anyone have multiroom dvr yet

[LonghornXP]

Is there a limit to how many boxes in one house can have access to the DVR? I have 4 boxes + a DVR. Will I be able to operate the DVR as a 'stand alone' tuner, without the other boxes interfering with it? Is the first tuner included with the service?

First if the DVR is a dual tuner DVR you cannot use the DVR to watch a live show if its currently recording two shows at the sametime but that is no different. Now if the DVR is recording two shows at once I know for sure that you can playback anything recorded on the DVR with all four digital boxes at the sametime. You can also playback an existing recording on the DVR itself still at the sametime too. Now if you have four HD boxes along with the HD DVR and your trying to watch HD on all the HD boxes that might be close to the limit but with Moca I think the cables can handle the data but the limit will be with the hard drive. The hard drive must be fast enough to handle the volume of data without stalling so I think the limit might be four HD multiroom streams while playing back an HD show on the DVR while also recording two HD shows. That alone is 7 streams of HD the hard drive must handle so I think that is very close to the limit of the drive itself.

Also keep in mind that the basic digital boxes will be using their one and only tuner to playback a show from the DVR but Verizon is working at making the multiroom viewing and VOD true IPTV without using a tuner. When this does occur unlike with cable you will be able to record two HD shows at the sametime while also being able to playback any VOD title or DVR recording from another DVR box all at the sametime. Right now with cable to use VOD on their DVR boxes it must use one of the two tuners so you can only record one show while watching a VOD title.

 

[cbstv]

any info. on how many hd/sd boxes are included in the subscription?

 

[LonghornXP]

any info. on how many hd/sd boxes are included in the subscription?

I believe that one basic digital box is included as part of expanded basic with a one year agreement. Also that 4 bucks a month cannot be applied towards an HD box or an HD DVR.

 

[Huachipato]

I didn't think Verizon had contracts. There is a one year agreement for sure on their service?

 

[LonghornXP]

I didn't think Verizon had contracts. There is a one year agreement for sure on their service?

You can get the five bucks a month discount if you have mutiple services without a one year agreement but if you agree to one year of TV service they will give you one of these discounts below in addition to the double or triple play discounts.

You can get one free digital box valued at 3.95/month.
You can get 5.00/month off of the Movie Package or the Movie/Sports Combo.
Sorry I forgot what the third discount option is...sorry.

They just give you extra discounts if you agree to one year of service. Also if you cancel within that one year I think you must pay back the extra discount times the number of months you accepted it for. So if you canceled at the 8 month mark you must pay back 40 bucks if you got the five bucks a month discount or you must pay back 32 bucks about if you got a free digital box. Now I'm not 100% sure on this but I believe that is what I was told. So to figure out what you must pay you must take the exact amount of your discount and times it by the number of months you completed within that one year agreement. I think they also have a max 50 dollar cancellating so if you add the amounts up and they total more than 50 bucks you would only pay 50 bucks and no more. Again this may be wrong but you can ask Verizon and I know they will tell you the specifics.

 

[tejasaggie]

5/28 and 6/1 dates mentioned have past. Being a little impatient, I called vfios. They had no clue what I was talking about, never heard of multi room. Anybody know what markets they are testing in or got another false hope release date.
tejasaggie
Coppell, tx

 

[mindgrind]

I'm just up the road in Lewisville and received a letter from Verizon about the Widgets with no mention of anything else so I would say there is nothing happening anytime soon in our area... and no date on when we'll get the Widgets either.

 

[JohnM]

Had my Verizon FiOS install last Tue (6/13) in Carrollton. Installer said they did not have the multiroom yet. He didn't know when but at least he know what I was talking about.

 

[Huachipato]

Based on what I have read, the Multiroom DVR should be comeing out sometime later on this year.

 

[garlandtxuser]

Multi-room

I look forward to the multi-room HD DVR. We had this with Dish and my wife is ready to kill me over taking Dish out. She was able to record shows from either the set in the bedroom or living room and watch them on either set. Now, with seperate boxes, when she records in the bedroom she must also watch in the bedroom.

In addition, the clock that comes on the STB is a bright yellow that we had to cover with a pieve of black tape so that it would not keep us up at night. Since the Dish unit was located in the living room, we did not have that problem.

Some other features that were nice on Diish have alreaday been mentioned in other threads like 30 sec skip, wide screen menus, etc. My favorite one and one that really needs to be considered on this box is the opaque menus. We used to be able to watch our shows and scroll through the guide at the same time. Now, we can either watch a really small picture or none at all.

Also, the time to switch between SD and HD causes our TV set to think that it is loosing signal. This was also a problem with Dish in their first software revision, but they fixed it in the next release. This REALLY needs to be fixed. Switching from SD to HD should be quick and not interrupt the signal.

 

[jgantert]

Also, the time to switch between SD and HD causes our TV set to think that it is loosing signal. This was also a problem with Dish in their first software revision, but they fixed it in the next release. This REALLY needs to be fixed. Switching from SD to HD should be quick and not interrupt the signal.

You can fix this. I think what it is doing is HD for HD and SD for SD (ie: switching resolutions on the TV instead of converting everything to HD). Power off the box, then press MENU. One of the settings is for pass-thru or 1080i or something like that. It should make the channel change quicker.

-John

 

[garlandtxuser]

You can fix this. I think what it is doing is HD for HD and SD for SD (ie: switching resolutions on the TV instead of converting everything to HD). Power off the box, then press MENU. One of the settings is for pass-thru or 1080i or something like that. It should make the channel change quicker.

-John

I tried what you recommended but when I power off the box and press menu, nothing happens. No display, and nothing on the panel. Am I missing a step?

 

[LonghornXP]

I tried what you recommended but when I power off the box and press menu, nothing happens. No display, and nothing on the panel. Am I missing a step?

I think this should help you out. First when we say power off the box we mean pressing the power button on the box itself and not the remote control. Also make sure you keep your TV on. I know these are stupid questions to be saying but many times that is the issue. Now the big key is that after pressing the power button "you must" press the "Select Button" on the box "within" no more than "two" seconds.

Just to make sure you understood me I said you must press the "Select" button and "NOT" the "Menu" button and again the "Select" button must be pressed within two seconds after pressing the power button and it all should be done using the bottons on the box itself and not the remote control. Once you have the menu up and showing you can use the remote control to browse the menu.

 

[korsjs]

I tried what you recommended but when I power off the box and press menu, nothing happens. No display, and nothing on the panel. Am I missing a step?

on mine, you have to be on a sd input do view the advance menu. in other words. it does not display when i am using the hdmi. if you have rca cables, hook them up temp to access the advance menu.

 

[jgantert]

Mine works SD & HD. Just make sure the box is off (power applied, just no picture on the TV), and the TV is on. Press (& hold for a second, I think) MENU button on the box itself. Should come up with a B/W menu with stuff like closed captioning.

-John

 

[korsjs]

are you using hdmi or component? i will check again, i haven't messed with it since i got it. maybe their software fix a couple of months ago fixed it.

 

[garlandtxuser]

Thanks, got it

I finally got it to work, I pressed menu a couple of times. Since it was having a problem with syncing I could not see it. Once I gave it a chance to snc up the menu appeared when pressing the menu button. I set it to 1080i and now the channels shift without delay.

Thanks again.

 

[Andrew_J_M]

Longhorn, this is great information, I have been sticking with DirecTV in hope that the rumoured HMC will magically appear at a reasonable cost. Now I think as soon as FIOS becomes available here (Ashburn, VA) I will do a swap-out.
A couple of questions though - Just how seamless will the multi-room set up be? For instance if I have DVRs in two seperate rooms can I set up recordings with no regard to where they will be recorded? So I am in the den scheduling three recordings at the same time, will I get a conflict or will it automatically schedule one on the other DVR in the HT room?
Also If I'm watching a recording in the HT room, could another family member also watch the same recording in another room and at another point in the show? Or maybe I'm watching a game live in the HT room and recording it at the same time, could some else start watching the game from the beginning in a different room?
Thanks.

 

[LonghornXP]

Longhorn, this is great information, I have been sticking with DirecTV in hope that the rumoured HMC will magically appear at a reasonable cost. Now I think as soon as FIOS becomes available here (Ashburn, VA) I will do a swap-out.
A couple of questions though - Just how seamless will the multi-room set up be? For instance if I have DVRs in two seperate rooms can I set up recordings with no regard to where they will be recorded? So I am in the den scheduling three recordings at the same time, will I get a conflict or will it automatically schedule one on the other DVR in the HT room?
Also If I'm watching a recording in the HT room, could another family member also watch the same recording in another room and at another point in the show? Or maybe I'm watching a game live in the HT room and recording it at the same time, could some else start watching the game from the beginning in a different room?
Thanks.

From what I've been told is the system will take all of your DVR boxes and make them appear to all boxes (including DVR boxes) as one DVR. So lets assume you have 3 HD DVR boxes and 1 digital box for a total of 4 boxes in your home. All 4 boxes will appear as one total DVR with 6 total recording tuners. The benefit of this is that a recording can be scheduled from any of the four total boxes and I also heard the system will try and schedule the recordings in such a way that every DVR will have at least one tuner open if it can be done.

So say if you have three shows scheduled to record at the sametime it will schedule it to record using one tuner on each of the three DVR boxes leaving all DVR boxes the ability to still watch live TV. Now once you get upto 4 live recordings at a time only two DVR boxes out of the three will have live TV tuner available and I don't believe you can pick which box to use the second tuner with.

I hope I'm not getting you confused but I don't really have a better way to explain it. Also Verizon is looking at software for the box to allow VOD usage without the need of a video tuner. Today with Verizon unlike cable VOD programs are sent via IPTV over the boxes high speed modem but it still uses a video tuner for playback. In the future they will add some middleware that would allow VOD to work like a played back recording. This means that they plan to allow full VOD usage in the future on all DVR boxes even if they are recording two shows at once.

I also hear that Comcast would consider doing this if Verizon sparks consumer interest but for now it will Comcast comcast more money as they must first put harder to send VOD as internet data streams and only use the cable modem without a video tuner. Right now most cable companies just send an MPEG2 video stream via the boxes built-in cable modem and the boxes treat it as another channel as it appears like a normal QAM256 channel. I have an HDTV with a QAM tuner and for some crazy reason I can tune into specific QAM channels and watch along with other apartments VOD requests including their fast forward requests and such. They don't seem to be protecting the streams and I'm not telling either. I've enjoyed several free PPV movies this way too...lol.

 

[Andrew_J_M]

Thanks again Longhorn, that sounds like a near-perfect solution. I like to see the ability to link in my Windows MCE PC via the LAN and play back .avi and other files on the TV. Also optionally using the LAN instead of the coax links could be an advantage.