Verizon FiOS TV → This dvr is terrible

I know there are several threads complaining about the dvr, but is Verizon ever going to have better software? If not, Im going to Tivo. THe number of missed recordings, duplicates, etc are staggering. Verizon needs to do something quick. THis DVR is AWFUL.

Reliability of the FiOS DVR will improve the day Verizon switches to a competent guide data provider. There's nothing that any DVR software can do about a guide data provider that labels new episodes as repeats and repeats as new episodes.

Unfortunately, at the moment, Verizon has no plans to switch guide data providers. If you want a competent guide data provider (or storage expansion), you're forced to buy a TiVo or Moxi.

They need to invest the money in replacing all HD DVRs with MPEG4 supported DVRs with 1TB of storage and expandable via a USB, eSATA, or firewire hard drive. They have the best channel selection and the best PQ, but their guide and box suck. I also have DirecTV and their DVR actually works and is lightyears ahead of the garbage we are paying $17 a month with with FIOS. They pride themselves on fiber to the house and all the HD channels and then they pass off that crappy DVR with what, 20 hours HD storage capacity? It is the most pathetic DVR I have seen.

But I do love the channel selection. Between FIOS and DirecTV I have 4 DVRs. Maybe I should go with that Moxi or Tivo. I dunno. Thanks for the post.... just another reminder of what could be.... but how bad the box sucks.

Why do people keep thinking mpeg-4 compression is a good thing? More compression = less quality

Oh here we go again with this BS. Take a 120 minute video and compress it to 6GB using either MPEG2 or MPEG4. Which will look better, 6 GB of MPEG4 or 6 GB of MPEG2?

MPEG4 will look better!

MPEG4 is a better compression technology. Yes, you could squees that 6GB down to say 4.5GB of MPEG4 and it would look as good or better than the MPEG2 6GB file.

It makes better use of compression! That is a good thing. Even if they keep the bitrate the same, if it is coming through in MPEG4 it is making better use of the compression. You get a better result.

A plus is that they can indeed fit more channels in the same amount of space. But why would you object to MPEG4, especially if it is the same bitrate?

The problem is that providers don't have access to uncompressed video. They don't have access to high-bitrate feeds. They only have access to the MPEG-2 feeds that FiOS provides now. Recompressing those relatively low-bitrate MPEG-2 feeds with MPEG-4 degrades quality, it doesn't improve it.

In a perfect world, all content providers would distribute high-quality feeds of their channels to multichannel providers, much like CBS distributes a 45Mbps feed to its affiliates. That 45Mbps feed produces an excellent picture when it is re-compressed into MPEG-2 @ 17-19Mbps by CBS affiliates. It doesn't look quite so good re-compressed into MPEG-2 @ 10-11Mbps (especially in the case of HD video).

If providers had access to 45Mbps feeds, they could produce a stellar picture with MPEG-4 @ 10-12Mbps. Unfortunately, providers like FiOS are all stuck with the 10-16Mbps MPEG-2 feeds supplied by most local networks and the 10-19Mbps MPEG-2 feeds supplied by most cable channels. Until more content providers start distributing their feeds in MPEG-4, rather than low-bitrate MPEG-2, there's no benefit (PQ-wise) to FiOS switching from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.

I had DTV for several years and actually liked the HR20 and HR21 when I let for Fios. D*'s DVR were just about as good as Tivo. Hopefully Verizon will wake up. But, they won't. We are a minority. Most people dont know what they are missing.

DirecTV's MPEG4 HD channels don't look bad. I'm sure they are getting the same feed supplied to them as FIOS from the HD nationals.

PQ with FIOS of an MPEG2 channel to a DirecTV MPEG2 channel is better because FIOS is maintaining higher bandwidth. But as DirecTV MPEG4 vs MPEG2, the older MPEG2 channels do not look better.

It all boils down to how much they get compressed or over-compressed. If they are coming in at 10-19Mbps MPEG2 streams as you have suggested, they could indeed be converted to MPEG4 streams at 8Mbps and look good and they'd only be using 8Mbps per channel. That is the minimum HBO set forth for its channels. A provider must maintain at least 8Mbps per channel in order to carry them. I think this is a reason many carriers don't carry all the multichannels but that is another story. I am just saying 8Mbps could be a starting place. Obviously higher would be better. Say 10mbps for each channel.

My point is, FIOS is due for a news box with more storage and can handle MPEG4. I didn't think they would just switch every channel over on day one. As it stands, it would take a few years to replace all the holdouts equipment. They'd start first by adding any new channels as MPEG4, followed by replacing the less popular channels with MPEG4, and set a date to get everybody off MPEG2. By then, they could work out any quality issues and decide upon bitrates.

In a perfect world we'd have DirecTV's DVR interface, expandable storage, FIOS' channel lineup, and mom and pop AMERICAN customer service.

if i remember correctly, the 7xxx series boxes can handle mpeg4 video.

I had my service installed in November of 2008 and they issued me the older boxes. I am not just a new customer but my city is new to FIOS. My metro was one of the first to go live (Tampa Bay) but my actual city of St. Petersburg just got dug up last fall and I got service ASAP. I got two HD-DVRs and they are the older series. Go figure. Doesn't sound like they are rolling out the newer equipment yet with any priority.

Note that HBO recompresses its 172-200 Mbps source into 8Mbps.

That's a little different than recompressing a 10Mbps source into 8Mbps. The better the quality of the source, the better the quality you can achieve in a lower bitrate.

You've undoubtedly seen this when compressing images on your computer. If you take a 3MB image from a digital camera, and compress it into a 100KB JPG, the quality looks much better than if you take that 100KB JPG file and recompress it into 60KB.

There's no question that MPEG-4 quality can produce superior quality at a nominally lower bitrate, or comparable quality at 30-40% less bitrate, but for that to happen, it has to start out with the same, high-quality source.

Skottey I thought we went over this.

If almost ALL broadcasters send their signals as MPEG-2, why do you still insist to believe MPEG-4 would be better right now?

ONLY when the majority of broadcasters send their signal as MPEG-4 will it then make sense for Verizon to also send us MPEG-4 signals to MPEG-4 boxes.

Until that happens, why are you still so MPEG-4 happy and insist VZ deploy MPEG-4?