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DVR "upgrade" broke multi-room

I was chugging along reasonably happily with my previous DVR. (I'm not sure of the model number, but it was silver, had a 160GB HDD, and generated enough heat to fry an egg.) Then I tried to watch a Gold Cup match on Univision Deportes (since English coverage was on FOX Sports 2, which is SD-only). When I tuned to channel 1539, I was told that my DVR was unable to display that channel ... but a free upgrade was available that would solve the problem. A few clicks of the remote later my new DVR was on its way (and I was watching the match with a non-DVR STB in my bedroom).

The new DVR (QIP-7232) arrived on Friday, I connected it, and everything seemed fine ... until yesterday. While headed out the door with the family, I tried to use the STB in my study to program the DVR to record the Gold Cup quarterfinal matches, only to discover that my multi-room functionality has vanished. None of my STBs can see the DVR.

So today came the dreaded call to Verizon support. Actually make that 4 or 5 calls, since the first few calls inevitably routed me to the automated system that thinks reactivating a box fixes everything. After finally reaching a human being with the tried and true "scream at the phone and mash the keypad" method, I spent a fair bit of time with a very polite technician who eventually informed me that:

I do not have multi-room DVR service,
I've never had multi-room DVR service,
No one at Verizon has any idea why it ever worked, and
In order to restore the capability that I had before my "free upgrade" I would need to add the multi-room DVR service, which seems to cost an additional $15 or so per month, beyond the $17 I'm already paying for the HD DVR.

I guess I should at least acknowledge that I was never accused of lying about the pre-upgrade multi-room functionality. Beyond that, though, this has to be one of the most customer-unfriendly experiences I've ever had.

Yikes!

Comments

tns2

I don't remember where it is in the menus, but you can tell the box that you want to upgrade to Multi-room. It will do so, and since you are already paying for it there will be no charge. I remember having to do so when I replaced a DVR.

Since the box I have at my current location is a Quantum box which are always multi-room, I can't check where that option is.

ipilcher

I already tried that. Both the DVR itself and the Verizon technician say it will be about $15/month for the multi-room feature, in addition to the $16.99/month that I'm already paying for HD DVR service (which had perfectly working multi-room before the "upgrade").

tns2

If you are paying for it MULTI ROOM already there is no additional fee. DESPITE what it says.

Note on the new schedules you pay an amount for each box(room) you have that is a base price plus a fee for each DVR. The more rooms you have the lower the amount for each additional room. The new fee for multi room is $1 more a month then the DVR fee. $12 vs $11 a month. Quantum boxes are an additional $22. Can't imagine where this $15 fee is coming from unless I missed a recent $3 increse., but stil should only be $1 more.

ipilcher

If you are paying for it MULTI ROOM already there is no additional fee. DESPITE what it says.

Yes, but I'm (apparently) not paying for multi-room, despite the fact that it was working before the upgrade. Looking at my bill, I only see "HD DVR" (no mention of multi-room).

The new fee for multi room is $1 more a month then the DVR fee.

That may be true on whatever plan you're on, but it's a $15/month additional charge for me (for a total of $31.99/month). I just re-re-re-confirmed this with both the web site and the DVR itself, and it matches what the technician told me when I called.

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