wth New FiOS guide?!?!

[miaquinto]

This has been quite a week... have you seen all the backlash about the Facebook changes? Well, as if that wasn't enough, I woke up to these new Verizon FiOS Guide changes... and I can only say WTH???

Tell me... is this supposed to be easier to read??

Not even close!

Is it supposed to be easier to access??

Nope... more scrolling involved.

So please, PLEASE tell me... WHY did Verizon feel the need to change this?? It's too busy and more confusing. I keep going past the channel I want because it's got that kind of drop-down look.

This blows!

[Karl_VZ]

I apologize for any inconvenience the new guide format has caused you.  For more information about the new guide and to suggest changes you'd like to see, please see our At-Home forum post, which you can find here:

http://bit.ly/f8qAwX

If you have any other questions about the guide or are in need of assistance, please send me a message or post back here.  Thanks!

[CharlotteAl]

I couldn't agree more with the original post.  The new changes are ugly, cumbersome, hard to read, distracting, user unfriendly, and overall take what was a fantastic viewer experience and turn it into a terrible viewing experience.  Please don't patronize or condescend to your customers by recommending we go back and re-read the explanation you provided, what a farce of a response.  

My recommendation would be having an option to go back to the old interface.  That should be simple enough.

[Thebobo]

---

@Karl_VZ wrote:

I apologize for any inconvenience the new guide format has caused you.  For more information about the new guide and to suggest changes you'd like to see, please see our At-Home forum post, which you can find here:

http://bit.ly/f8qAwX

If you have any other questions about the guide or are in need of assistance, please send me a message or post back here.  Thanks!

---

Karl, 

I can't see the channel numbers any more and the colors and fonts are a blur - .

I have to move closer to the TV now to see the channels and text in the guide.

Please tell me there is a way to go the old guide or at least increase the font  size

[maried299]

I tried to go to the link provided and it brought me to a web page for a site called Foursource. I am also having many issues with the new upgrade. First I would like to say that I believe the new resolution has improved the picture quality, but that is the only plus to the upgrade. I have been through all the menus and options to make changes to all the settings. I have also gone through online Customer Support and did not find anything to help with questions/issues with the upgrade so I came here. I too, feel the new guide is too bright, too small, too busy and when I press the right forward "Next" arrow the guide only moves forward 2 hours instead of the 24 hours of the old guide. I use this feature a lot to scan through the coming week and set up my recordings. I have a Sony HD tv and have the Motorola QIP 7232 2 DVR box (which replaced the older Motorola model a couple of months ago as my original box stopped working). Since the replacement I have found that there is a delay before any changes, e.g.. changing a channel. Since the upgrade this has gotten worse. Also, many times if I press a button on my remote it doesn't do anything and I have to keep pressing. I changed the battery the day of the upgrade as there was an onscreen indicator that the battery was low, actually another improvement. Another issue I am having is the box gets jammed  on a picture frame and I can't go forward, backward or anything. I tried turning off the TV and back on but it was still stuck on the same picture frame. I then tried changing the channel which worked. I understand that there would be some glitches to an upgrade operating smoothly but there are quite a few and this should have been tested better before putting it in place. However, the changes to the guide are not a glitch. I agree with the people complaining about the design. We don't need a guide that looks pretty at first glance but have a hard time reading and navigating. We need one that is practical to use and easy to operate and read. It seems that the guide is taking up more space but the fonts are smaller, too many colors and a lot of wasted space on the page. I agree with the person that we should have an option for using the old guide which was great. Also I believe the majority of people who watch the most TV are older whose vision is not as good so to not be able to read the guide makes it useless as many others have stated. Please consider making adjustments for the issues that all of us are experiencing. Thank you.

[maried299]

Just an update to my post yesterday. I checked other TV's (different size screens, some smaller, both HD and SD) and different model set top boxes other than the 7232 that I have. I found that the guide on mine was much harder to read than the others although theirs were not nearly as good as the old version. The colors weren't as glaring and the fonts seemed clearer. In addition they didn't seem to have the delay problem I am having. However, there were issues with hitting the guide button many times before it came on and also typing in channel numbers and it switching to a completely different numbered channel. I think it took 5 tries before I got the right channel. So this may explain why some people are having the issues with being able to read the guide and others are not. It does seem that each box has some kind of functioning issues which need to be addressed. Thank you.

[mkrupit]

I couldn't agree more. Called and tweeted my complaints. "Thanks for the feedback" was the reply.

As far as I can tell, IMG was designed by a web developer, not a TV designer.

Verizon - listen good here - many people watch their TV's from about 6-10 ft away. You need to give your customers a choice as to how much data they want - so the screen can remain readable from a TV-viewing distance.

And the color and font selection was poor. White text on a light bue background - not enough contrast. And the reduced kerning - squishing the letters so close together. Do you not want to have any customrs older than 40 any more?

Please, give us some control over our settop boxes.

[kmm126]

It is harder on the eyes, harder to read, logos are too small. Who got a raise for this suggestion?

[kmm126]

Also... oh c'mon, the fonts and numbers are too hard to read... tooooooooooooooo small and I have a big screen TV. It's extremely hard on the eyes from any distance. What are you thinking? Sitting 3 feet away are you? Have 20 year old eyes? Think it looks cool? Why would you possibly consider this? Did you do any marketing? Or did you think we would settle for this? Just make it bigger and less complicated to read. And, oh yeah, demote the person who tried to make brownie points.

[pen212]

I just got the new guide here in rhode island,horrible. They put it out in different areas on purpose so they dont get all the complaints at once. i am canceling my service.

[dove11]

This new guide is bloated, less informative, and incredibly slow. Guide surfing is no longer a possibility.

This change was not needed nor is it an improvement.  Rather than forcing changes upon your paying customers, perhaps ask them if a change is needed first. 

I see nothing in this upgrade that shows an improvement in any feature I care about.  What has changed is the huge slowdown in response time of the remote control.  That is enough to turn off the TV out of frustration.

[Justin46]

---

@dove1 wrote:

This new guide is bloated, less informative, and incredibly slow. Guide surfing is no longer a possibility.

This change was not needed nor is it an improvement.  Rather than forcing changes upon your paying customers, perhaps ask them if a change is needed first. 

I see nothing in this upgrade that shows an improvement in any feature I care about.  What has changed is the huge slowdown in response time of the remote control.  That is enough to turn off the TV out of frustration.

---

My experience is exactly the opposite of yours.

What model STB do you have? If it is a QIP6xxx you will never be happy, it cannot display the HD Guide, and it is slow, you need to replace the STB with a 7xxx series.

My QIP7232 is a fast with 1.9 as it was with 1.8. And 1.9 has lots of new great function in many areas.

__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV, Internet, and phone user
QIP7232, QIP7100-P2, IMG 1.9A
Keller, TX 76248.

[questioning_old]

I agree with you Justin.  By the way, I also just replaced my old analog TV with a flat screen Samsung TV and now the display looks much better, very much like the photo of yours that you had posted here.  I really wasn't crazy about it at first but I feel better now that my problem is resolved and I'll bet that's the source of many of the complaints here, i.e. still using the analog TV if it's not the set top box.

[caquinn]

It's just awful.  Did verizon has any testers at all?  I mean, how could they put this out there without knowing how bad it was?  It's slow, it's so cluttered it makes me cross eyed, there are a bunch of different colors for no reason at all.

Please, please fix this mess

[athomeinva]

Not only is the guide hard to read, but when you click the "favorites" button, the favorites guide pops up and the channel you are currently on is not the highlighted channel!  Weirder still, my favorites range from channel 4 to 244.  If I'm currently viewing channel 4 and push the favorites button, it takes me to channel 244 on the guide.  WTHeck??

[sunshineann1]

The new guide is terrible, and VERY difficult to read.  The colors are awful and the lettering is way tooooo small.

Hopefully this is a pilot, and the old guide will be returned soon!!!!!

[busybee9]

Terrible format. The screen cannot be read at a distance. The colors are horrible. I no not like the VOD movies listed within the guide list ---That is Very sneaky!!!   Are you hoping people will "buy" by mistake?   CHANGE IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!  It is worse on a smaller TV set.  It can't be read at all.  Was this new format tested at all??

[Replete]

Apparantly with people like me, because I can read it fine, just as well if not better than the last guide because the text is sharper, even on a 32 inch tv. My neighbors who are senior citizens of course don't like any change, but they never had problems reading the text. 

I am still puzzled why some people have no issues reading the guide while others are having all kinds of issues. I mean the guide has been out a while, and if you read the reactions to it on the blog sites as it was coming out, some people didn't like the new colors, but few complained the text was hard to read, the overall reaction was positive. 

I assume you tried to set the guide to SD?

[netman2011]

WOW what can i say ,

woke up yeaterday to a guide i cant read at all unless i stand about a foot away form the tv.

how are you supposed to use the service now.

If they are gonna change the guide they should at least put something in the settings that says " use old guide "

hmmm  have to contemplate what to do now...

WHEW !           Ò¿Ò