New Info Bar gets an F
TwoTankAmin
Enthusiast - Level 3

I did not like the old info bar that appears on the screen whenever you change channel or if you push the Info button when that initial display no longer shows. The new one is a definite downgrade from poor to awful. I have old eyes and a smaller TV and it is now virtually unreadable. It is cluttered up with stuff I can't figure out because I can not read/see them clearly even using reading glasses and sitting as close to the screen as I can get.

The Info bar fills too much of the screen, is mostly empty space, stays too long and it has lost the color coding that used to help differentiate the program types. I do not believe that Verizon even bothered testing this with actual viewers before implementing it.

And it is a PITA to have to hit Exit now almost every time I change a channel. UGH.

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11 Replies
denvig
Enthusiast - Level 1

F- you mean, It stinks, it's slower, it's hard to read with the colors chosen, there is less information shown on each page, more buttons to push to do things. IT STINKS. NEWER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER, IT STINKS.

UnnDunn
Contributor - Level 3

If the text of the new guide is too small, try putting the graphics into SD mode; it causes the guide and menus to be rendered in 4:3, but it also causes the font sizes to be increased.

Press Menu, select Settings, select Video Settings then select Graphics Settings and choose SD.

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charliewatts
Contributor - Level 2

If people just did that, nobody would have anything to complain about.

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TwoTankAmin
Enthusiast - Level 3

It took me the better part of an hour to stumble onto the text solution. So, now with effort I can read the text. Despite that the Info bar is still a poor design. It remains too large, somewhat confusing and the more work to use than before.

A lot of the help explanations or instructions provided by Verizon are either inadequate or confusing. This applied to trying to order FIOS online to the help topics available onscreen. We are finding it necessary to work with live chat or phone contacts to find answers to many seemingly simple questions.

I used CableVision for close to 20 years, I have used Comcast as well and now Verizon. While I can say that Verizon's picture quality is excellent, the rest of the TV system ranks 3rd compared to the others.

Here is a little clue for most of you folks out there who are under th age of about 55. The older you get,the more difficult it gets to learn new things in terms of forgetting how a thing used to work and having to learn how the "new" one works. We older folks thrive on familiarity and can find changes difficult to handle. Not all of Verizon's customers are youngsters.

Replete
Contributor - Level 1

Do you really think the equipment comcast gives out is much better? On Directv, they routinely give out old receiver models that bog down regularly. Dish probably has the best dvr, besides Tivo, which fortunately is an option on Fios. 

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niko78
Newbie

I must agree. While I don't mind the bar size, you need to be able to set how long it stays on for. 10 seconds it just too long and I find it annoying to have to hit exit each time I change the channel. I have to agree with my buddy that Comcast has a better interface.

Also the thing that may make me cancel Fios is that I asked their customer service reps before installing this, if I could remove the channels I am not subscribed to when I channel + and - and they said yes it could be done. This is absolutely false. You can remove them from the guide, but once you exit they go back in.

As much as I want to like Fios, I think I am going to end up keeping Comcast at this point. I have about a week before my monthly bill renews with Comcast so I will weigh the pros and cons.

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retiredme
Specialist - Level 1

Niko78 - Some people report success at retaining the guide preferential settings such as "Favorites" or "Subscribed" by going to into the menu settings, and somewhere in the guide setup section you will see "Last Guide State". Try enabling that. It may work for you. 

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AnnJ11
Contributor - Level 3


Niko78 -Here is what worked for me, which was to approach it from the opposite direction from retiredme:

I set my Favorites lists for only the channels I want to see.  If you use the Subscribed list, it probably has many channels that you will never watch and will want to eliminate. My Extreme package also includes channels that are available to me IF I want to pay extra for them, and I don't really want to see them listed whenever I look at the schedule  or browse through the channels, so I took those out as well.    I used Justin's IMG Guide to help me do this.   There's a link to it at the end of the first message on this Forum page: 

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Interactive-Media-Guide-1-9/FiOS-TV-Getting-Started-With-Interactive-Me...  See page 17,  "Exploiting FiOS TV Favorites."

[It looks like when I post this message, the link won't be shown, so I'm breaking it into two sections that you could put together yourself:

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Interactive-Media-Guide-1-9/FiOS-TV-Getting-Started-With-

Interactive-Media-Guide-1-9/td-p/407095.  ]


Then I DISABLED "Last Viewed Guide State," which I had come upon by chance one day while I was looking for something else.  It's at  Menu>TV Listings>Settings>Last Viewed Guide State.  If you go to the very bottom of that list, you can choose ENABLE or DISABLE.


Using Justin's Guide, I've set the  Channel Guide to show my Favorites list by default.  After I disabled Last Viewed Guide State, even if I look at another list of channels, the next time I open the Channel Guide it will always show my Favorites list.  When I use  + or -  on the remote now, I only see the channels on that list.  (But I can always watch an excluded channel by punching in its number.)


Describing this makes it sound much more complicated than it actually is.  I have to warn you, however, that for some reason my solution doesn't seem to work for everyone.  I hope that it works for you, as it does make life much easier.  Good luck!

Please come back and report whether the Enable or Disable solution worked for you. 

P.S. The Info Bar drives me crazy, too, but I'm hopeful that Verizon will correct it before long.

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asepius
Enthusiast - Level 2

I too have posted a message about the text being to small. I suggest everyone does what I did and write a letter to the Verizon CEO

Malcolm_Stanley
Contributor - Level 3

I may have seen that letter.... did you get a response? and were you satisfied with it?

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JohnLeite
Enthusiast - Level 3

When I select Video Settings, I don't see an option for Graphic Settings.   It is possible that different systems have different options.  I'd like to see if I can change the setting to reduce the font size.  The info bar now takes up about half my screen.  I'm not sure why they changed it.   It was fine before.

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