Little confused on how to set up Fios

[qposner]

I just discovered that I can now get Fos. Currently I have D* Total Choice +, HD package and HBO. 2 HD DVR's (lease them) and to SD DVR's (own them). Runs me approx $100/mo. In addition, I have Comast broadband and phone for approx $62/mo. Total expenses is around $162/mo.

NOw, I have two TV's upstairs and two downstairs. Upstairs is my man room with an HD DVR and my daughters platroom with a small tv with a SD DVR for kids shows (don't really need a DVR there since it is rarely used). Downstairs is our plasma with an HD DVR and a tv in our bedroom with a SD DVR.

I would like to mimic this setup. Could I use a Home MEdia DVR in the upstairs man room and have an normal set top box in my daughters playroom? Then a second Home MEdia DVR downstairs with the plasma and a normal set top box in the bedroom? That way, I would hope to have DVR access from all TV's and HD DVR's in the man room and downstairs plasma. Alternatively, I could go with a basic HD DVR in the man room and have my daughter's playroom and our bedroom access the plasma Home MEdia DVR.

Does all of that make sense? I am a bit confused and appreciate any help.

Cost looks like it would $114 for tv, broadband and phone. Add $15 for HBO (free for first month) + $40 for Home Media DVR's (one would be free for the first year). I do not know if they charge for set top boxes. So, after initial discounts are done it looks like a total of $114+$15+$40=$170. That is actually a bit more than what I am paying now. Am I missing something? I thought this might save me $.

Thanks for the help!

 

[JPL]

To be honest, I don't know if you can have two home media DVRs set up that way. You can certainly have multiple DVRs, and you can certainly have one home media DVR, and a stand-alone DVR, but I don't think you can have multiple home media DVRs, although you may want to call them to find out for sure.

As for the cost, yeah, it CAN be more, depending on your setup. For me it was a net savings over DirecTV, but if you have multiple DVRs, FiOS can be more expensive. As for the stand-alone boxes, yes, they do charge for them. The SD boxes are $6/month, and the HD boxes are $10/month, although I understand that they're going to offer the HD boxes for the same price as the SD boxes to new customers as well.

One other thing to consider - the triple play price. This may have changed very recently (this was in effect when I re-upped my triple play just a couple months ago, but I doubt it), and it does vary by state, but when I renewed my triple play here in PA, I had 3 different choices:

- triple play with 10/2 internet service for 1 year: $105/month.
- triple play with 10/2 internet for 2 years: $110/month.
- triple play with 20/2 internet for 2 years: $115/month

Sounds like you're going for the last one.

One last point, the home media dvr can feed out to 6 additional TVs, so you can opt for just the one DVR, and have set top boxes on the rest of the TVs. Right now they don't feed out HD recordings, and right now the HD STBs can't access the recordings off the DVR, but that's coming very soon. They're in the process of rolling out their latest s/w update - all markets will have it by the end of September. As part of that update, HD STBs will be able to access recordings from the home media DVR, and you'll be able to feed out HD recordings to your HD STBs.

I believe you can access recordings from three separate TVs at the same time too (including the TV with the DVR).

One nit with all this - you can't manage recordings from those other TVs. You can play back recordings, but you can't add or delete recordings from them - although the multi-room feed does work surprisingly well (I have the home media dvr). There are other nits - there's a latency when using DVR functionality from one of the other TVs. So, if I'm watching a recording on a TV with the standard STB on it, and I hit, say, FFWD, it takes a few seconds to respond. The reason is that the multi-room feeds go through your computer router.

There is one final option that you can use - tivo. If you don't mind shelling out the money for the boxes, and paying the rate to tivo, you can have dvr to dvr feeds with tivo. Although doing so will mean that you can't access video on demand from those tvs.

 

[qposner]

Thanks, Jpl. Sounds like with needing 2 SD stb's, 1 hd stb and the HMDVR, it is still more than what I am paying now. That is $42/mo for equipment.

Man, if they would reduce the expenses of the DVR's, I would be on board. Or, perhaps I should learn to live with less tv's! ;-)

 

[JPL]

I hear you - it all depends on your setup. However, based on the setup you're talking about, I think you would pay less than that. They're doing the deal where you can get the HD MR DVR for free for a year. Also, from what I understand, they're offering the HD STB for the same price as the SD STB now (again, for new customers, although I know an existing customer who called in and got 4 HD STBs for that reduced price). Based on what you're looking at, the first year will run you $18:

- 2 SD STBs = $6 * 2 = $12
- 1 HD STB = $6
- 1 MR DVR = $0

Granted, that means that after your first year, your equipment cost would jump to $38.