Sept 2020 Fios DVR and Guide Update

[Ed_F]

The new guide was pushed out to us on Tue Oct 6. Using it for 2 days, I have to say this is the most absurd excuse for an UPGRADE that I have ever seen. LOWlights that are the most irritating and useless:

• Program chaptering is no longer available for DVR viewing. This is the most irritating of the new changes. During recorded replay, the up arrow used to bring up the chaptering display so you could immediately skip to your approximate point of interest. It was especially useful when viewing long recordings when you wanted to skip far into the program, such as a tennis match. Without this feature, your only recourse is to set the skip interval to the max 10 min and repeatedly skip into the program, then you would have to reset the skip interval to allow shorter skips to zero in on the exact spot you are looking for. Thoroughly convoluted and way more time consuming. Did FiOS get pressure from advertisers to remove this feature to force viewers to watch more of the recording so as to ensure more viewing of ads? Can't think of any other good reason to remove program chaptering. BTW, the help screen at Settings -> System -> DVR -> Help still shows Program Chaptering as an option in that menu section so either FiOS removed chaptering in error or did not bother to clean up their help screen, either way the contradictory info is poor programming.
• PIP is gone from the guide, replaced by a program icon for the current channel. Who thought THAT would be preferred by viewers?!? Keeping up with the current program via PIP while viewing the guide is SO nice, looking at a static icon reminding me that I am on the channel that ALREADY KNOW I'M ON IS USELESS. Oh I see they have  replaced the PIP with a "transparent background" of the current channel still playing. I hate to tell you this FiOS team, but the FOREGROUND would have to be transparent for this to be useful since the guide bars are OPAQUE GRAY and almost totally block the playing channel in the background. Did anyone even test this feature?!?
• Speaking of the guide, the channel logos have been shrunk to a size that is not discernible from across the room. If you can't easily see what channel line you are looking at in the guide, that severely limits its usefulness.
• Other worthless changes include displaying the program information and an icon showing a skip forward or backward arrow and the interval EVERY TIME I SKIP FORWARD OR BACKWARD. It would be OK if I could disable this feature but it does not appear top be an option that I can find so every time I skip, the bottom 25% of the screen is un-viewable for 6-7 seconds, which is very irritating when viewing a sports program with score info and/or a crawler at the bottom. And the skip arrow icons right in the middle of the screen are distracting as well and totally unnecessary since I KNOW that I just pressed the skip button! YES, I know that I can press the Exit button to clear the garbage on the screen so it's not there for the full 6-7 seconds but that is just another unnecessary button push I would not have to do if I could just disable these worthless displays of information that I'm already aware of.
• Lastly the overall speed of the system is much slower than before. There is a delay when entering digits to select a channel, and the moving around the menu system is noticeably slower than before.

IF THERE WAS EVER A GOOD REASON TO ROLL BACK TO A PREVIOUS MENU/GUIDE VERSION, THIS NEW "UPGRADE" IS IT!

[Moose68]

The color coding for movies etc. was helpful. There’s too much contrast with the new colors. It makes the guide hard to read. The transparent guide is distracting..turning it off

[raschwar1]

For some reason my guide did not update until 10/6. I guess I'm lucky that I had the old guide longer than many. The new one is terrible. Not only is it hard to read, some of the voice remote features were changed. For example, I used to be able to push the upper segment of the nav. ring to get an onscreen popup menu including, among other things, the closed caption selector. That convenient feature is gone and instead the next available channel in the guide is shown on the bottom of the screen. I know I can use the "voice" feature but sometimes I don't feel like talking to my TV. Previously, if I wanted to see the channel guide I could do so and still see the program I was watching in the upper left corner. Now it's just some image. So you took away two useful features and replaced them with nothing of value (to me).

Like everyone else here I DO NOT like the channel guide appearance. the old display was much easier to for me to see.

This was a needless update that doesn't seem to have made any feature better and some worse. Did Verizon consult any customers/users? Verizon, if you do actually respond to this forum please, please rollback this update!

[Renzo11]

I agree with all of the NEGATIVE comments.  

This upgrade is the ABSOLUTE WORST.

The objective of an upgrade/improvement is to make something better but this so-called upgrade has done the exact OPPOSITE.  It's soooo stupid, confusing and slow.  

The consumers who use your product and pay your salaries should have been consulted and allowed the opportunity to solicit our thoughts, ideas and opinions regarding this change.

This change is AWFUL...!!!  PLEASE, PLEASE change it back ASAP...!!!

[Changeitback]

Absolutely terrible “upgrade”. White writing on black background the worst combo for reading. Print is much to small to see. No banner on bottom of TV when changing channels. No color coding in guide. Who came up with this?  Who approved it? Please change it back. 

[Changeitback]

agree!!!!!

[Changeitback]

Same issues. Horrible!!

[RichmondUser]

Agree with the stream below!  The new guide is cumbersome, and the delays are very frustrating.  The guide uploading when the unit is turning on prevents entering new channels.  I'm spending a lot of time just trying to clear out of it.  The pictures and tiles in the new guide are not a positive change and take up too much room on the screen and bandwidth.

Please bring back the old guide!

[Golfhokie]

300 negative reviews!! I hate new guide too.

[Psihawk1]

My god.. I had to chime in here.   Only posted a few times before that I remember but this new guide.  Horrible!  Everyone in my house hates it.  All one color is the biggest complaint.   Harder to find things and the chaptering gone isn't going over well either.

There is no way someone approved this and thought.. this is better.  I only wish I could work for Verizon and be as incompetent as the people/team that created and released this {please keep your posts courteous}.