Verizon FiOS QIP6416 DVR - Master Topic!

[cdru]

Originally Posted by Jack_Carver

The options/settings for recording does not provide a means to disable or zero out the pre/post overlap. Quite stupid and annoying.

I believe the conflict avoidance on the new FiOS IMG 2.0 take care of the 1-minute overlap. Don't quote me on that though.

I do know that the new guide allows you to pad the recording (or take away the padding). You just have to go into the timer setup and adjust it.

[bfdtv]

Originally Posted by Jack_Carver

The FIOS boxes software insists on starting a recording 1 min BEFORE and ending 1 min AFTER. Effect... I record show A @ 9pm, record show B @ 10pm, all the whiile watching the Ballgame. Well when 9:59 rolls around suddenly the box needs to do THREE things at once with TWO tuners. So the dialog box pops up... cancel A or go to B.... when I want to stay on C.

Under Comcast software the thing was dead bang accurate, starting exactly at 9 and ending at 9:59:59, and starting at 10:00:00 and no issues.

The current (older) FiOS software pads an extra two minutes on each end. This is a good thing if you're watching a program like Heroes on NBC, which often runs 30-60 seconds over. With the Comcast DVR, you'll occasionally miss the ending.

It is a growing practice for the networks to run a minute over, because doing so gives them an extra minute of high-value advertising. For example, the ad rates for Heroes were considerably higher than they were for the scheduled 9pm (now 9:01-9:02) program, Studio 60.

The FiOS DVR does not pad if there are multiple, back-to-back recordings. It only pads when an extra tuner is "available" to do so. Unfortunately, a tuner is considered "available" even if you are using it to watch a live program.

[GeekGirl]

FYI - Lots of problems tonight in the Philly area with stuttering, audio out of sync, frame drops and pixelation (I don't have the pixelation). For me, it affects HD and SD content - even my recorded movie . Did STB warm boot (recycle output resolution), cold boot, gave it a boot, but nothing is working. The natives are restless.

[kes601]

Originally Posted by GeekGirl

FYI - Lots of problems tonight in the Philly area with stuttering, audio out of sync, frame drops and pixelation (I don't have the pixelation). For me, it affects HD and SD content - even my recorded movie . Did STB warm boot (recycle output resolution), cold boot, gave it a boot, but nothing is working. The natives are restless.

Similar problems in VA Beach.

[goingsking]

I thought it was me but we had problems in NJ

[zebras23]

Originally Posted by kes601

Similar problems in VA Beach.

No. VA as well. - could it be result of getting ready to push new software Nation wide?

[jimwig]

Even if your feed is Fiber, downlinking of programming to headends is problematic in bad weather. First up to the satellite, in many situations, and then down, possibly over terrestrial microwave links; lots of opportunity for signal disruption. A far bigger complaint to me is the difference in audio levels between channels and the difference between commercials and program levels.
Then again, maybe it's the software and box.

[kes601]

Originally Posted by zebras23

No. VA as well. - could it be result of getting ready to push new software Nation wide?

Thats what I am hoping. There is a thread over on dslreports that theorizes that they are needing to install new equipment because the new guide is more than just a new guide -- it supposedly handles the video signals differently. The new equipment does not play nice with the old guide.

Again, that is just a theory. But here is hoping it is correct.

[greendog99]

Hoping the new Series 3 "Lite" Tivo for $299 will play well with FiOS. If so, I think I'm done with this motorola DVR and Microsoft software. Would like to see the new program guide first, but can't wait forever...

[GeekGirl]

Philly problem seems fixed today. Info over on DSL reports: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...s=10~start=360. It seems that Verizon can see the problem on their side.

During the problems last night, I tried downgrading from 1080i to 720p for a few seconds and the problems went away. Maybe it's luck, maybe it clears out more memory, but it seemed to work.

Next time this happens (stuttering, etc.), try cycling the video resolution but this time stay in the lower res mode - 720p, 480p, etc. and see if it's fixed. That would point to the box.

[zebras23]

Originally Posted by GeekGirl

Philly problem seems fixed today. Info over on DSL reports: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...s=10~start=360. It seems that Verizon can see the problem on their side.

During the problems last night, I tried downgrading from 1080i to 720p for a few seconds and the problems went away. Maybe it's luck, maybe it clears out more memory, but it seemed to work.

Next time this happens (stuttering, etc.), try cycling the video resolution but this time stay in the lower res mode - 720p, 480p, etc. and see if it's fixed. That would point to the box.

Better here in No. VA as well.

[Joe Q]

Originally Posted by greendog99

Hoping the new Series 3 "Lite" Tivo for $299 will play well with FiOS. If so, I think I'm done with this motorola DVR and Microsoft software. Would like to see the new program guide first, but can't wait forever...

I had not heard of this "Lite" version until I saw your post.

The idea of getting a TIVO dvr for $299 to replace the Motorola box is REALLY tempting.

BUT:

Engadget has a usefull review as well as the link to the correct place in Tivo community which has the specs on it and now I am wondering what makes this any different than the full S3 or really better than the 6416.

Consider the following.

1) The S3 LIte only comes with that same small 160Gbyte disc which is my #1 complaint about the 6416. You will need to spend another $100 to $200 to boost the disk capacity.
Add that to the hassle factor because you are buying an item that requires an immediate upgrade

2) Still does not have Firewire which I am 'wearing out' on my 6416 with my D-VHS deck and my PC.

[Person99]

Originally Posted by Joe Q

2) Still does not have Firewire which I am 'wearing out' on my 6416 with my D-VHS deck and my PC.

IMO this is a gross oversight on their part and I can't believe they have not corrected it yet. Had they put a firewire port on it, I would already own two series 3 TiVos to replace the junky QIP6416. What were they thinking.

[bfdtv]

Originally Posted by Joe Q

1) The S3 LIte only comes with that same small 160Gbyte disc which is my #1 complaint about the 6416. You will need to spend another $100 to $200 to boost the disk capacity.
Add that to the hassle factor because you are buying an item that requires an immediate upgrade

Well, at least you can upgrade the drive, which is more than can be said for the Motorola QIP6416.

It's not like there is a lot of effort involved to upgrade capacity with an eSATA drive. It is a two-minute process and you've got that extra 500Gb to 1Tb of storage.

[cdru]

Originally Posted by jimwig

Even if your feed is Fiber, downlinking of programming to headends is problematic in bad weather. First up to the satellite, in many situations, and then down, possibly over terrestrial microwave links; lots of opportunity for signal disruption. A far bigger complaint to me is the difference in audio levels between channels and the difference between commercials and program levels.
Then again, maybe it's the software and box.

Verizon, last I heard, has two super headends, one in Florida and one in Illinois and the feed is suppose to switch between the two if one goes down, becomes unstable, etc. I know Illinois had some storms blow through yesterday, but did Florida too? This of course is for national channels only. Locals are inserted at the head end and could be received via a variety of different methods.

[Joe Q]

Originally Posted by bfdtv

Well, at least you can upgrade the drive, which is more than can be said for the Motorola QIP6416.

It's not like there is a lot of effort involved to upgrade capacity with an eSATA drive. It is a two-minute process and you've got that extra 500Gb to 1Tb of storage.

That was not my point.

My point is that this so called S3 'Lite' is not such a big deal over the S3 when one considers that one has to spend more money on it to get a disk capacity that makes it useful
ie. Upgrade to get to the The same 250 Gb capacity as the S3

One or two hundred bucks for a Sata disk then add that to the cost of the S3

[greendog99]

Joe, 250 GB SATA drives sell for under $50 now, plus add a few dollars for an enclosure and eSATA cable. Add that to a "lite" and you'll have far more space than the regular S3 Tivo, and for far less expense.

It's definitely something to factor into the decision process... I just hope no one is paying "one or two hundred bucks" for 90GB worth of disk space (to bring a 160GB tivo up to the same capacity as a 250GB tivo) when half-terabyte drives are selling for $95.

-Mike

[victor20170]

Originally Posted by xer0derm

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



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

Did you ever figure out what the problem was with your box? I just got a 2nd DVR from FIOS for my bedroom, and unfortunately my new LCD didn't arrive on time, so the tech couldn't test if the box was actually working. He only checked if I was getting a good signal from the wall, which I was according to him.

I moved the receiver to the main TV in my living room, but I keep on getting that 4095 number when I try to change channels and nothing else.

Victor

[rastetter]

I am getting FIOS in <2 weeks finally, and will get a DVR, it says this is the one they give out

Just wondering if there are any hacks/tricks or neat unadvertised features
like can it be plugged into pc, or can the firmware be modified.... just curious, and i always ask this when i get new stuff hah (like my wireless router, i changed the firmware and it has many more features now)... i know the answers probably here, i searched but theres too many pages and i didnt see anything clear

Thanks

[remav]

Has anyone else noticed this about the stutter issue? If you record a segment when the stutter is really bad & play it back the stutter is still there. If you then save that recording for a couple weeks & then play it back the stutter goes away. I've had 3 recordings that exhibited this behavior now over the last couple of months. So, the signal has to be getting to the box OK. The box just has problems under a certain set of conditions. Seems to be the better the HD content, the more the box screws up. I've swapped my DVR out and even added a 2nd non DVR HD box to see if there was any difference... there was no difference between boxes. All 3 stuttered during good HD content shows.

[AcuraCL]

I'm new to DVRs in general and FiOS in particular. Last week I recorded The DaVinci Code and it cut the movie/recording off after about 1 hr 4x minutes. The guide says 2.5 hours length.

Did we do something wrong to make it cut the recording off?

Any ideas what went wrong most likely? I just don't want to keep doing this.

I scheduled a re-record and added 60 minutes to it.

[shawn12341234]

Originally Posted by remav

Has anyone else noticed this about the stutter issue? If you record a segment when the stutter is really bad & play it back the stutter is still there. If you then save that recording for a couple weeks & then play it back the stutter goes away. I've had 3 recordings that exhibited this behavior now over the last couple of months. So, the signal has to be getting to the box OK. The box just has problems under a certain set of conditions. Seems to be the better the HD content, the more the box screws up. I've swapped my DVR out and even added a 2nd non DVR HD box to see if there was any difference... there was no difference between boxes. All 3 stuttered during good HD content shows.

the stutting issues are my major complaint with the service. i still see them every couple of weeks. the workaround i use is to put the box in 480i mode for a few moments and then switch it back to 1080i and it goes away for me.

[cdru]

Originally Posted by AcuraCL

I'm new to DVRs in general and FiOS in particular. Last week I recorded The DaVinci Code and it cut the movie/recording off after about 1 hr 4x minutes. The guide says 2.5 hours length.

Did we do something wrong to make it cut the recording off?

Any ideas what went wrong most likely? I just don't want to keep doing this.

Were there storms coming through your area that night? Any chance for an emergency broadcast system announcement? If so those will interrupt your recording. It may or may not have been anything you did. I'd wait to see if it happens again before worrying about it too much.

[DiskDude]

Originally Posted by AcuraCL

I'm new to DVRs in general and FiOS in particular. Last week I recorded The DaVinci Code and it cut the movie/recording off after about 1 hr 4x minutes. The guide says 2.5 hours length.

Did we do something wrong to make it cut the recording off?

Any ideas what went wrong most likely? I just don't want to keep doing this.

I scheduled a re-record and added 60 minutes to it.

I've used the FIOS DVR for about six months now and have never had this problem. Assuming you used the record function while in the guide vs. scheduling a manual recording it should automatically pick up the correct start and end time and it's worked well for me.

Since it is thunder storm season, were there storms in your area that might have caused a momentary loss of power to box? I think this would cause the recording to stop in the middle. I have my TV and the DVR on a small UPS so they'll ride out short power outages.

The other possibile cause would be a recording conflict between the DaVinci Code and something else you wanted to record that started while it was still recording DaVinci. You've got two tuners in the DVR so you can record a show and watch a second show, or record two shows while watching one of them or one of your saved shows, but if you have two recordings setup that overlap and try to watch a third live show, you'll get a message asking whether you want to continue recording or cancel one of the recordings and watch the live show.

Good luck. Soon you'll wonder how you got along without the DVR. I know I do...

[AcuraCL]

Thanks for the replies. I don't think there were any storms during the recording time. The other thought I had was that we inadvertently cut it off by trying to tune a third broadcast, but I would have expected a warning message (which it sounds like that would have occurred).

I'll keep an eye on things.

I was just wondering if there were any recurrent problems like this ... for now I'll chalk it up to newbie error/random glitch.

Btw, I love FiOS.

[Gerryex]

Originally Posted by AcuraCL

Thanks for the replies. I don't think there were any storms during the recording time. The other thought I had was that we inadvertently cut it off by trying to tune a third broadcast, but I would have expected a warning message (which it sounds like that would have occurred).

I'll keep an eye on things.

I was just wondering if there were any recurrent problems like this ... for now I'll chalk it up to newbie error/random glitch.

Btw, I love FiOS.

Hi AcuraCL,

I've had the DVR for half a year or more, and while I love the service and the DVR, every once and a while it does that! I was once going to watch a movie and started it and then brought up the play progress indicator (press Play) and I saw that it only had about 40 minutes, even though the banner said it had over 2 hours. And sure enough at 40 minutes it stopped. Again, it only does this seldomly, but I have seen it before.

But don't fret, as I had the DirecTV HD Tivo for years and it also did that occasionally. I also am following the Series 3 HD Tivo (works with cable and FiOS, but costs $800 plus subscription fees!) and that also does it occasionally.

I think its in the nature of the beast that if something unexpected happens the recording is stopped and sometimes it restarts and sometimes is does not! Most of the time you can pick up another showing.

Gerry

[Joe Q]

Originally Posted by Gerryex

Hi AcuraCL,


But don't fret, as I had the DirecTV HD Tivo for years and it also did that occasionally. I also am following the Series 3 HD Tivo (works with cable and FiOS, but costs $800 plus subscription fees!) and that also does it occasionally.

I think its in the nature of the beast that if something unexpected happens the recording is stopped and sometimes it restarts and sometimes is does not! Most of the time you can pick up another showing.

Gerry

I very recently switched to this GREAT FIOS picture quality from the lousy PQ from Directv, so I have not yet seen this behaviour on the 6416 but I am sure I will.

Up until a month or so ago with Directv, I always checked what the guide on my HR 10-250 HD TIVO said about program length in the 'Now playing list' before I decided to watch a long movie.

I had plenty of 'short' movies with the HDTIVO just as has been described.
I was impressed with the thought that went into it's useability features.
Like if the box crashed during a recording, it would start recording the same movie before it was completely done rebooting.

The Verizon Moto 6416 will tell you that a program started recording late and may be short but no crashes yet to see how well it handles that.

[jeepmon]

Originally Posted by Gerryex

Hi AcuraCL,

I've had the DVR for half a year or more, and while I love the service and the DVR, every once and a while it does that! I was once going to watch a movie and started it and then brought up the play progress indicator (press Play) and I saw that it only had about 40 minutes, even though the banner said it had over 2 hours. And sure enough at 40 minutes it stopped. Again, it only does this seldomly, but I have seen it before.

But don't fret, as I had the DirecTV HD Tivo for years and it also did that occasionally. I also am following the Series 3 HD Tivo (works with cable and FiOS, but costs $800 plus subscription fees!) and that also does it occasionally.

I think its in the nature of the beast that if something unexpected happens the recording is stopped and sometimes it restarts and sometimes is does not! Most of the time you can pick up another showing.

Gerry

Interesting enough, I've had the DVR in my great room for about 10 months and the first couple months I had a few recordings stop early, this no longer happens with this DVR. A few weeks ago I had a DVR put into the bedroom and last night I noticed that a recording stopped early on this one. Both of these DVR's were brand spankin' new when they hooked them up. Is this a coincidence or do these DVR's have issues when they're new which work themselves out after usage???

Anyone else experiencing problems only within the first couple of months?

Thanks
jeepmon

[robmfielding]

We had a FIOS catastrophe last night in Montgomery County, MD (Kensington). The DVR was being slow to respond (started a few days ago). We kept pressing the remote to try to turn it on and off. It then spontaneously rebooted. When it came up all recordings and scheduled shows were gone. Nothing. About 30 hours of TV, poof!. The wife is furious as they were all shows. I don't know if this has anything to do with the new software but just beware. I had Tivo for 8 years and never lost a recording. I have ordered the Tivo HD and am done with the FIOS dvr.

[d2tw4all]

I currently have Comcast but have scheduled FIOS install for Monday morning. I have FIOS internet already and CAN'T WAIT to flip the finger to ripoff comcast! Anyway, I'm getting 2 DVR's and am wondering if folks have figured out the 30 second skip codes like I have for the comcast DVR's. I find this function ESSENTIAL! Also, can the DVR units be configured to use ethernet for video or is coax a must? I have coax runs through the current comcast config but the coax is a bit of a jumble and if cat5 can be used as an alternative I'd LOVE it! Also is there HD on demand like Comcast has?
Tom