For more than a year now, I’ve had a small High Definition Television, but for many reasons (okay mostly cheapness) only been able to use it to display standard cable. Well, that changed a few days ago when Verizon FiOS TV became available in my area. We got it just before the rate hike in our area.
This service is really amazing. The free installation is intense and lasted all day because they seem very concerned that everything work perfectly when they leave. The technician stayed until the network service was exactly as fast as what I’d paid for, and the television was playing HDTV and standard TV perfectly. All the cables were free. All the equiptment except for the cable box rental is free. Very very impressive.
The picture quality on the television is amazing. Standard TV looks better than DVDs. HDTV looks so good it almost doesn’t matter what you’re watching. And the 5.1 channel audio is great.
Oh. And this is all cheaper than what I was paying RCN without HDTV.
So far, the only problem I’ve seen is two 1 second audio drop outs during the Super Bowl.
Now if only my TiVO Series 1 could record HDTV.
Well, welcome to Blogland. I like the look of this blog, and I am impressed to hear about your new TV setup. Because, as a person who mainly watches a 13-inch TV from bed, whenever I see your TV (even as it was) I am blown away by the sound quality and the picture quality. And now to think it’s even BETTER?!?!?! How is such a thing possible?
I can’t wait to come and visit you again…TV or no TV. But I’ll bring the popcorn!
I am looking forward to some good posts here…in your spare time, of course.
Just installed Fios TV 2 days ago…what a disappointment compared to the Comcast HD service I had for a year. Comcast offers a vast amount of High Def content on their On Demand Service, while Verizon Fios TV offers none! Not even the pay-per-view movies are offered in HD. Comcast offers loads of HBO, Showtime, Starz High Def On Demand…Verizon none. I just spent hours on the phone with Verizon and most of their agents know little about HD.
I also think the HD picture quality on Comcast is superior and I am seriously thinking of switching back to Comcast…what a disappointment.
Hi Alan,
Yes, you are right. FiOS does not yet have any HD content offered in their Video On Demand service. It’s a huge hole in the service. If HD Video On Demand is really that important to you RIGHT NOW, you should probably switch back for television.
However, it looks like it should be coming soon:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18159136
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18144545
I was going to recommend some of the rumor and news sites for FiOS information, but I see you are already posting content there: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18159452
But for others, you can check out:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzfiostv
http://www.satelliteguys.us/forumdisplay.php?f=77
And I would also recommend that you check out the new FiOS interface that will be rolled out this summer:
http://one.revver.com/watch/147279
Want to start your private office arms race right now?
I just got my own USB rocket launcher 🙂 Awsome thing.
Plug into your computer and you got a remote controlled office missile launcher with 360 degrees horizontal and 45 degree vertival rotation with a range of more than 6 meters – which gives you a coverage of 113 square meters round your workplace.
You can get the gadget here: http://tinyurl.com/2qul3c
Check out the video they have on the page.
Cheers
Marko Fando
Marko,
I think you’re blog spam since you’re off topic here, but I also think a USB controlled rocket launcher is a fun toy. And I’ve verified that the tinyurl simply goes to thinkgeek:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f
(I removed a bit at the end of the url which seemed to be a referral code.)
I just got FiOS TV and it’s been quite a disappointment. After more than two weeks of trying to get things to work correctly, I’m still having problems.
You can read the full account of my problems at http://davesfiosblog.blogspot.com/
I was just about to order FIOS, the deal sounds very attractive. But the rep said that each TV requires a set-top box. Without a STB, FIOS only delivers local channels.
Comcast (and other cable carriers) deliveries all non-premium channels to TVs w/o STBs.
Has this been the experience for others?
Dave, I’ve seen most of the problems you report, and I agree that they are issues. The Motorola cable boxes seem to be very buggy. Comparing notes with people using other cable providers appear to back that up. The Verizon user interface for FiOS simply makes it look nice — not work better. I miss my TiVo.
Brian, I only have one TV so multiple cable boxes don’t come up for me. The reason you need a cable box to get anything other than the first hundred or so channels is FiOS sends almost everything using Digital Cable instead of Analog Cable. You need something to convert the signal — usually a cable box. You can find out more information at these links:
http://dtvfacts.com/digital-tv-facts-cable-customers/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable
http://pcworld.about.com/news/Mar232005id120155.htm
I hope that helps.
Hello! Glad to hear of your positive experiences but also sorry to hear of your technical/cust serv glitch’s if you want to call them glitch’s. All in all as a fios tech for 3 years it is a great service and yes with us being a new provider we are adding new things and up grading alot of other things as we grow,but i assure you that this is and will be a quality service bar none. It is from my prospective very difficult to stay on top of the many day to day,week to week,month to month equipment and software changes to constantly make it a superior service but believe me during my 12 to 15 hr days i try very hard and make every cust my #1 priority.
I guess this post deserve an update. FiOS offers up to 100 HD channels and FiOS Internet is amazingly fast.
FiOS is much better then comcast, i am really happy with Verizon FiOS services.
Short, sweet, to the point, FREE—exactly as infoarmtion should be!