** comments please:) )

Obviously there is one of these for each recording which I believe are stored in Partition2 (see next post).

The non ascii characters would be for such things as pointers to the actual recorded data.

So, now we know at least one or two things that are stored in Partition one of the 160 Gbyte disk.

Next is Partition 2 whre I bel,eve the actual recordings are.

Joe

Since the new IMG software rolled out to my set-top box, I now have a noticeable (~5 pixels) vertical green bar at the far right of the screen. On the far left side of the screen, the leftmost 2 inches or so of the image is noticeably discolored, also in a vertical band. These flaws only appear with my set-top box resolution set to 1080i, and they appear on both live TV and when playing back recorded shows. The flaws do not appear in 480i/p or 720p mode.

My STB is connected to my TV over HDMI. I didn't have these display issues with the previous IMG software and I don't get them on this TV with other HDMI devices. My TV is a Westinghouse TX42F430S, a 1080p HDTV. I have shows that were recorded with the old IMG software and used to play back with no vertical bands, that now show the display flaws when played back under the new IMG. This points to another bug in the new software.

Has anyone else experienced this issue since the IMG update?
I have a similar issue with a Samsung 4061F. See my post here
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11277076&highlight=samsung#post11277076
Other folks in dslreports.com have reported this with Samsung and Sharp 1080p sets... Not much response in this forum on this issue

Well, the long anticipated IMG upgrade (in Northern Virginia) continues to not impress me. Others have noted problems, some of which I've got and others not so much. Some additional items I haven't seen mentioned yet but am wondering if others have experienced the same:

1) The "Play" button on my SA remote is totally inoperative. The only way to play recorded material is to use the "Pause" button - hitting it once to pause, and a second time to play.
2) Fast Forwarding results in random overshooting of the recorded material. Sometimes it's a few seconds, sometimes it's a minute or more. The only way to come out of the FF mode is to hit the Pause button, and again to play. You can't re-enter FF from a paused state without going into play and then selecting FF. I've also seen the counter jump backwards as much as two minutes between the paused and play states.

All in all, this seems to be a half-assed improvement. There's no ability to customize anything - from the confusing (it's not alphabetical, but I don't know what it is) listing of recorded material, the infuriating default of "Search" in DVR mode when all I want to do is review my pre-recorded material, the relocation of the disk utilization indicator to a separate screen so I can't tell how much space I'm freeing up as I delete unwanted material. I could go on and on.....

What's the real hope that Verizon will make substantive changes to this mess when they've: a) advertised the heck out of it and don't want to admit it wasn't really ready for prime time, and b) demonstrated their inability to adequately test the functionality and/or human factors before releasing it to the public?

Joe Q,

To make a faster copy of your disk use the dd_rescue program that is included with Knoppix. You should also make sure that the DMS access is turned on for both drives via the hdparm /dev/hdX command.

Here are the options I use for dd_rescue -B 1b -b 2M -A -v -l /var/dd_rescue.log /dev/hdx (master drive) /dev/hdx (new drive)

This will copy the disk much faster than just dd and adjust the read/write block size on the fly to adjust for disk read errors and at the end of the disk.

Rowan

Are the standard set top boxes also being updated?

1) The "Play" button on my SA remote is totally inoperative. The only way to play recorded material is to use the "Pause" button - hitting it once to pause, and a second time to play.
2) Fast Forwarding results in random overshooting of the recorded material. Sometimes it's a few seconds, sometimes it's a minute or more. The only way to come out of the FF mode is to hit the Pause button, and again to play. You can't re-enter FF from a paused state without going into play and then selecting FF. I've also seen the counter jump backwards as much as two minutes between the paused and play states.

(...)
the infuriating default of "Search" in DVR mode when all I want to do is review my pre-recorded material1 and 2 both sound specific to the SA remote. I have both a Motorola remote (that Verizon used at first) and a Philip remote (that Verizon is deploying now). The 'Play' button on both works just fine (including coming out of FF / RW). Not sure what you mean by 'infuriating default of "Search" in DVR mode' but ... that sounds like it could be a remote issue too. 'DVR' on the Philips remote (and 'LIST' on the motorola remote) bring up the playlist as expected (I do agree with your comment that the list could use some sort options).

But anyway ... I'd try calling Verizon and talking to them about the remote. Perhaps there's a way to program it so it'll act accordingly. If not ... try to get them to send you one of the new Philips remotes.

1) The "Play" button on my SA remote is totally inoperative. The only way to play recorded material is to use the "Pause" button - hitting it once to pause, and a second time to play.


Yeah - I found that out as well.

Since I use a learning remote cause I have too much stuff to control, I re-programmed my MX700's play button to act the same as the pause button.

Also they force you to answer more 'are you really,realy sure you want to do this via the menus there are a lot more buttons to hit to do the same thing I could do with 1 button hit before.
So I made a macro for a buynch of common items that are like this.

Deleting a Protected show is an example of this.

I sure wish I could have my old Guide back but keep the bug fix for the skip button. I really fail to see what the point of this update is.

A lot of money spent programming a new guide that only makes this thing more difficult to use instead of using those funds to getting useful things dones like external Sata drives.


I don't get it

Hi ALL,

Anyone know when the new IMG will be deployed in Florida? A previous post gave 8/16 as the date but I still don't have it!

Thanks,
Gerry

Tivo works with Fios. A series 2 stand alone Tivo can be used with a Fios set top box. If you have a series 3/TivoHD, cable cards can be installed into the Tivo and a Fios set top box is not required.

Thanks Five Hole and BDFTV. Appreciate the help. :D

shane

Are the standard set top boxes also being updated?

yes they are

Does anyone have a m card yet for either their Tivo HD or series 3? I'm underwhelmed with the new software and with 1 m card I assume I'll be saving the 3 bucks a month verizon charges for each card.

Does anyone have a m card yet for either their Tivo HD or series 3? I'm underwhelmed with the new software and with 1 m card I assume I'll be saving the 3 bucks a month verizon charges for each card.

From what I have heard, Vz does not yet offer the M Series cards, you would need 2 S Series to work w/the Tivo.

From what I have heard, Vz does not yet offer the M Series cards, you would need 2 S Series to work w/the Tivo.

True. I have the 2 standard cablecards in my S3

yes they are

Is there anyway to force the update to the box?
Cheers

Hi ALL,

Anyone know when the new IMG will be deployed in Florida? A previous post gave 8/16 as the date but I still don't have it!

Thanks,
Gerry

Word on Broadbandreports.com is August 22 for FL (they do all updates on Wednesdays for some reason). But reading everyone's comments here, I'm not so much looking forward to it anymore!

Tivo is starting to sound more like a requirement than a nice option. I'll give up on demand for a usable STB.

Anyone get the new $300 HD Tivo box? Is it a big drop in features/functionality compared to the Series 3? I'm getting Fios installed next week and will be using the standard Fios DVR but very tempted to go Tivo (monthly fees are a downer though, especially after paying so much for the box).

I have the TivoHD box. Had FioS DVR for a few months and just wasn't liking it after years with my DirecTV Tivo.

So far, very happy with the TivoHD. Recording space hasn't been an issue (yet). If it becomes an issue, upgrading the hard drive isn't too hard from what I've read. The guide is so much better, and many other features (like swapping tuners and rewinding either one) come in handy.

Just wish Vzn had given me 1 M-card instead of 2 S-cards so I could save the extra $3/month.

Has anyone else had the problem (and then found a solution) to the Favorites creation process whereby when you put the "heart" next to USA channel 50, it also places a "heart" next to USA Channel 501, then when you remove the "heart" from 501 it also removes the "heart" from 50? This is really frustrating (along w/ the whole inability to default to favorites) as it cause you to have to go through more channels when surfing.

Also, when you call up Favorites, I can never get the HD channels I've selected to appear in the guide. It always stops in the 500 channel range.

Any solutions to to this or just something needed to report to FiOS as a bug to fix.

Has anyone else had the problem (and then found a solution) to the Favorites creation process whereby when you put the "heart" next to USA channel 50, it also places a "heart" next to USA Channel 501, then when you remove the "heart" from 501 it also removes the "heart" from 50? This is really frustrating (along w/ the whole inability to default to favorites) as it cause you to have to go through more channels when surfing.

Also, when you call up Favorites, I can never get the HD channels I've selected to appear in the guide. It always stops in the 500 channel range.

Any solutions to to this or just something needed to report to FiOS as a bug to fix.

I believe these are known bugs.

Sorry to be late to the party, but I'm contemplating FiOS TV now. Can't stomach spending $300 for an HD DVR to DirecTV.

Is the FiOS DVR any good? Is it the same crappy box/interface that the cable companies use? It's a Motorola box, so I assume so.

Does it stack up favorably at all with DirecTV's HD DVR? Thanks.

Harden,

The last 72 pages of this thread are probably worth reading to get the answers to all your questions, but here's my take:

I switched from DirecTV with a Tivo DVR to Fios with the Motorola DVR a few months ago to get HD. I didn't want to pay DTV for an expensive HD-DVR, and I'd heard bad things about DTV's HD picture quality, and I didn't want to have to replace my dish. The Fios picture quality is fantastic compared to DTV. After 3 months though, we sorely missed our Tivo. The Fios box, even with the newly updated software, doesn't compare. It's functional, but as you say, it's a Motorola box similar to what cable companies use. My analogy is like driving an Acura for years, and then getting a base model Chevy Cobalt. You find you miss features like power windows, you find that the controls aren't intuitive, it sqeaks and rattles, etc. We bought a TivoHD to maintain sanity in our household.

-Mike

(PS: I don't mean to offend any Chevy Cobalt drivers here... I'm only picking on it because that's the loaner car I got from the Acura service department recently)

Thanks, Greendog. The FiOS rep mentioned that if you get your own DVR that is compatible with FiOS, you don't have to pay them a monthly fee. Is that true?

I would assume by your post that TIVO is one DVR that you can obtain separately that will work. Any others? Didn't that TIVO box cost you $300? Well, I guess you own it at least.

The "lease" rental from DirecTV is the biggest scam ever.

You'll still have to pay a monthly fee to tivo too ($16 IIRC). And with the state of cable cards, who knows how long this unit will be feasible. Makes D*'s "lease" program seem all the more palatable, especially when many members have gotten them for free just by calling.

FiOS with a tivo is the ultimate combo. However, in order to have enough recording space, you'll have to upgrade either unit (there's now 2 HD Tivo's) or get 2 units (more money up front) and have to pay a pretty good chunk of change monthly.

I'm still on the fence as which route I'll be taking when I move to HD in a couple of months, but after following this thread (and the other FiOS thread here) and the D* forums for many, many months, I'm now leaning towards staying with D*.

The increase PQ isn't that much of an upgrade to have to either a) go with FiOS terrible DVR (which can't be upgraded, doesn't have remote IR codes, and has MANY bugs and faults) or b) buy a couple of tivo's, outlaying anywhere between $600 - $1000 AND having to pay $25 or so to tivo each month.

Of course, YMMV

Has anybody successfully gotten DirecTV to comp more than one HD DVR? I've threatened to leave, but the department in charge of keeping you wont' give me more than one free HD DVR. I need three for the family, so it's an issue.

I don't think you'll have much luck getting more than 1 for free. Don't remember reading about anyone getting that. I've heard one free and one for $99, but that's it. You need HD for all of them?

Yes, the Tivo HD is $300. I got some Best Buy gift cards from my credit card rewards program to help.

The Tivo service is something like $15/month if you pay monthly. If you pay yearly, it's much cheaper. If you buy a 2-year service, they give you a 3rd year free. That brings the service down to about $8/month on average (compared to Fios's $16/month for their DVR).

You need to also pay Fios for CableCards. $3 per month per card. Right now they're only renting single-channel cards, so you need to pay $6/month for dual tuners. Very soon they'll be renting multi-channel cards, so you can pay $3/month.

As far as I know, Tivo HD (and Tivo 3) is the only CableCard option for Fios. I think there are some Media Center PC options either available or coming soon, if that's your style.

From what I've read (haven't personally tried yet) it's easy to upgrade the hard drive (say, $100 to replace the 160GB drive with a 500GB drive) in the Tivo... not possible as far as I know in the Fios box.

I was an 8 year subscriber to DTV, had purchased 2 HDTV Tivo DTV boxes. Got the call months later that my boxes would be obsolete and I would need to upgrade. They offered me only 1 one box for free and $299 for the other. I had spent a ton on programming and equipment and just felt robbed. Switched to Verizon Fios and couldn't be happier. Picture quality is fantastic on both SDTV and HDTV. However the Motorola DVR from Fios is terrible. I had the new upgraded guide which looked better but still did not function well. I purchased the new HD Tivo and it is fantastic. I purchased from an online retailer that upgraded the hard drive and offered an extended warranty. I could not be happier and would recommend spending the extra money on Tivo because it just works better.

For those with the TivoHD, are you experiencing any pixelization problems? I have read on another forum that this was a problem with the new TivoHD.

Thanks.

I have had minimal problems with pixelization. The recent update seemed to fix any problems that I had. I am running Verizon Fios with Motorola Cable cards.

Has anyone tried running the Tivo boxes with 1 single stream cablecard instead of 2? I understand you would probably need a digital antenna in order to pick up a signal on the other tuner and the channels would not be cable channels. Just curious.

For those with the TivoHD, are you experiencing any pixelization problems? I have read on another forum that this was a problem with the new TivoHD.Tivo fixed that with a software update last Thursday night. The TivoHD still has problems with Scientific CableCards, but FiOS doesn't use those.

Has anyone tried running the Tivo boxes with 1 single stream cablecard instead of 2? I understand you would probably need a digital antenna in order to pick up a signal on the other tuner and the channels would not be cable channels. Just curious.You need two 'S' CableCards or one MCARD to use the TivoHD as a dual-tuner DVR with FiOS. Each MCARD does the work of two 'S' CableCards. If you have just one 'S' CableCard, the TivoHD functions as a single-tuner DVR.

If you don't want to pay for two CableCards, then I would pass on the TivoHD until Verizon stocks MCARDs in your area.

I have one TivoHD with two Motorola 'S' CableCards. When FiOS stocks MCARDs, I will buy a second TivoHD ($6.95/mo) and have Verizon replace both of my 'S' Cards with two MCARDs, one for each box. Tivo is expected to enable MRV before year's end too, allowing you to stream recordings from one box to the other.

I have one TivoHD with two Motorola 'S' CableCards. When FiOS stocks MCARDs, I will buy a second TivoHD ($6.95/mo) and have Verizon replace both of my 'S' Cards with two MCARDs, one for each box. Tivo is expected to enable MRV before year's end too, allowing you to stream recordings from one box to the other.

What will you do when Verizon moves everything to IPTV (like the VOD and multi-room currently is) in the next couple of years (which they've already stated they intend to do). Your tivo's will be obsolete. 2 HD-Tivo's or Series3 units is a lot of money to put out upfront for equipment that might be doorstops within 2 years (unless you go to cable).

I know this question isn't exactly directed about the DVR itself, but I have a Question about the Verizon remote. Is there a pageup, page down button ???? It is really annoying not having this when looking through the guide ( something I was used to when I had Dish) the remote has a label that says "page" but i dont get it. On the otherhand, Channel surfing has come back to my life lol. Can anyone relate to me on this issue ?

I know this question isn't exactly directed about the DVR itself, but I have a Question about the Verizon remote. Is there a pageup, page down button ???? It is really annoying not having this when looking through the guide ( something I was used to when I had Dish) the remote has a label that says "page" but i dont get it. On the otherhand, Channel surfing has come back to my life lol. Can anyone relate to me on this issue ?

With the new guide the page up/down (channel button) will work. But only in the guide. It does not work in the recorded list or search lists (which was an incredibly ridiculous oversight).

Can anyone comment on the difference in sd pq between the TivoHD and the Series 3 and how they compare to the moto6416? For the extra money, does the tivo3 offer anything significant in terms of pq or features? Thanks.

Just an FYI the 'new' guide defaults Parental Controls to ON. So if you installer setup a PIN number and then you turned PC OFF when the new guide updates it will turn it back ON. Now for some reason if you didn't setup anything you can watch all the TVMA you want, but if you record a TVMA show and try to play it back it will ask for the PIN. Oh and Verizon does updates on Saturday nights around midnight that prevents them from resetting your PIN. So those of you with 'new' guides and you don't want PC ON make sure to go in there and double check to be sure you can turn it off.

What will you do when Verizon moves everything to IPTV (like the VOD and multi-room currently is) in the next couple of years (which they've already stated they intend to do).

This is the first place I have heard this. Could you please send me a pointer to where VZ has said they will be switching everything to IPTV?

This is the first place I have heard this. Could you please send me a pointer to where VZ has said they will be switching everything to IPTV?

I've heard it several places, but don't remember exact sources. Doing a quick google search, produced THIS HIT (http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=371472), which has the following quote from 2006:


“We approach IPTV very carefully. We don’t see the market demand for the infrastructure needed to move to IPTV today,” said Mark Wegleitner, CTO of Verizon. “We are all in favor of it (IPTV). We are absolutely committed to it in the longer term. We just think it needs more work.”

Since the new IMG software rolled out to my set-top box, I now have a noticeable (~5 pixels) vertical green bar at the far right of the screen. On the far left side of the screen, the leftmost 2 inches or so of the image is noticeably discolored, also in a vertical band. These flaws only appear with my set-top box resolution set to 1080i, and they appear on both live TV and when playing back recorded shows. The flaws do not appear in 480i/p or 720p mode.

My STB is connected to my TV over HDMI. I didn't have these display issues with the previous IMG software and I don't get them on this TV with other HDMI devices. My TV is a Westinghouse TX42F430S, a 1080p HDTV. I have shows that were recorded with the old IMG software and used to play back with no vertical bands, that now show the display flaws when played back under the new IMG. This points to another bug in the new software.

Has anyone else experienced this issue since the IMG update?

Imit,
I have seen the same thing on my Samsung 4696. Are you using a 1:1 pixel mapping mode, by any chance? I had a post on dslreports about it, and found two other people who have seen the issue.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18839487-

Figsys had discovered that changing the colorspace from YCC to RGB makes the bar on the right black rather than green. The image defect on the left is still there, although I don't see discoloration. It's more like the picture doesn't "line up" with itself along a vertical line about 1/2" from the left.

I called the IMG hotline and they referred me to the FSC. They wanted to dispatch a tech, so I've had two tech visits. They tried a new HDMI cable (no change) and swapping my second 6416 to the HDTV (same problem). The tech I saw yesterday put a call in to his support, who was escalating to his video support to see if anyone else has reported this. Hopefully feedback will work its way back downhill to me. The tech is also going to try contacting Motorola support for ideas. As a last resort, he's going to see if there are any 6416-3's in stock (I have a 6416-2) and see if the newer series (if it exists) behaves any differently.

Good to know there's a few of us with the same problem. Hopefully one of us will get a solution!

-Randy

I posted this elsewhere (dslreports) on the new IMG. Any comments on my thinking on the cause of the apparent recording space lost with the current IMG upgrade (Release 1.03, build 3.40)?

I think it would be useful for those who lost recorded programs during the upgrade to post approximately what was their percentage used before the upgrade. I also suspect the problem may be that those with 75% or more full drives are losing recordings because the upgrade software thinks it is now out of space and can't handle it.

I also noticed that after deleting some programs that the IMG showed that I had 2 hours & 15 minutes of HD recordings when I really had over four hours of HD programs saved. One was a HBO movie, the other two hours were UniversalHD programs, both of which have lower HD data rates. I wonder if the IMG is no longer looking at actual hours recorded, but is extrapolating hours based on a maximum recording rate for HD. We may not have lost that much drive space in the upgrade, but are instead seeing recording hours used and left based on extrapolation using estimated MB/hour rate.

If this is true, and I don't have a copy of the code nor I have seen the design documents or review stuff so I may wrong, I do not understand how this could possibly have made it pass a real CDR (critical design review) and beta testing process. This recording space problem, regardless of the cause, should NEVER have gone out before being fixed.

I wish Verizon IMG would give us actual hours of SD and HD recorded AND actual percentage used of the drive space set aside for recording. I could work with the percentages as I knew UniversalHD would average roughly 3% per HD-hour, HBO-HD around 4% to 5% per hour, ABC & Fox (720p) ~5% per HD-hour and NBC & CBS ~6% per HD-hour. Actually I would like the option to have percentage expressed in tenths such as 70.3% used so we have a better metric for keeping track of the typical data rate for the different channels.

I've heard it several places, but don't remember exact sources. Doing a quick google search, produced THIS HIT (http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=371472), which has the following quote from 2006:


“We approach IPTV very carefully. We don’t see the market demand for the infrastructure needed to move to IPTV today,” said Mark Wegleitner, CTO of Verizon. “We are all in favor of it (IPTV). We are absolutely committed to it in the longer term. We just think it needs more work.”

It needs a lot more work.

Remember too, that to switch Verizon would also have to switch all of their boxes too. So there no doubt that this is 3+ years away, and 3 years would be blindingly fast, and very unlikely.

It needs a lot more work.

Remember too, that to switch Verizon would also have to switch all of their boxes too. So there no doubt that this is 3+ years away, and 3 years would be blindingly fast, and very unlikely.

I don't see why they would have to switch their boxes. Their VOD and multi room dvr already uses IPTV so the boxes are capable of using it. It seems to me that the change would be mostly software. Also, I would anticipate more a a hybrid IPTV/QAM because using switched services may not be a good use of bandwidth for heavily view channels like the major Broadcast networks.

Sorry to be late to the party, but I'm contemplating FiOS TV now. Can't stomach spending $300 for an HD DVR to DirecTV.

Is the FiOS DVR any good? Is it the same crappy box/interface that the cable companies use? It's a Motorola box, so I assume so.

Does it stack up favorably at all with DirecTV's HD DVR? Thanks.

Have to say I haven't found the DVR as clunky as others. I like some things about it, some suffer by comparison with the DirecTivo units that I was dealing with. The GUI is not the same as the Tivo, and some things the Tivo does markedly better (dual tuner queues is one of them). I came from 5 years of DirectTivo use, with three 40 hr DVR's, so the amount of storage is comparable. I also faced the $300 per DVR upgrade / you don't own it / you still pay a 'lease' / you have to pay an 'HD service fee future with DirecTV, so I opted out. I see this DVR as a work in progress that gives me now essentially what I had with a rougher interface.

I expect (based on faith) that the GUI kinks will be worked out, and my two biggest peeves with FIOS - storage size and native mode pass through will be worked out in due time. My benefits are the incredible PQ both on SD and HD, the increasing number of HD channels and the goood experience I've had (your mileage may vary) with FIOS service.

I've made sure I call the FIOS lines, and have gotten consistently good service. I've replaced one DVR since (noisy disk) and have no complaints. Could things be better? Sure, but given what I've seen so far, I expect them to be handled.

DirecTv were incredibly arrogant when I wanted to upgrade to HD, FIOS has a huge pipe available to it to deliver content, so looking forward, I am optimistic about it.

I liked Tivo, but it had some major flaws as well, not the least of which was how slow the interface was. I couldn't see spending $1800 for three Tivo units, so...

OK, so this is probably a very narrow problem, but yet still a problem. I discovered that you can't record the same show that is showing at the same time on a different station. Here is the issue. My wife watches "The Young and the Restless" (TYAR) daily. It is broadcast in HD. We have the the multiroom DVR. So, sometimes she watches it down stairs on the HDTV, other times on one of our SD TVs in another room. Since the multiroom DVR can't send an HD program to another STB, I also record TYAR in SD. I've done this since we switched to Verizon. Basically I record Channel 9 and Channel 802 from 12:30 to 1:30 M-F. Now the new IMG won't let me do this. I originally set up the SD version on channel 9. When I went into setup the HD version on 802 it said "Series Already Set". I called Verizon and at first they didn't quite understand that I was recording the same show at the same time in two different versions. I think I got them to understand the problem, but they didn't see a solution.

Have any of you seen this and found a work around?

Thanks

It needs a lot more work.

Remember too, that to switch Verizon would also have to switch all of their boxes too. So there no doubt that this is 3+ years away, and 3 years would be blindingly fast, and very unlikely.

As someone else mentioned, I think the current boxes are capable so they wouldn't need to switch them all.

And maybe you're right, maybe it'll be 3+ years. It's just one more thing to put in the equation. In order to satisfy my dvr needs I'd need at least 2 tivos (and probably 3) that would all need to have an upgraded HD. That puts my initial cash outlay somewhere between $1200 - $1800.

IF, Verizon does adapt IPTV within 2 years that means it will have cost me $50 - $75 per month extra to have tivo (1200-1800/24) and the end result will be a box that no longer works with my provider. If I subscribe to the 3 year plan that tivo has, I'll also pay an extra year of monthly fees without having the use of the box.

In the end I could end up paying over $100 per month extra for the use of the tivo's for a couple of years. Don't know if I'm willing to take that risk.

And this doesn't even take into account the fact that I've heard that cable companies (and Verizon too) are looking at different cable cards that also might not be able to be used with the tivo's (I have no supporting evidence for this). One more risk factor that needs to be weighed when deciding what to do.

That's why I'm currently leaning towards D*. Their current version of the HR20 is supposedly very good (from what I've read on the forums) and they're making updates constantly.

Of course, everything could change over the next few months.

I expect (based on faith) that the GUI kinks will be worked out, and my two biggest peeves with FIOS - storage size and native mode pass through will be worked out in due time. My benefits are the incredible PQ both on SD and HD, the increasing number of HD channels and the goood experience I've had (your mileage may vary) with FIOS service.

I've made sure I call the FIOS lines, and have gotten consistently good service. I've replaced one DVR since (noisy disk) and have no complaints. Could things be better? Sure, but given what I've seen so far, I expect them to be handled.

I agree with all the above but...the current Motorola boxes can not and will never be able to pass thru native rate (and it was not a software issue). I spent about 90 min on the phone with Motorola to get that disappointing news:(.

I agree with all the above but...the current Motorola boxes can not and will never be able to pass thru native rate (and it was not a software issue). I spent about 90 min on the phone with Motorola to get that disappointing news:(.
According to the WIKI page about the box, it mentioned that the DVR Always records HD in it's native format, & the signal is then converted upon playback to the selected setting ...
If This is indeed the case, it's interesting how the DVR can get "pass thru" through the tuners , but the HDMI ouput can't ...
But as others have mentioned, I don't mind , since having 1 HD output resolution setting eliminates the lag when switching between HD channels ..

As someone else mentioned, I think the current boxes are capable so they wouldn't need to switch them all.

And maybe you're right, maybe it'll be 3+ years. It's just one more thing to put in the equation. In order to satisfy my dvr needs I'd need at least 2 tivos (and probably 3) that would all need to have an upgraded HD. That puts my initial cash outlay somewhere between $1200 - $1800.

IF, Verizon does adapt IPTV within 2 years that means it will have cost me $50 - $75 per month extra to have tivo (1200-1800/24) and the end result will be a box that no longer works with my provider. If I subscribe to the 3 year plan that tivo has, I'll also pay an extra year of monthly fees without having the use of the box.Verizon has no plans to use IP for channel delivery anytime soon. They won't do it at all with the current boxes, which only support MPEG-2. Nor can they do until all existing ONTs are replaced with GPON-capable units.

With current BPON technology, FiOS has 655Mbps available for every 32 customers, which works out to ~20Mbps per customer. That works fine now because many people only have 5Mbps or 10Mbps plans, and not everyone uses Internet at the same time. However, once IPTV is deployed, a high percentage of customers will be watching high-definition streams at the same time. That would overwhelm the existing BPON network. The upgrade to GPON will increase the bandwidth to 2.4Gbps, or ~75Mbps per customer. Verizon doesn't have to run new fiber to take advantage of GPON, but they do have to upgrade boards at the CO and replace every customer ONT (the box on the outside of your home).

Verizon is taking bids for millions of new MPEG-4 (H.264) capable boxes, with first delivery slated for 2H 2009. With those boxes, they will start doing some MPEG-4, but it will still be a long time after that before they replace QAM with IPTV. There will probably be a multi-year transition period where both systems co-exist, as Verizon upgrades every FiOS DVR and installs new ONTs. I would be very surprised if QAM isn't still up and running in five years.

The TivoHD does have the hardware to support MPEG-4 and VC-1. If you buy a TivoHD, you shouldn't have to worry about missing anything on FioS except VOD for the forseeable future.

And maybe you're right, maybe it'll be 3+ years. It's just one more thing to put in the equation. In order to satisfy my dvr needs I'd need at least 2 tivos (and probably 3) that would all need to have an upgraded HD. That puts my initial cash outlay somewhere between $1200 - $1800.The TivoHDs have a MSRP at $299 -- the same as the DirecTV HD DVRs -- and they've sold for as little as $218 on sale. The cost is $260-$270 today if you use the Best Buy and Circuit City coupons at Fatwallet.com.

Hard drive upgrades for the TivoHD will obviously cost extra -- perhaps $120 for a 500Gb drive -- but the same applies to the DirecTV DVRs.

DirecTV's $6/mo DVR fee is less than Tivo's $12.99 month-to-month (or $8.30/mo prepaid in advance), although the difference is just $2/mo for every box after the first -- i.e. $6.95/mo per secondary Tivo vs. $5/mo for each secondary DirecTV box. Of course, you've also got to factor in the CableCards, which will add $5.98/mo now, or $2.99/mo once MCARDs are available from FiOS.

You can't ignore the cost of the service itself. Verizon currently offers TV + Internet for $70/mo with a two-year contract. In contrast, DirecTV wants $61/mo for TV with one DVR on a two-year contract, and then you've got to pay another $30-$50/mo for Internet service. With DirecTV, you don't actually own the box so you've got to send it back when you're done with that service; in contrast, you own the TivoHD so you can sell it and recoup some of your initial investment.

Now the new IMG won't let me do this. I originally set up the SD version on channel 9. When I went into setup the HD version on 802 it said "Series Already Set". I called Verizon and at first they didn't quite understand that I was recording the same show at the same time in two different versions. I think I got them to understand the problem, but they didn't see a solution.You might want to call 1-888-811-1371 to make sure the issue is logged as a bug. You may also want to report this bug over on Verizon Direct (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzdirect).

Verizon is working to address the issues with the new software. They should have most issues resolved within a few months. Verizon has no plans to change guide data providers, but they have received assurances from their existing provider that guide data will improve later this year.

The issues that won't be solved are 1) recording capacity, and 2) native mode. If either of these is important to you, then you need to look at alternative solutions like a $250-$299 TivoHD. Verizon does not plan to deploy a new HDTV DVR with higher capacity until 2009.

Verizon has no plans to use IP for channel delivery anytime soon. They won't do it at all with the current boxes, which only support MPEG-2. Nor can they do until all existing ONTs are replaced with GPON-capable units.

With current BPON technology, FiOS has 655Mbps available for every 32 customers, which works out to ~20Mbps per customer. That works fine now because many people only have 5Mbps or 10Mbps plans, and not everyone uses Internet at the same time. However, once IPTV is deployed, a high percentage of customers will be watching high-definition streams at the same time. That would overwhelm the existing BPON network. The upgrade to GPON will increase the bandwidth to 2.4Gbps, or ~75Mbps per customer. Verizon doesn't have to run new fiber to take advantage of GPON, but they do have to upgrade boards at the CO and replace every customer ONT (the box on the outside of your home).

Verizon is taking bids for millions of new MPEG-4 (H.264) capable boxes, with first delivery slated for 2H 2009. With those boxes, they will start doing some MPEG-4, but it will still be a long time after that before they replace QAM with IPTV. There will probably be a multi-year transition period where both systems co-exist, as Verizon upgrades every FiOS DVR and installs new ONTs. I would be very surprised if QAM isn't still up and running in five years.



I'll take your word for it.


The TivoHDs have a MSRP at $299 -- the same as the DirecTV HD DVRs -- and they've sold for as little as $218 on sale. The cost is $260-$270 today if you use the Best Buy and Circuit City coupons at Fatwallet.com.


I know. But I'd need probably 3 of them ($900) and I'd need to upgrade them (more $). Since I'm currently with D*, I know I could get at least one unit for free and probably a second one for $99. So, 3 TivoHD's would be $900, 3 D*HD's would be $400 (in my case).


DirecTV's $6/mo DVR fee is less than Tivo's $12.99 month-to-month (or $8.30/mo prepaid in advance), although the difference is just $2/mo for every box after the first -- i.e. $6.95/mo per secondary Tivo vs. $5/mo for each secondary DirecTV box. Of course, you've also got to factor in the CableCards, which will add $5.98/mo now, or $2.99/mo once MCARDs are available from FiOS.


Actually, I don't pay anything for DVR service at D*, because I'm grandfathered in at lifetime. So, with the Tivo fee and the cable card fee, FIOS becomes much more expensive. 3 receivers would make it about $40 to tivo (with FIOS), but 3 receivers with D* would only cost me $10 (additional receiver charge).


You've also got to consider the cost of the service itself. Verizon currently offers TV + Internet for $70/mo with a two-year contract. In contrast, DirecTV wants $61/mo for TV with one DVR on a two-year contract, and then you've got to pay another $30-$50 for Internet service. When you cancel DirecTV, you don't actually own the box so you've got to send it back when you're done with that service; in contrast, you own the TivoHD so you can sell it and recoup some of your initial investment.


Well, service costs will vary. For some FIOS will be cheaper, for others D* will be cheaper. For me, even with Verizon phone and internet (which I already have), D* will be cheaper no matter what, mainly for the reasons outlined above.
As for leased vs. owned, each has their advantages (and disadvantages). You're right in that if I cancel D*, I'll have to send the box back. However, I've been with them for 8+ years and if I stay with them through my HD transition, I can't see myself abandoning them anytime soon. On the plus side, if one of my boxes takes a crap, I can get it replaced pretty painlessly from D*, since it's a lease. If one of your (or anyone elses) Tivo's takes a crap (which computers sometimes do), you're out of luck in many cases. Pros and cons.

Regarding the tv and internet combo pricing (or even triple play pricing). D* in Dallas (where I live) may soon have its own triple play. From the Wall Street Journal last week:

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and GERMANTOWN, Md., Aug. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DIRECTV, Inc. (NYSE: DTV) and CURRENT Group announced today a wholesale distribution agreement that will enable DIRECTV to offer its customers CURRENT's innovative BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) high-speed Internet service and VoIP services at the end of 2007/beginning of 2008. DIRECTV customers will be able to access the Internet by plugging a BPL modem into virtually any outlet in their home. This easy-to-use symmetrical service can send data faster than the typical cable modem service in use today. The increased upload speed is particularly important as users rely on greater speeds to play interactive games or send significant volumes of digital content through the Internet.

Under the terms of the agreement, DIRECTV will have access to CURRENT's BPL network, initially in the Dallas/Fort Worth BPL network that will cover approximately 1.8 million homes and businesses over the next several years. DIRECTV will be able to market a bundle that includes DIRECTV high-speed Internet and VoIP services to its residential customers. In addition, the agreement provides DIRECTV the ability to add other geographic markets as CURRENT builds out its network. CURRENT's BPL network enables both Broadband services and Smart Grid solutions designed to improve efficiency and reliability while reducing the environmental impact of electric service.

"We are pleased to partner with DIRECTV to offer them the ability to bundle their world-renowned satellite video services together with BPL high- speed Internet and VoIP services," said Tom Casey, CURRENT's chief executive officer. "Consumers in Dallas will have a compelling new choice for their broadband service and, at the same time, feel good about the fact that the same Internet network is helping to improve the efficiency and reliability of the electric grid while reducing its environmental impact."

"Our agreement with CURRENT gives our customers another high-quality, easy-to-use option to pair broadband services with DIRECTV's video offerings," said Evan Grayer, vice president of Broadband for DIRECTV. "By choosing this bundled option, DIRECTV customers will now be able to enjoy fast, reliable and secure high-speed Internet service anywhere they have a power outlet in their homes."

OK, so this is probably a very narrow problem, but yet still a problem. I discovered that you can't record the same show that is showing at the same time on a different station. Here is the issue. My wife watches "The Young and the Restless" (TYAR) daily. It is broadcast in HD. We have the the multiroom DVR. So, sometimes she watches it down stairs on the HDTV, other times on one of our SD TVs in another room. Since the multiroom DVR can't send an HD program to another STB, I also record TYAR in SD. I've done this since we switched to Verizon. Basically I record Channel 9 and Channel 802 from 12:30 to 1:30 M-F. Now the new IMG won't let me do this. I originally set up the SD version on channel 9. When I went into setup the HD version on 802 it said "Series Already Set". I called Verizon and at first they didn't quite understand that I was recording the same show at the same time in two different versions. I think I got them to understand the problem, but they didn't see a solution.

Have any of you seen this and found a work around?

Thanks

I actually have had this happen to me by mistake. I have a "record series" set for Big Love. This week for some reason it recorded both the HD(which I wanted) and the SD showing at the same time. IIRC this would have been the 2nd episode since the new IMG rolled out in DC metro. The series just switched nights this last week so that may have had something to do with it.
Sorry i can't tell you how it happened, but it may be helpful to know that it can happen.

For what it's worth , I reported the "Tuner Overlap" confilict issue on Verizon Direct, & suggested soulutions.
( Where the box currently thinks you need "3" tuners during times where you are just recording 1 show while watching/surfing live, due to the auto X:59-X:02 / X:29-X:32 padding that can't be altered)
I was told the issue will be addressed in a near future update to the new guide .
I hope this wasn't a "stock" answer for all box related questions ... we'll eventually see ...

Posted in programming forum but that my have been the wrong place

I got the IMG upgrade last Wed and everything was working fine. Sat night at around 1am my box rebooted and I lost my HDMI connection. Has anyone else experienced the same thing? To date the box still does not recognize the HDMI connection.

The old way to get into the menu for the box doesn't seem to work anymore. Does anyone know how to access the the menu with a box that has the new IMG?

thanks.

I got the upgrade this morning and had no video but audio. Unplugged the unit and reboot and video on HDMI came up for me! On the other box it worked right away without reboot so I suspect it is a box by box problem and you may need a new box. Ask them to transfer your settings and recordings over to the new box! (If you can, let me in on the secret!) :)

The TivoHDs have a MSRP at $299 -- the same as the DirecTV HD DVRs -- and they've sold for as little as $218 on sale. The cost is $260-$270 today if you use the Best Buy and Circuit City coupons at Fatwallet.com.

You do not own the Directv HD DVR if you pay $299.00. That is what you pay for the privaledge to lease it. The MSRP on it is around $750.00

Harden,

The last 72 pages of this thread are probably worth reading to get the answers to all your questions, but here's my take:

I switched from DirecTV with a Tivo DVR to Fios with the Motorola DVR a few months ago to get HD. I didn't want to pay DTV for an expensive HD-DVR, and I'd heard bad things about DTV's HD picture quality, and I didn't want to have to replace my dish. The Fios picture quality is fantastic compared to DTV. After 3 months though, we sorely missed our Tivo. The Fios box, even with the newly updated software, doesn't compare. It's functional, but as you say, it's a Motorola box similar to what cable companies use. My analogy is like driving an Acura for years, and then getting a base model Chevy Cobalt. You find you miss features like power windows, you find that the controls aren't intuitive, it sqeaks and rattles, etc. We bought a TivoHD to maintain sanity in our household.

-Mike

(PS: I don't mean to offend any Chevy Cobalt drivers here... I'm only picking on it because that's the loaner car I got from the Acura service department recently)FYI
You could have leased the new D* HR20 (HD DVR) for the cost of shipping it. 20 bucks. At least thats the offer they gave me with no haggling. It too doesnt compare to the HDTivo.

I got the IMG upgrade last Wed and everything was working fine. Sat night at around 1am my box rebooted and I lost my HDMI connection. Has anyone else experienced the same thing? To date the box still does not recognize the HDMI connection.

The old way to get into the menu for the box doesn't seem to work anymore. Does anyone know how to access the the menu with a box that has the new IMG?
To access setup menu, turn box off as before. Press Select/Ok button, then Menu to get to the setup menu. The output format for 16:9 (HD), 4:3 Override (SD), and caption option settings are still there. I lost all the caption font, color, background settings in the IMG upgrade. They were all set back to the defaults. Only the captions on/off setting was carried over in the upgrade, so I was getting the ugly block text with the black background. There must be Fios subscribers out there who have lost their caption font & color settings and don't know how to get them back. Another of the many things screwed up by the not ready for release IMG upgrade. :rolleyes:

Just FYI: I was on the phone with Verizon FIOS because I also had the problem with Invalid Recording showing a recorded series as 0 seconds recorded. For those not familiar, I mean that randomly an episode would not record in a show that I had scheduled to record in series. It shows up on the menu as recorded but as 0 sec. If I try to play it, it shows the following error message with the title Invalid Recording: "[show name] is bad recording. Could not play the show. This could be because channel is unavailable."

The rep says that the developers are working on it and hope to have the bug removed as soon as possible...

So how do I check for tis and turn it off?
I've looked but to no avail...
Thanks,
nw

Just an FYI the 'new' guide defaults Parental Controls to ON. So if you installer setup a PIN number and then you turned PC OFF when the new guide updates it will turn it back ON. Now for some reason if you didn't setup anything you can watch all the TVMA you want, but if you record a TVMA show and try to play it back it will ask for the PIN. Oh and Verizon does updates on Saturday nights around midnight that prevents them from resetting your PIN. So those of you with 'new' guides and you don't want PC ON make sure to go in there and double check to be sure you can turn it off.

So how do I check for tis and turn it off?
I've looked but to no avail...
Thanks,
nw

Menu->Parental Controls->On/Off

If you never had a PIN setup then it's off, if a PIN was setup and it was then turned off it will default back to ON.

Anybody using this HD DVR with a Pioneer Plasma? I have the Pioneer 5070 and using the DirecTV remote, I can program the power/volume for this TV, but can't get the remote to control the inputs.

Anybody else having this problem? Thanks.

What happened to the new IMG rollout for Dallas/Ft Worth Texas? I thought that it was supposed to be on 8/21. I still have the old menu system, ive been waiting all summer for this :mad:

What happened to the new IMG rollout for Dallas/Ft Worth Texas? I thought that it was supposed to be on 8/21. I still have the old menu system, ive been waiting all summer for this :mad:


S281
Based on many of the previous posts consider yourself lucky to still have the old IMG. I to have not yet been updated to the new IMG in north jersey.
Early on in the roll out i was envious of those that were updated but as time went on my enthusiasm for the new IMG has disappeared. I remember early on people complaining how plain the IMG was, at least it did not have as many bugs.
Personally I would rather have HD VOD and multi room that supports HD instead of flashy new IMG. So much for verizon listening to the voice of the customer.

S281
Based on many of the previous posts consider yourself lucky to still have the old IMG. I to have not yet been updated to the new IMG in north jersey.
Early on in the roll out i was envious of those that were updated but as time went on my enthusiasm for the new IMG has disappeared. I remember early on people complaining how plain the IMG was, at least it did not have as many bugs.
Personally I would rather have HD VOD and multi room that supports HD instead of flashy new IMG. So much for verizon listening to the voice of the customer.

Wow, i might have to read the thread from where i left off the last time. I didnt realize there were so many bugs in the new IMG.

I'm still using the old IMG, and today when trying to watch various DVR recordings (and frankly over the past several days) the playback will often pause and then stop giving me an invalid DVR recording error.

It it extremely frustrating because it forces me to resume playback from the beginning, only to have it hiccup again at either the same exact spot, or at a different, unrelated time in the recording. Fortunately, the fall shows haven't started yet because when they do, if I still have this problem, then I am going to have to cancel Verizon.

I'm still using the old IMG, and today when trying to watch various DVR recordings (and frankly over the past several days) the playback will often pause and then stop giving me an invalid DVR recording error.

It it extremely frustrating because it forces me to resume playback from the beginning, only to have it hiccup again at either the same exact spot, or at a different, unrelated time in the recording. Fortunately, the fall shows haven't started yet because when they do, if I still have this problem, then I am going to have to cancel Verizon.

You may have a defective unit or heat problem. Make sure that there is plenty of air room around the unit and the temperature is moderate. You could have a bad section of the hard drive, not uncommon.

FYI if you turn to the FIOS information channel, (111) in Keller, TX, it will state that IMG is comming and has an information and bug report #. I called the # and was told that the upgrade should happen within 5 days of that message. I noticed it yesterday.

FYI if you turn to the FIOS information channel, (111) in Keller, TX, it will state that IMG is comming and has an information and bug report #. I called the # and was told that the upgrade should happen within 5 days of that message. I noticed it yesterday.


Im in Plano and I just checked mine and it says "The new FIOS TV is Here!"
" If you havent already, you will soon see an exciting new change to you interactive guide"

My IMG hasnt changed yet so as you said I should expect it any time? What time of day do they force the software upgrade and will a scheduled recording prevent a scheduled upgrade?

Im in Plano and I just checked mine and it says "The new FIOS TV is Here!"
" If you havent already, you will soon see an exciting new change to you interactive guide"

My IMG hasnt changed yet so as you said I should expect it any time? What time of day do they force the software upgrade and will a scheduled recording prevent a scheduled upgrade?

There has been speculation that we could get it this Tuesday. Others have been told it will happen on 9/11. Personally, I think I'd be happy if they just worked out the bugs first.

There has been speculation that we could get it this Tuesday. Others have been told it will happen on 9/11. Personally, I think I'd be happy if they just worked out the bugs first.

Amen to that! Personally, If it gets any worse I may have to jump ship back to D*. I get so infuriated with the moto DVR that it diminishes any benifit to higher resolution (which I never noticed a difference in the first place) or saving over D*. I would buy the S3 Tivo but I have kids that watch kids VOD all the time so thats a bummer. Even if they bring the new IMG and the result is only eye candy, they still need to address the storage capacity, TV guide data, and other bugs of the current box.

One of the supposed "features" for the new IMG is the skip-ahead trick play (in addition to fast-forward). Problem is, my older remote doesn't have a skip-ahead button, so I can't use this new feature. Will Verizon send a free new remote if I ask?

I've had the new IMG in Maryland for a couple of weeks now. I've noticed many of the same issues discussed here and in the FIOS programming thread but have run in to one annoying one I haven't seen mentioned. While the detailed info in the IMG listing still has episode titles for most series, the DVR listings no longer include the title anywhere, just the description of the episode.

For series like Scrubs or Cyberchase that have short titles for each episode, it's easier to scan the titles to figure out which episode it is for playback than read the description. The old DVR menu included the episode titles in each listing, it looks like they just chose not to show that variable in the new DVR interface. The way series are stored in folders, it would make sense to use the series name for the folder name and the episode title for the name of each show within the folder, as they do in the new search interface.

Not sure if it's related or not, but the DVR doesn't seem to be doing as good a job of not recording duplicates of the same show. I rarely had this problem with the old interface but have already had it several times in the last couple of weeks with the new IMG.

Seems like a complicated issue to explain to a CSR over the phone. Is there a Verizon website or email address where I could point this out?

FWIW, commercial skip and replay seem to be much more responsive and the search is definitely better. I've noticed the new DVR doesn't seem to count shows recorded with the old interface against the max series value, so I ended up with a lot more episodes than I wanted. I had to manually delete episodes recorded before the switch or wait until the box filled up and let the DVR prune them based on age. After the switchover to the new IMG I also noticed a discrepancy between how many hours of HD the status screen said I had recorded and how many I could account for in the listing. I tried a cold reboot and after the reboot the status matched what I had in the recorded shows listing. Sorry for the long post... :o

One of the supposed "features" for the new IMG is the skip-ahead trick play (in addition to fast-forward). Problem is, my older remote doesn't have a skip-ahead button, so I can't use this new feature. Will Verizon send a free new remote if I ask?They should.

They do. I got mine about 4 days after calling up and requesting one.

I'll post the strange bug I discovered. My objective: Record a soccer game on goltv which I have on channel 444 through the spanish language package. DVR doesn't let me. When I press "Record Episode" nothing happens. Tried recording through "record series" option. Let's me set it up but in the end it says that I can't record due to a conflict. Finally, decide to try to set up a manual recording on channell 444. Everything sets up perfectly except that when set up is complete, DVR says that I am trying to record goltv on channel 313 (which is the goltv channel included as part of the sports package). Since I'm not subscribed to the sports package, this channel is black and the dvr records a black screen. Should have witnessed the CR's reaction when I tried to explain all this. This happens on most of the programs on goltv. Have not tried to see if I can replicate bug with other channels.

Alex

I'll post the strange bug I discovered. My objective: Record a soccer game on goltv which I have on channel 444 through the spanish language package. DVR doesn't let me. When I press "Record Episode" nothing happens. Tried recording through "record series" option. Let's me set it up but in the end it says that I can't record due to a conflict. Finally, decide to try to set up a manual recording on channell 444. Everything sets up perfectly except that when set up is complete, DVR says that I am trying to record goltv on channel 313 (which is the goltv channel included as part of the sports package). Since I'm not subscribed to the sports package, this channel is black and the dvr records a black screen. Should have witnessed the CR's reaction when I tried to explain all this. This happens on most of the programs on goltv. Have not tried to see if I can replicate bug with other channels.

Alex

This sounds like a problem I used to have with Cox Moto DVRs. When the channels were the same name and had the same video feed(like HBO was 21 and 300 or something like that) it always wanted to record the lower channel. They never believed me.

This sounds like a problem I used to have with Cox Moto DVRs. When the channels were the same name and had the same video feed(like HBO was 21 and 300 or something like that) it always wanted to record the lower channel. They never believed me.

I'm going to try and get them to to subscribe me to channel 313 for free until they fix the bug (does someone know if they can add one channel or do they have to add the entire sports package?).

I've been calling Verizon every day for the past 10 days regarding problems ever since the new IMG came out. First my SD box stopped getting guide updates this happened several days in a row then it stopped displaying a picture, then my DVR box stopped displaying a picture on the HDMI port. Evertime I call and spend 10 minutes getting through their god awful phone support menu they'd send a 'hit' and the box would reset and be fine until the next day. I finally got so pissed about the HDMI issue they came last night and replaced the box. Oh and according to the tech on the phone (the service guy called and asked) there is NO way to xfer recorded shows and series recordings to a replacement box, he said that's something they are 'working on' yea right...

I HATE the IMG, the only good thing about it is the FF/RW and skip features are a little more responsive. I'm using my old Comcast remotes so I always had a 30 sec skip button and Page UP/Down buttons (the day skip buttons on the Comcast remote work as well). I'd rather have the old one back, at least I use to get 2 channels and 1.5hrs of programming info and a full picture on the 'little guide'. Now I get 1/2 the screen full of 30 minutes worth of channels and like 6 channels displayed.

FiOS is probably going to get dumped when my year is up unless they get their act together and fix their awful phone support menu system. The techs are top notch, just getting to them is almost impossible.

One trick one of their tech people told me to get transferred to a human quickly is to keep saying "speak to an agent". After 2 or 3 times, the automated lady finally gives up and transfers you.

I'm going to try and get them to to subscribe me to channel 313 for free until they fix the bug (does someone know if they can add one channel or do they have to add the entire sports package?).

how did that work out?!

... I'm using my old Comcast remotes so I always had a 30 sec skip button and Page UP/Down buttons (the day skip buttons on the Comcast remote work as well). I'd rather have the old one back, at least I use to get 2 channels and 1.5hrs of programming info and a full picture on the 'little guide'. Now I get 1/2 the screen full of 30 minutes worth of channels and like 6 channels displayed. ...

You should request a new remote, it sounds like your "guide" button is mapped to the "up arrow" on the new remote.

The Guide button on the new remote pulls up a whole screen guide w/ the current channel in a small window in the upper right hand corner of the screen by default. Another press of the guide button will then give you the configuration you speak of, same as when you simply press the up arrow during normal viewing.

Quick question.... i tried to do a search on this but came up empty.

anyways, i finally have a receiver that can decode audio via hdmi (onkyo 705). is the dvr capable of outputting dd 5.1 via hdmi or do i still need optical? thanks!

anyways, i finally have a receiver that can decode audio via hdmi (onkyo 705). is the dvr capable of outputting dd 5.1 via hdmiYes.

how did that work out?!

Long story. I called billing two days ago and gave them the whole story. They told me that Tech Support had to authorize the additional channel at no cost (sports package actually since they can't add one channel) . They transferred me to tech again since there was no record of tech having tried to fix my problem (though they had). Spoke to a "video specialist" who said he would take a three step process (1. soft reset, 2. hard reset, 3. technician to change box). Since I was at work, he did the soft reset and asked me to check when I got home to see if it fixed the problem and if not to call back to try step 2. Of course, problem wasn't fixed. I called and they had me describe the problem again. They then concluded that a hard reset wouldn't do anything and that I needed to talk to the guide language experts (in case the problem was that the guide was defaulting to the english goltv). They told me they would open a ticket and call me the next day. The next day no one called, so I called again. The women I spoke to told me she would have me do a hard reset but that I needed to be home for that. At night, called again, performed a hard reset and that didn't work. Fortunately, the tech guy I had on the line agreed with me that this was probably a guide bug and that switching the boxes would not do any good. He wrote on the open ticket that they should subscribe me to the sports package at no cost. Called billing today and when they checked with tech support, they said that my ticket was still open and thus they couldn't do anything yet. Am now waiting for a tech support supervisor (who supposedly is researching my problem) to call me back. Painful!.

Ouch! wow.

Long story. I called billing two days ago and gave them the whole story. They told me that Tech Support had to authorize the additional channel at no cost (sports package actually since they can't add one channel) . They transferred me to tech again since there was no record of tech having tried to fix my problem (though they had). Spoke to a "video specialist" who said he would take a three step process (1. soft reset, 2. hard reset, 3. technician to change box). Since I was at work, he did the soft reset and asked me to check when I got home to see if it fixed the problem and if not to call back to try step 2. Of course, problem wasn't fixed. I called and they had me describe the problem again. They then concluded that a hard reset wouldn't do anything and that I needed to talk to the guide language experts (in case the problem was that the guide was defaulting to the english goltv). They told me they would open a ticket and call me the next day. The next day no one called, so I called again. The women I spoke to told me she would have me do a hard reset but that I needed to be home for that. At night, called again, performed a hard reset and that didn't work. Fortunately, the tech guy I had on the line agreed with me that this was probably a guide bug and that switching the boxes would not do any good. He wrote on the open ticket that they should subscribe me to the sports package at no cost. Called billing today and when they checked with tech support, they said that my ticket was still open and thus they couldn't do anything yet. Am now waiting for a tech support supervisor (who supposedly is researching my problem) to call me back. Painful!.

I love Verizon's products, but do you ever get the impression that one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing?

My experiences include:
- an order modification that never got processed
- an install that took 3x as long as it should have
- Someone knocked on my door to tell me they needed to set up an appointment to switch my phone over to fiber six weeks after they had already switched it over.
- an automated call two weeks after my FIOS TV install was completed telling me that I had an upcoming appointment for a FIOS install.

but their mistakes have not all been bad:
- instead of sending me a visa gift card as a sweetener to sign up for the internet, they sent me one card, then another a few days later :)

For the record, I tried hitting record on our channel 511(CSN-MA) and it started recording channel 67, the English alternative to the channel. Obviously a software problem.

Long story. I called billing two days ago and gave them the whole story. They told me that Tech Support had to authorize the additional channel at no cost (sports package actually since they can't add one channel) . They transferred me to tech again since there was no record of tech having tried to fix my problem (though they had). Spoke to a "video specialist" who said he would take a three step process (1. soft reset, 2. hard reset, 3. technician to change box). Since I was at work, he did the soft reset and asked me to check when I got home to see if it fixed the problem and if not to call back to try step 2. Of course, problem wasn't fixed. I called and they had me describe the problem again. They then concluded that a hard reset wouldn't do anything and that I needed to talk to the guide language experts (in case the problem was that the guide was defaulting to the english goltv). They told me they would open a ticket and call me the next day. The next day no one called, so I called again. The women I spoke to told me she would have me do a hard reset but that I needed to be home for that. At night, called again, performed a hard reset and that didn't work. Fortunately, the tech guy I had on the line agreed with me that this was probably a guide bug and that switching the boxes would not do any good. He wrote on the open ticket that they should subscribe me to the sports package at no cost. Called billing today and when they checked with tech support, they said that my ticket was still open and thus they couldn't do anything yet. Am now waiting for a tech support supervisor (who supposedly is researching my problem) to call me back. Painful!.

For the record, I tried hitting record on our channel 511(CSN-MA) and it started recording channel 67, the English alternative to the channel. Obviously a software problem.

That's actually a relief to know. Tell me something. Can you try setting up a manual record on channel 511 and let me know if it also records 67? Thanks. I'm still on daily calls with Verizon technical support. Why don't they ever want to admit that it's a bug?

See, if everyone would just learn english, you wouldn't have this problem! :D

See, if everyone would just learn english, you wouldn't have this problem! :D

Not to mention all the extra bandwith we would have. :rolleyes:

Is anyone else having problems with the guide missing data ALOT lately? It seems like everytime I've turned the DVR on recently, the guide entry says "Please wait"...

Is it just me, or are other people having the same trouble?

Is anyone else having problems with the guide missing data ALOT lately? It seems like everytime I've turned the DVR on recently, the guide entry says "Please wait"...

Is it just me, or are other people having the same trouble?

Sounds like communication between your router and that STB, or is it at every STB? I would make sure the coax connections at each location are secure.

Anyone know how to turn on closed captioning? There's a button on the remote that says "CC" to the lower right of the '*' button but it doesn't seem to do anything. I believe I have the Philips Verizon remote.

Anyone know how to turn on closed captioning? There's a button on the remote that says "CC" to the lower right of the '*' button but it doesn't seem to do anything. I believe I have the Philips Verizon remote.

Turn off the power, then press the Menu Button.

Anyone know how to turn on closed captioning? There's a button on the remote that says "CC" to the lower right of the '*' button but it doesn't seem to do anything. I believe I have the Philips Verizon remote.
If you have the new IMG you can access CC through the settings menu, I believe it is under accessibility or something like that.

Turn off the power, then press the Menu Button.

That did the trick. I don't have the new IMG so I guess I have to go to this standby menu every time I want to turn cc on or off. Kinda dumb but I guess cc is an afterthought in most CE devices.

Now that this new IMG downloaded ... my old remotes can't access all the new features - "skip" and "backwards skip", etc. Are there newer remotes that will handle this? If so, will Verizon replace the older ones (free)???

Now that this new IMG downloaded ... my old remotes can't access all the new features - "skip" and "backwards skip", etc. Are there newer remotes that will handle this? If so, will Verizon replace the older ones (free)???Yes, call and request the new remote. Verizon will ship you one for free.

Is anyone else having problems with the guide missing data ALOT lately? It seems like everytime I've turned the DVR on recently, the guide entry says "Please wait"...

Is it just me, or are other people having the same trouble?

I have two DVRs. One has the problem you describe, the other does not.

I solve it by pulling and reinserting the power cord. Works almost instantly ... no wait to refresh the guide like pre-IMG days.

Did that and it worked for me too. Just weird though...

I have three Verizon Fios DVRs. I has storage and other minor issues with each of them after the conversion to the new IMG, but on one of them, I am having a recurring problem. Seemingly at random, the picture and sound will go completely dead, leaving a blank screen on the TV. It's almost as though there is nothing coming from the HDMI cord into the TV. Box is still on, can change channels, etc, but nothing happens with the picture or sound. Unplugging the box and plugging it back in after a minute or so fixes the problem until the next time it happens - seems to happen at random. Anyone else experience this problem after the conversion to the new IMG? It's likely I just need to get a new box from Verizon, though I need to watch the stuff I've recorded on this box first! Luckily it's not a ton of stuff, but annoying nonetheless. Thanks in advance for replies...

Yes, call and request the new remote. Verizon will ship you one for free.

Has anyone had luck getting the new remote Free?? I've called twice and been informed it would cost me $6.95 for each remote (I have two DVR's).

It sucks that I give Verizon almost $300 a month between FIOS TV, Internet, phone and cell service and they won't trade me remotes which the installer said are only "temporary" until the new remotes are available. I have no advance nor reply on these remotes.

I did post this on the FIOS Programming Thread as well - sorry about double posting, however, no one replied over there and it appears to be under discussion here.

Has anyone confirmed how long you can pause a recorded show that is currently recording? With my old comcast motorola box, you could start recording a program, go into the dvr menu, start viewing the program and pause indefinetely. I tried this with the Fios DVR and it resumed play after approx 15 minutes (an HD channel).

I understand that you can only pause a live program that is not recording as long as the buffer allows you but I'd be surprised that you can't pause longer for a program that is already on the hard disk.

I have three Verizon Fios DVRs. I has storage and other minor issues with each of them after the conversion to the new IMG, but on one of them, I am having a recurring problem. Seemingly at random, the picture and sound will go completely dead, leaving a blank screen on the TV. It's almost as though there is nothing coming from the HDMI cord into the TV. Box is still on, can change channels, etc, but nothing happens with the picture or sound. Unplugging the box and plugging it back in after a minute or so fixes the problem until the next time it happens - seems to happen at random. Anyone else experience this problem after the conversion to the new IMG? It's likely I just need to get a new box from Verizon, though I need to watch the stuff I've recorded on this box first! Luckily it's not a ton of stuff, but annoying nonetheless. Thanks in advance for replies...

Yes, my partner has reported this. I haven't seen it myself. She's always doing something in the guide or menu system when it happens, never just sitting there watching.

I just got in here - as I'm switching over to FIOS any day.

Is there seriously only a single topic with 2+ years of information in it?

Are people not interested in more targeted threads on FIOS and the qip6416?

Or - did I just not find it.

There are isolated single threads, but for the most part it is indeed just this one really long thread....

If you are interested in more isolated topics then check out the DSLReports Verizon FiOS TV forum: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzfiostv

When I am watching a recorded program and I try to fast forward, it will sometimes tune to channel 3 of live TV. This does not happen on all recorded programs, but the shows it happens on it happens every time I try to watch it. It usually changes channel at about the same point in each show, like it hits a corrupt point in the recording.

This is with the new image in Ashburn, VA region.

Has anyone confirmed how long you can pause a recorded show that is currently recording? With my old comcast motorola box, you could start recording a program, go into the dvr menu, start viewing the program and pause indefinetely. I tried this with the Fios DVR and it resumed play after approx 15 minutes (an HD channel).

I understand that you can only pause a live program that is not recording as long as the buffer allows you but I'd be surprised that you can't pause longer for a program that is already on the hard disk.

I tried this last night. Had "Legends of the Fall" on and hit Pause to go out and smoke a cigar. About 20-25 minutes into the smoke, I heard the tv return to live broadcast.

I could have sworn that the installer said you could pause up to an hour. This is nowhere near close to that. And it was the SD broadcast.

Mine has never paused for longer than 20 min or so if that long.