On 3/3/06, I placed my order for FiOS TV. Hillsborough County was suppose to take orders on 3/1/06 but did not officially announce it until 3/6/06. Confirmed with rep on 3/6/06 that install was still on. Verizon called on 3/9/06 to see if I would like to order TV service. Wife told rep we already ordered and had install date of tomorrow. Rep said it had been cancelled due to engineering problems. Rep said she would call back later after she investigated. Rep called back explaining why my order was cancelled. Was told it was due to engineering problems, but those had since been corrected. It had something to do with the software used for the outside terminals. I told her not acceptable that I lost my install date. She said she would work on it and would get back with me. Rep called back and told me she was working with engineering to honor original install date. She called back 15 minutes later and told me I was good to go with my original install date. I have had service with Dish Network, Comcast, and Brighthouse cable and have never had a customer service rep that went out of their way like the Verizon rep did. The reason this rep called in the first place was because I talked to her in January about the TV service and she told me she would call back when it was available for my address. Thank God she did or I would have been waiting at home all day with no one showing up.
Two Verizon servicemen arrived around 830 in the morning. One had been doing TV installs since the beginning and had just arrived back from Texas. The other was being trained. The main installer told me that Verizon was going slow on the installs and had not had any mainstream advertising because they did not want a repeat of what happened when they made DSL available. Currently there are not enough fully trained people to meet the demand of everyone who would want the TV service. They are going to be sending mailings to available areas as more of their techs become proficient in the TV service. Was also told just about everyone who could get the internet service is ready for TV service, but are not going to be turning on the areas until more techs are qualified.
Actual install took less than two hours. They first took the main cable feed to my house that was attached to Brighthouse Cable service box and attached it to the video input connection of their box. A splitter was attached to run the main cable to another new splitter that distributes the signal to the three cables entering my house for each TV. The other cable from the first splitter goes to a little black box which was placed next to my router. The box is connected to one of the ports of the router. They upgraded my old wired router to a new wireless router and also provided an extra switch because I use more than three of the Ethernet ports.
After all the technical stuff was installed it was time to install the set top boxes. I had ordered one HD PVR and two regular SD boxes. The HD PVR is connected to the TV via HDMI connection. Asked if the Motorola had fixed the problem with the optical cable working with the HDMI connection and he said no, however, there are boxes the do successfully pas the 5.1 sound using the optical cable and the HDMI connection. I tested to see if 5.1 sound would work on my box with the HDMI cable and optical cable and it did not. This is something Motorola should fix immediately. Currently it only outputs in two channel stereo when using HDMI. People have reported 5.1 sound works when using component cables. Our master bedroom has the SD box connected to the bedroom's computer via TV Tuner Card using composite cables. Currently using the computer's monitor as TV to save room. My son's room is using a SD box attached to the TV via coax cable. The two composite inputs he has are used for an XBOX and Game Cube. After they hooked up all three boxes, he activated the boxes via his laptop. He told me it would take around ten minutes for the boxes to update. Everything updated successfully the first time.
After everything was up and running, he gave me a walkthrough of the set top box features. He did very good explaining all the features of the boxes. Total time there was a little under two hours. The installation went smoothly and could not have asked for better installers. They were outstanding.
After they left, I went to the HD channels they looked spectacular. Better than what I previously with Brighthouse and Dish Network. Looks like Tampa is having the known problem with HD NET and it is being blacked out. HD NET is listed in the guide, but it is HD NET movies. Hopefully HD NET will be turned on soon. MTVHD was also present. Was not expecting that channel as it was not listed on their printable channel guide. MTVHD looks amazing.
After going through the HD channels I started to flip through the regular channels. I would have to say that the SD channels are the biggest WOW factor to me. It is amazing how good they look. All of the remind me of the PPV event channels on Dish Network. Have not had Dish in over a year, but they always up the bandwidth for the PPV events and the channels looked great. All of Verizon’s SD channels look like that. The picture quality is truly amazing.
I plugged my external hard drive into the front USB port and I have not seen any options to export to it. I also have an Ethernet cable plugged into the back. Do not see it on my network. The Verizon guy said that Motorola said all ports were not active, however he says they show active in the diagnostics. I have not tested the firewire port.
I still like the Dish Network guide better, but I will get use to it. The remote at times seems a little slow.
The Verizon Tech also mentioned that they would be doing away with the 5/2 internet package. The 15/2 will be the entry level package and the price will go down to what the 5/2 is. The 30/5 will be the second package and he believed it would go the current 15/2 price. He said they would be adding a 60/5 package for their high end package.
I have had the TV service now for a couple days and could not recommend it more.
EDIT ON 3/13/06, 10:05 - I have had a little time to play with the HD DVR. As some have reported, the interface could use a little work. For example, my biggest complaint about it is this. It goes out 14 days, however, say I was looking at tomorrow’s listings (Tuesday 3/14); it identifies the date as "Tuesday". Now if I go to the next Tuesday (3/21), it still only identifies itself as "Tuesday". I feel they should also list the date (3/14 or 3/21).
Another thing I noticed, but have not had a lot of time to play around with is this. I had two recordings set up last night for the Sopranos and Desperate Housewives. Both start at 9pm. I had it on HBO at around 855 and a message came up asking if I wanted to switch to the Desperate Housewives channel or delete the Sopranos recording. Not wanting to mess with it last night, I just choose to cancel the Sopranos recording as I was watching it live. I can't figure out why it was asking me to choose between the two as it will record two programs at once and I had it on one of the channels that it was recording. I will test more later on.
EDIT ON 3/14/06, 5:04 - One thing I noticed while recording which is very annoying is this. I tape Judge Judy everyday. There are two shows, one from 4 - 430 and the other is 430 - 5. My wife is usually not home during that time, but was home sick today. She was watching something else and Judge Judy was the only thing recording. At around 428 a message pops up saying it has to flip to the channel Judge Judy is recording. The reason it is doing it is because it starts to record a few minutes early and runs a few minutes late. So for about four minutes is was recording the same thing twice and we were forced to watch the channel Judge Judy was recording on. Very annoying. The Scientific Atlantic 8300 did not have this problem and hopefully it will be worked out soon.
EDIT ON 3/19/06, 7:15 - One big positive I noticed with the Verizon HD DVR is that you can start to watch a recording while the show is still live and it does not stop when the show ends. For example, my old Scientific Atlantic 8300 would stop when the show was over. You would have to restart what you were watching and fast forward to the point where you previously had got cut off. This is a big plus for me because I start watching alot of shows before they are over.
EDIT ON 3/19/06, 8:22 - I added some SD pictures. I don't know if you will be able to tell the quality of the pictures, but it does look great. The last pictures kind of show the detail the FiOS picture gives. You can see the strands of hair on the top and side of her head. (jpg 41).
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