External Hard Drive
carnage
Newbie

When will fios support adding an external hard drive for additional storage. This 160 gig hard drive barely cuts it for me when recording in HD!! Especially since Football and Nascar are both on Sunday.

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Re: External Hard Drive
spacedebris
Master - Level 2

The current info on that is that right now we dont know if they are going to enable the ports on the Motorola boxes or not. But the word is that when the new Cisco STB's come out (said to some time shortly after the first of the year) that they will have external drive access active. No one seems to be able to nail it down. Just general refrences to "near furture" enhancements.

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Re: External Hard Drive
jmw1950
Specialist - Level 2

I think we are going to see external HDD support on the current DVR boxes on the 21st of Never. Part of the message in the change of vendors is that Verizon considers the firmware development on the Motorola Boxes to be a black hole, and they want to cease spending the money on a platform that in many respects is 'underpowered'. I suspect the firmware release in development currently will be the last significant firmware release for the QIP boxes. The relative lack of CPU horsepower on the QIP boxes is simply one of many issues that makes Verizon want to walk away from them, and makes it difficult to support the USB and Ethernet ports.

New boxes are going to have HDD's larger than 160gb. There isn't much choice, the 160gb drives are going out of production!

I doubt the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta box will come with anything less than 320gb, and who knows, maybe they will enable external storage.

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Re: External Hard Drive
totaltek
Enthusiast - Level 1

The size of the HDD's does not matter.  The DVR will only be activated for 160, whether the drive is 160, 320, 500, 1Tb.  Basically, this is due to the fact that monthly pricing for RENTAL of the stb is the same as the current in service boxes.  If Verizon were to roll out higher cap stbs at the same rate as the older boxes, the rush to replace "faulty" stbs would be overwhelming.  After the boxes have been in service a while, and older service boxes have been removed, expanding capacity will be a simple matter of remotely reprogramming the stbs.

Also, the external ports will never be active due to copyright concerns with the broadcasters and production companies. 

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Re: External Hard Drive
Playdude
Newbie

"Also, the external ports will never be active due to copyright concerns with the broadcasters and production companies."

If what you said is true then why does Time Warner have theirs turned on?

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Re: External Hard Drive: Critical Issue in our house
2250Lou
Newbie

This has become a critical issue for me.  My wife in incensed that our STB does not have more storage.

We have been subscribers at Optimum and their STB supported our 500GB external HDD quite nicely and it was a wonderful extension.  When we switched to Verizon Fios in the spring (to get the Tennis Channel) we quickly recognized the missing storage issue and forum comments (as opposed to official statements) led us to believe this would be corrected mid year ... Here we are near holiday season and no solution...  I must say waiting on a Cisco Box is attractive as I have a lot of respect for the company but will not wait on "hopeful" statements again....

The Optimum installation is scheduled for next Wednesday ....

If anyone has any firm proposals I would be willing to put it on hold.....

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Re: External Hard Drive: Critical Issue in our house
Keyboards
Master - Level 3

@2250Lou wrote:

This has become a critical issue for me.  My wife in incensed that our STB does not have more storage.

We have been subscribers at Optimum and their STB supported our 500GB external HDD quite nicely and it was a wonderful extension.  When we switched to Verizon Fios in the spring (to get the Tennis Channel) we quickly recognized the missing storage issue and forum comments (as opposed to official statements) led us to believe this would be corrected mid year ... Here we are near holiday season and no solution...  I must say waiting on a Cisco Box is attractive as I have a lot of respect for the company but will not wait on "hopeful" statements again....

The Optimum installation is scheduled for next Wednesday ....

If anyone has any firm proposals I would be willing to put it on hold.....


Still no official word from Verizon other than the rumors on the boards that it may be 1st quarter 2010.  We all know how good Verizon is at keeping dates when published (NOT) so I would not hold my breath on rumored dates.  Also, there is no information as to how widespread the initial release of any new DVR would be and whether they would go to new subscribers first or if there will be an upgrade cost.

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Re: External Hard Drive
KenAF
Specialist - Level 2

@totaltek wrote:

After the boxes have been in service a while, and older service boxes have been removed, expanding capacity will be a simple matter of remotely reprogramming the stbs.

Also, the external ports will never be active due to copyright concerns with the broadcasters and production companies. 


The external ports are not active on the DVRs because Motorola did not have stable firmware that supported protected external storage.   With Cisco/SA, Motorola, Moxi, Samsung, TiVo, and every other cab;e DVR that supports external storage, all recordings on the external device are encrypted and tied to the original DVR, so they cannot be accessed with a computer or even another DVR.


@Playdude wrote:

"Also, the external ports will never be active due to copyright concerns with the broadcasters and production companies."

If what you said is true then why does Time Warner have theirs turned on?


Time Warner uses Cisco (formerly Scientific Atlanta) DVRs, which have supported protected external storage for some years now.   Time Warner does not support external storage with their Motorola DVRs (used in some service areas).


@2250Lou wrote:

This has become a critical issue for me.  My wife in incensed that our STB does not have more storage.

We have been subscribers at Optimum and their STB supported our 500GB external HDD quite nicely and it was a wonderful extension.  When we switched to Verizon Fios in the spring (to get the Tennis Channel) we quickly recognized the missing storage issue and forum comments (as opposed to official statements) led us to believe this would be corrected mid year ... Here we are near holiday season and no solution...  I must say waiting on a Cisco Box is attractive as I have a lot of respect for the company but will not wait on "hopeful" statements again....

The Optimum installation is scheduled for next Wednesday ....

If anyone has any firm proposals I would be willing to put it on hold.....


I had external storage on my own HDTV DVR with FiOS two years ago.   Verizon FiOS is compatible with third-party CableCard DVRs which support external storage.   Both the TivoHD and Moxi work with FiOS, and both support external drives to increase capacity.  My TivoHD with FiOS has capacity for 198 HD hours.

Verizon is expected to deploy Cisco DVRs in early 2010.  Every Cisco DVR to date has featured firmware support for eSATA expansion.  I see no reason why Verizon's Cisco DVR would be any different.


@Keyboards wrote:

Still no official word from Verizon other than the rumors on the boards that it may be 1st quarter 2010.  We all know how good Verizon is at keeping dates when published (NOT) so I would not hold my breath on rumored dates.  Also, there is no information as to how widespread the initial release of any new DVR would be and whether they would go to new subscribers first or if there will be an upgrade cost.


In August, Motorola released new firmware for its DVRs with protected eSATA support.  The firmware version with eSATA support is xx.74.   Thus far, no MSO in the United States has deployed this firmware; Shaw Cable in Canada is the first (and only?) operator to use it at this time.  It remains to be seen whether this firmware addresses the stability/reliability issues with Motorola's past attempts at eSATA storage expansion.

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Re: External Hard Drive
joed
Enthusiast - Level 2

Just joined this forum.  Quite confusing progress with external storage. 

I consider the limited 20 hours of HD storage to be the most serious and pressing problem that faces Verizon.

Am I to understand that I can purchase a 3rd party STB and get huge storage (internal/external) and still have all the features of FiOS TV??

thanks -- joed

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Re: External Hard Drive
KenAF
Specialist - Level 2

@JoeD wrote:

Am I to understand that I can purchase a 3rd party STB and get huge storage (internal/external) and still have all the features of FiOS TV??


Current third-party options are TivoHD and Moxi.  Both support all FiOS SD and HD channels with better guide data, but they do not support FiOS VOD.  You only get Verizon's own VOD with their Motorola boxes.

TiVo and Moxi also support multi-room, but only with their own boxes and extenders; they do not support multi-room with other Verizon STBs.     Both Moxi and TiVo do provide better PC media integration.

The TivoHD and Moxi both require one CableCard from Verizon for $3.99/mo.  There is no installation charge.