Billiam

I was just talking to a coworker about the DN DVR earlier today. Apparently when you are recording something off of both tuner 1 and tuner 2, you can only watch (live) what you're recording on tuner 1. You can watch what you're recording on tuner 2 but only via DVR, not live. At least this is the way it was explained to me. Perhaps this is what Ash was referring to.

2001AudiS4

I recently did work on a house that had Fios installed. If it were my house, I would demand they come back to tidy things up or get the service the hell out of my house. Not to mention force them to repair the brand new siding on my house:

They used a premade optical cable from the pole. In order to get the head of the wire in, they drilled an inch and a half hole in the brand new siding into the garage, and not a clean hole. It looks like they used a smaller bit and just kept drilling it out. They did not seal or waterproof the hole. This is a brand new house. The hole doesn't look as big or as crappy in this picture, but it sure does in person. Also love how they kept the wire tight to the corners there


Inside the garage, they just left about 35 feet of wire, with some coiled up inside the fios box, the rest just popping through the wall and laying on the garage floor. It wasn't stapled up or anything.


The only thing I could do was coil it up and fasten it to the wall. You have to be careful with the optical cable and cannot coil it too small or you can break the wire.


Pretty shitty work for a premium service if you ask me.

Scrib

If I had to look at that in my garage(?), I'd kill myself.

Ashburner

No you can't, but the second tuner was also in the cable box recording. Now, the second tuner is connected to my daughters bedroom TV. So she can't watch cartoons if I want to record 2 things at once.

Ashburner

You can watch it live off of tuner 2. The problem is, my daughter doesn't want to watch House!

soopa

OMG that fios install is awful.

in my house i watched them (and gave a hand) the entire time. the install is incredibly clean and almost entirely stealth. i actually got lucky this time around with a pair of good techs on the job. the last house i had fios installed in i got some 50-yr old dude with no understanding of the technology he was working with...

soopa

hahaha i just noticed the wire perfectly formed to the roof moulding

Type Sun

That install is unacceptable. My install was much cleaner. However, now that I have FiOS TV installed, it seems that they gave me a bad box. The box in my bedroom works fine and receives all the channels, but my hd dvr is only receiving the local channels and nothing else. The installers told me that after 20 minutes the box should initialize, but no change has happened. I called tech. support and they reset my box twice, and still no fix. So now I have to wait until Monday for a technician to come to my house and fix or swap the box. So much for getting excited about new service. I'll report back when I can actually test it out.

svtmike

I'd be pissed as hell if that were my FiOS install. I can't believe that any installer felt like fiber on the floor was an acceptable way to leave the job.

Oh and underground utilities FTW. I'm glad aerial cables aren't used in my area.

joerockt

You dont see any cables that go to my box. Inside wiring was all done in the attic.

SiGGy

Excluding IPTV services like Uverse that are 100% bandwidth limited. With current speeds Uverse can feed 4-5 SDTV channels to be tuned or recorded in the entire house. Or one HD channel and 1 SDTV channel. Limiting factor is bandwidth since there are no physical tuners involved.

Nice thing with u-verse is it's already setup for whole house DVR. And since the DVR isn't limited to recording only 2 shows at once you only need one DVR. And it can share the shows to any box in the house. And to boot all the u-verse boxes are HD...

U-verse HD kinda sucks at the moment though. The new HD encoders should be online by the end of the month from what I've read. The upgrades will make it as good or better than satellite quality HD. However the service is still limited to only 1 HD channel view/recorded at a time now... and no news as to when AT&T will boost speeds to allow 3HD channels or 15 SDTV channels. Last word was mid 2008.

2001AudiS4

Thats what I thought when I pulled up to the house (no underground service). I later found out the the GC on the job was actually the woman's mother. There is a lot of little things screwed up with the house because of that. That is not an excuse for the shitty Fios install, just for the lack of underground service.

soopa

i love the oil cartons on top of the alarm box

2001AudiS4

Not sure who put them there. The guy has a mint 1979 Porsche 912 (I believe). Silver with black interior. The interior looks like it is in a brand new car. Real nice guy too. Feel bad that he has to deal with his PITA mother in law.

Scrib

Picked up a HR20-700 at Costco today. I didn't know until snooping around that DTV came out with the HR21 which is the same as the HR20, EXCEPT the HR21 doesn't have OTA, which really blows.

So I called DTV today and told them when they come on Wednesday to do the install they better bring a HR20. They claim they can't control what the installer brings and they can only request, not commit.

So to be safe, I bought the HR20 and regardless, will put it in the family room. If I get an HR21, I'll put it up in the bedroom where we don't need OTA.

jupitersolo

DTV will start using more boxes w/o OTA, they now offer all local channels either SD or HD with their service in most of the markets.

Scrib

Well, being in Chicago, it's nice to have WGN HD and the PBS station here has some decent HD programming. Neither is offered through DTV.

That and it's nice when the service is down due to weather. I figured this day would come. Glad I was able to snag one before they really get hard to find.

jupitersolo

I just read somewhere that WGN is going to start offering HD, should hit providers soon. As for HD OTA, I keep rabbit ears hook up for rain fade as well. Also the locals offer the x-2 channels for weather and shit.

Type Sun

Well, Verizon came by today and replaced my hd dvr box, so I finally got a chance to try out FiOS tv. Personally, I can't tell a difference between the pic quality of DirecTV HD and FiOS HD. There seems to be less digital artifacting with FiOS, but I think I need a little more time with it to see if that holds true.

The features, which are nothing new to the market, but new to me, are well worth the switch. Video On Demand is a great feature. Now I don't have to wait for a movie I want to see on HBO, record it, then watch it after. I can watch it whenever I want (with the only caveat being that it's not available in HD). The updated interface seems better than my old DirecTV Sony HD box. And thank God, no more losing signal during inclement weather.

So, good bye DirecTV (almost 10 good years together) and good bye rooftop antenna!

Scrib

That would be ideal.

I suppose I can put the antenna on a different video input on the TV. But the convenience of not having to switch inputs for OTA would be missed. Especially if DTV local HDs look like ass.

Doom878

I almost switched from Comcast (formerly Adelphia) to DTV. Since I have Bellsouth (now known as AT&T) I get a discount for DTV. I called to cut costs on my local and DSL and they offered me for DTV:

2 HD DVR's
250 channels
all HD channels
all movie channels
4 mos NFL ticket
$60 first 4 mos then $90 always. $200 DEPOSIT. :boo:

Now my Comcast has about 15 HD channels, 2 HD DVR boxes, VOD that I rarely use since it doesn't broadcast HD, all for $120/mo.