Verizon FIOS TV and TiVo

I was very excited about Verizon FIOS service coming to my hometown of Needham MA. It should be a good fast internet connection. 

Our cable TV service with Comcast is very unreliable, so I'd love to get rid of it.  Verizon has been running ads in the Needham newspaper trying to get us to pressure the town to get them a cable license.  From that, I'd infer that FIOS TV will be coming someday.  (I heard on NPR they are actually trying to get state legistlation passed so they don't have to negotiate with each little town for a cable license.)

That all seems excellent, and I'd only pay $96.75/month for 30MB internet, digital cable, and 3 set top boxes.  By comparison, I pay about $120/month with Comcast, for a slower internet connection and lousy cable performance.

But I love my TiVO, and it appears that I may not be able to control their Motorola QIP2500 Set Top Box (STB) using the serial port.  The STB has a serial port, but Verizon has turned it off.  I could use the IR port to change channels, but I found that to be very unreliable.

Verizon offers a Digital Video Recorder (DVR), but they only want to rent it to you for $12.95/month. I already have 2 TiVO's with paid up subscriptions. Their DVR also has been getting really awful reviews.  Basically, anyone who's ever used a TiVO won't survive trying to use it.

So I'm stuck over a little technical detail.  Enable those serial ports (which can be done with a remote update if they wanted to) and I'm all on board. 

I'm not sure if it is worth switching just for internet.

:-(

Comments

[Alex Horovitz]

I just got FIOS TV and was able to connect my Series 2 dvr and dtdvr (both) to my QIP 2500 box through the serial port (I'm in Acton MA). It just worked!

[Dave Wilson]

I recently had Verizon Fios installed (about one month ago)and have the QIP2500 box. I have not been successful at getting the serial or infrared port to work, so my subscription is useless. I am going to work on it today and if I can't get it to work Tivo is gotta go. Problem is my wife loves Tivo more than me!! She may have to choose...

[herb mark]

i just got fios phone/tv/internet with a dvr -- the dvr is very querky and malfunctions a lot -- to cut to the chase i decised to discontinue the fios dvr and buy a tivo but they told me i wouldn't be able to record and view at the same time -- so what good is that? something seems rong here tivo is the standard and 99% of the time the must work through a cable box -- they have two tuners i assumed -- why won't it work -- maybe you need two cable boxes -- is there a tumer (decoder?) in the cable box? -- whats the tuner in the tv set doing in the meantime.

this not rocket science (more like three card monty) ,

hcm

[Craig Schmidt]

hcm,

The problem with TiVo and FiOS has been that serial port on the cable box is turned off, so the TiVo can't change the channel like with many cable companies. You can use the infrared gizmo, which hooks to the front of the cable box, and acts like your remote control. However, when I used this, it sometimes fails and you record the wrong channel.

If you're buying a new TiVo, you've got two choices. The $99 series 2 dual tuner can record two shows, but I think you'd need to pay for two cable boxes (and these will have the channel changing issue). Or you could get the $299 new TiVo HD, which uses cable cards. You'd get 2 cable cards from Verizon, which are a lot cheaper to rent than cable boxes. The cable cards go straight into the TiVo HD, and there is no cable box. They allow the TiVo to access whatever channel you want. The also know which channels are "authorized" to be shown (like HBO, etc).

If you do go down that route let me know if it works. Cable cards are newish, and sometimes they are new to people within cable companies.

-Craig

[R Solomon]

so how did it work out with Tivo and Verizon FiOS? I just got fios installed and I am trying to get my series 2 to work with fios and am troubled that they may not be compatible.

thanks for any advice.

[JOsh]

About the IR signal being reliable...a comments. For background, I have Comcast cable but and I confirmed they blocked use of their serial port on the few boxes they supply that have them (I actually don't have one of them).

I have a series 2 (not a dual tuner) and use the IR.

Issue: I have heard that some IR blasters will transmit at an abnormal or fast rate...which means the channel isn't changed correctly. I've heard of a solution that has worked.

Why does it do this? Depending upon the STB (Set Top Box), it will want to receive IR signals at some specified speed...too quick and it may miss all the characters your TiVo IR blasters are trying to send.

Solution: When you are doing the setup for the IR cables, it will ask you if the STB changed channels...say no a few times after it successfully changes the channels. This will force the TiVo to have the IR Blasters transmit a signal at a slower rate to the STB...increasing the success rate.

I didn't have to do this, but I've never had an issue with a wrong channel...