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Have A Few HD Receiver Questions...

I'm a long time DIRECTV subscriber that just signed up to switch to FiOS (install scheduled for 4.29.2011). I'm been using FiOS for internet and phone for some time, but until recently couldn't part with DTV. Anyway, I was hoping someone might be able to answer a couple questions for me.

1) What brand & model are the multi-room DVRs and receivers they are currently releasing to new customers?

2) I found an older thread somewhere online, but it mentioned that you couldn't build a custom list of your channels? Is this true? It may depend on what receiver I get and the firmware that's in it. But I'd like to remove the channels I don't care about from the channel guide. Less clutter = me finding what I want to watch faster.

3) Honestly, how is the overall picture HD quality?

4) Anyone a former DIRECTV customer? What kind of stuff will I be disappointed with? What kind of stuff will I be happy with?

Thanks in advance for any help with the above questions. Right now I'm kinda anxoius and don't really know what to expect. I've leaving a company I really like (DIRECTV) just to save some cash. I'm hoping it doesn't bite me in the **bleep**. 🙂

Comments

Hubrisnxs

@clambert wrote:
I'm a long time DIRECTV subscriber that just signed up to switch to FiOS (install scheduled for 4.29.2011). I'm been using FiOS for internet and phone for some time, but until recently couldn't part with DTV. Anyway, I was hoping someone might be able to answer a couple questions for me.
1) What brand & model are the multi-room DVRs and receivers they are currently releasing to new customers?
2) I found an older thread somewhere online, but it mentioned that you couldn't build a custom list of your channels? Is this true? It may depend on what receiver I get and the firmware that's in it. But I'd like to remove the channels I don't care about from the channel guide. Less clutter = me finding what I want to watch faster.
3) Honestly, how is the overall picture HD quality?
4) Anyone a former DIRECTV customer? What kind of stuff will I be disappointed with? What kind of stuff will I be happy with?
Thanks in advance for any help with the above questions. Right now I'm kinda anxoius and don't really know what to expect. I've leaving a company I really like (DIRECTV) just to save some cash. I'm hoping it doesn't bite me in the **bleep**. 🙂

Hello and welcome aboard.

1. You will get either the 7216 model DVR or the 7232 Model DVR.

the 7216 has a 160 gb hard drive, the 7232 has the 500 GB hard drive.

which you get will be dependant on what the technician has in his inventory, and the majority of new customers get the 7232 model.

Currently you can not hook up extra storage to these DVR's, but with Verizon's next software release in a couple months, you will be able to expand upto 1TB like the directv dvr's.

2. You can get rid of channels you don't care about, but it's not the same as how directv does it. Verizon might mimic that in the future, but currently you have to use favorites to do that. A lot of people tend to find favorites more powerful on fios than on directv, but it does require a tiny bit more elbow grease to do.

3. Picture quality is second to none. Gorgeous, even compared to my DTV, which was Beuatiful as well. DTV has a great picture, so they will look close, but I think you'll find the FiOS picture slightly better. The only place where this is not a true statement is in the VOD catagory as fios delivers 1080i VOD, and DTV does 1080p VOD. other than that, broadcast quality is superb.

4. I too am a DTV subscriber in one home and a fios in another, and the differences are slight, and you get used to them over time. The guide is better on FiOS In my opinion. the 1.9 guide (next release and eagerly anticipated) will blow DTV Clean out of the water as soon as we get it.

The multi room DVR works wonderfully with Fios and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to set up like it does with DTV. Customer service and tech support may be fios biggest downfall compared to dtv, but then you have us here to help you too!

The online support for fios beats DTV's though, so if you can take advantage of it, I would do so. You have the following resources for support.

Call them at 1800 VERIZON
Open a LIVE Chat
Follow support on twitter
VZ Direct Forum for advanced and complex issues
VZ Forums for quick everyday answers, and also for items that fall outside of their normal support boundaries.

And Verizon has an excellent Ideas exchange, where the mucky mucks actually listen. You may not like their answer all the time, but at least they are there, and it gives you a chance to get a thumbs up or down if you have a great idea to share with Verizon.

Also if you want to be considered for beta testing new products, you can sign up here.

Keep track of your order, and check out the FiOS install process at the following link

The big thing I guess for me, when I joined was the router. Verizon provides you a Wireless G router, and I was used to an N router which is stronger. So if you already have an N router, then great, just bookmark this link so you can hook it up after the tech leaves. you HAVE to keep their router in the picture if you want everything to work smoothly.

And if you want to familiarize yourself with all the terminology then you should check the FAQ in your spare time.

Welcome to the club, and enjoy the ride!

clambert2

Holy Crap! That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it. Hopefully I'll get the newer DVR. 🙂

I feel a lot better about switching now. Thanks again for all the info and links.

spacedebris

One additional thing I would mention, is that Verizon's Multi-room DVR is not like the DTV whole home system.

With DTV you can pause programming in one room and resume in another. And as you move around the house, the programming can move with you.

With Verizon, you can access recorded programming only, and if you move rooms, you have to retrieve it independently in each of the other rooms. Now personally I like it this way, but other people that have had DTV have mentioned that this is something they were expecting with Verizon and were very suprised at the difference.

One additional benefit with the Verizon service.... Your picture will not go out because of "rain fade" LOL

As another person who has Verizon at one location and DTV at another. I can also attest to the Quality of the picture. My family made several complaints when I switched but most of them were simply because Verizon's systems are different and they had to learn how to do it all over again. Once everyone was used to the way Verizon operates, they all agree that they are both excellent services and would be perfectly content with either one. The picture is superior on Verizon. Although DTV was close. The VOD quality was better on DTV but the VOD selection is better on Fios (IMHO). I preferred the ability to set up the program guide on DTV but the Verizon Favorites system is adequate. Its also nice to not have the big dish on the roof too Smiley Wink

If you get the 7232 DVR, it is nice having nearly 70 hours of HD recording capability, The 7216 only has 20, but with the upcoming upgrade, the ability to add external hard drive will take care of that.

I would check to make sure that you will save money if that is the only reason for your swap. Make sure that you take into account all the fee's for box rentals, make sure that the package you subscribe to has the channels you want. And make sure that you are taking into account any extra packages that you must pay for. The reason I mention this is that when I switched, I got a short term savings. Big specials to sign up (free movie package for 3 months, free DVR for 6 months, and such) but after 6 months once all the specials ran out, my bill is pretty much the same is that I'm paying for with DTV. There is only a few dollars difference in my case. You don't want a surprise.

The ONLY thing that I prefer the DTV over Vz enough to make me hesitate making the switch is the NFL package. DTV has exclusive rights to the NFL package. And I like the ability to watch any game I want every week. That gave me a long pause to make the switch over. And if I didn't have DTV at the other house, I may not have made the switch. At least by having DTV at the other house, I set up my DVR to record the NFL for me and then I use a slingbox to be able to watch it at my other house. If I didnt have that, I may or may not have made the switch. Other than that, I've never had any regrets.

techgeekny

I saw this post and being I just recently switched from DTV to FIOS I had to toss in my 2 cents. I agree with everything that was said and I got the 7232 HD DVR when I was installed. What I am writing about is regarding the differences. The guides are relatively the same except for full screen but I understand that will be changing if/when we get 1.9. My major gripes are the DVR and seeing whats recorded.

1. On DTV I could go into the recordings and see what is scheduled coming up and what was scheduled in the past and see what was recorded, what failed, what was only partial whatever. On FIOS I can only go into recordings and see what is recorded I have no idea if anything failed or what not.

2. On DTV when I have a recording scheduled I can from the recording menu not the guide find out when else it is being shown and record it at a later date if I want due to conflicts. on FIOS I have to find it in the guide and then I can look up future showings.

3. Also on FIOS when I bring up al ist of future showings I have no way to know which one is actually set to record by simply looking down the list. I have to go into each one's info and look for the recording symbol. DTV I can tell visually right away from the list.

4. On DTV I can get full program info from the recording 9specifically the original air date) which is important for me for network shows to avoid repeats and such. On FIOS I can only get that info from the guide for current or future shows (and then I have to press info and then info again to get full info). But If I check the info for a recorded show I get no original air date information.

There are a few more but those stand out. Most of my gripes are with the recording and I suppose I will live with it (no choice) but the only good thing is that there is VOD so I can watch shows from there I may have missed. Just sucks I have to keep more track manually to see if I missed an episode.

clambert2

spacedebris

Thanks for the reply. As far as billing goes, right now it looks like I'll be saving $80 the first year, $60 the second year, and $40 after that with the option to get in on a new deal and contract. Hopfully Verizon sticks to the prices they have told me, otherwise I'm going to be a little hot. They don't mention taxes, which I'm sure will add up to a little bit.

As far as Sunday Ticket goes, while I'd like to have it, I've never coughed up the cash for it. No loss there.

techgeekny

My biggest issue with the guide is going to be able to filter it. It looks like I'll have a work around for that. There's got to be an option to record first run shows only, right? That's pretty basic stuff.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'm excited to see how it works out for me. I plan on keeping DTV for the first month I have FiOS. Not for a crutch, more for if I decide I don't like it. I honestly see myself keeping FiOS though.

I tell you, one of the smartest things DTV did was keep the same channel number for SD & HD. Also, the ability to hide duplicate channels in SD is nice. Little features like that are what make a receiver stand out. The DTV receiver wasn't the best but it was indeed pretty darn good. Hopefully the FiOS receiver picks up a few of these nice little features to make it shine just a bit more. It sounds like they're at least taking steps to improve the experience, which is a good thing.

techgeekny

I don't kno what way you found to filter but the only way I can see is making a favorites list and just adding the channels I want. not too big of a deal but being able to hide SD duplicates would be a BIG help.

And the series recording options does include first run only but also goes a step further to choose it by time and/or channel. It seems to work ok but a few shows seem to reecord every episode but apparently that is a problem with the guide marking the episodes as "new" which there is nothing we as a user can fix.

MiMeQu21

Once you get the 1.9 Guide, you can set it to only view subscribed channels, but it is not as simple to do as with Directv.

Go to Menu, Settings, Television, and at the end it should say something like "Last Viewed Guide State." Click to enable.

Then go into your Guide, hit Options, and select "Subscribed." This will lock you in to only see your subscribed channels. It will also give you the PPV channels and such since you can get those if you want, but at least it blocks out the channels you don't get.

Just a note, if you do change to another Guide option (say for instance, you do hit the Favorites button because you have that set up), your Guide will then stay on Favorites and you will have to go back in to Guide and Options to re-select subscribed channels. As you can see by the title (Last Guide Viewed), it stays on the last version of the guide that you selected.

Hope this helps.

clambert2

They need to get me 1.9 soon because the current Guide kinda blows. I'm looking forward to the upgrade.

I received my replacement receiver but it's a used 7216. I was hoping for something sleek & black (7232) to match the rest of my equipment but I guess I'm stuck with this thing. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers when I'm not actually buying the box. I plan on hooking it up later tonight or tomorrow when I have a little more free time.

Does FF seems worse on FiOS, or is it just me? With DIRECTV it would go back to the beginning of the show (after the commercial) when you hit stop. It's like there was some kind of marker it would go back to if you FF a little past it so you didn't miss anything. On FiOS it seems to just stop when you press stop. Any I right about that? I haven't had a lot of stuff on the DVR to test it with.

Thanks for the info and help.

MiMeQu21

As of right now, for existing customers, if you want the new 7232 box, you can order one through your online account but you have to pay a $40 exhange fee for switching one of your boxes for the new one. This has been a bone of contention with some customers as you can see if you look at some of the postings on this subject. You put yourself on a waiting list and Verizon will email you when they have a 7232 box for you. You then have 30 days to order it and they send it to you and you use the same box to return your old box.

doropallo

@clambert wrote:
Does FF seems worse on FiOS, or is it just me? With DIRECTV it would go back to the beginning of the show (after the commercial) when you hit stop. It's like there was some kind of marker it would go back to if you FF a little past it so you didn't miss anything. On FiOS it seems to just stop when you press stop. Any I right about that? I haven't had a lot of stuff on the DVR to test it with.
Thanks for the info and help.

You can set up your skip buttons for the amount of time you like. I had Dish so I set the forward skip to 30 seconds and the back skip to 10 seconds. Then when I am using Fast Forward I use the back skip back button to come out of it, which will jump you back like you are used to. I discovered this because we went from DTV to Dish and I know what you are talking about.

I do miss not being able to manipulate the Scheduled Recordings like has been mentioned. With Dish I could view was was scheduled, ones that failed and why, and all future recordings, whether scheduled or not, and why, and I could restore or skip at my choosing.

clambert2

@MiMeQu wrote:
As of right now, for existing customers, if you want the new 7232 box, you can order one through your online account but you have to pay a $40 exhange fee for switching one of your boxes for the new one. This has been a bone of contention with some customers as you can see if you look at some of the postings on this subject. You put yourself on a waiting list and Verizon will email you when they have a 7232 box for you. You then have 30 days to order it and they send it to you and you use the same box to return your old box.

Honestly, that's fair if you ask me. $40 isn't unreasonable. Being new it's probably the perfect time for me. Not much can build up on the DVR. Thanks for the info!

clambert2

@doropallo wrote:
You can set up your skip buttons for the amount of time you like. I had Dish so I set the forward skip to 30 seconds and the back skip to 10 seconds. Then when I am using Fast Forward I use the back skip back button to come out of it, which will jump you back like you are used to. I discovered this because we went from DTV to Dish and I know what you are talking about.

Yeah, I know. It doesn't seem to be a perfect fit for me no matter what I set it for. I'll have to get used to it or hope they make a change. 🙂 Thanks though.

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