FIOS TV 1st impresions

Ok everybody, SW PA got FIOS TV activated just over a week ago. (Oct, 12 @ 5:45 pm to be exact).  I ordered it 1st thing Monday and it was install last Thursday the 18th.  Since I’ve only had 4 days to play with it, here’s my initial impressions.

For reference;  In the living room I have and HD DVR connected to a 32” 4:3 CRT that has a native 1080i input via component inputs.  The bedroom has a 27” 16:9 LCD that has a native 720p input also via component inputs, the STB is just an HD reciver with no DVR. 

[b]Picture Quality;[/b]
5 stars.  I’ve had DirectTv for the past 5 or 6 years and the amount of compression they put on their signal is their downfall.  A friend in my area has Comcast (formerly Adelphia) cable and the analog PQ suffers from the standard analog noise problems, also when you change to a digital channel the image is pixilated for over a second until things get settled in and there can be some dropouts from time to time.  FIOS TV had no issues at all on live TV.  When changing channels a stable full screen image was visible in less than ½ second.  The image is clean and clear with no compression artifacts that appear to be coming from the service.(there was some pixilization on some networks that I know are compressing there network signal).  HD reception was perfect.  All the local OTA HD broadcasts were available and were as clean as receiving OTA.  Network HD (NGC, Discovery etc.) were equally as good.

[b]Program Guide;[/b]
I have a few issues with the interactive program guide.  All are software related and could easily be fixed with a software upgrade.  Aside from my issues, the scrolling is fairly quick and smooth.  The IPG doesn’t offer a very detailed synopsis of the highlighted show, but you can see a more detailed one by selecting “more” from the IPG.  The guide can be viewed either with no live TV (the currently tuned station in a small window) in the program guide, live TV in the upper right corner, or a half screen IPG with the live TV on the middle left of the screen.  Now for my issues, there are no channel/network logo icons for the stations and the abbreviations for the stations aren’t very helpful.  (for example Discovery HD is abbreviated HDT)  Second, the currently highlighted channel with its synopsis is in the center of the guide listing.  I know this might sound like nitpicking but it is rather confusing.  A better approach might be to have it user selectable to be either top, bottom or center, then the user can choose what is most comfortable for them.  Third, the guide shows the full list of channels whether you subscribe to them or not.  A better approach would be to show only the channels that you subscribe to when the guide button is pressed.  Once the guide is up you can select options from the guide menu and select a “View All” option to see every channel.  Fourth, the favorites list doesn’t seem to work quite right.  If I select a channel to be on my favorites list and it’s available in the Spanish package, the Spanish channel shows up on my favorites list as well.  Also once I’ve build the list it doesn’t seem to save correctly.  If I select the HD channels for my favorites, they don’t appear on the list when I call it up.  All of these I believe to be software glitches that could easily be fixed with an upgrade.

[b]Output Display;[/b]
Here’s my major technological issue.  The settings menu has a selection to set the output display mode.  HD content is output in the mode you select, 1080i/720p.  SD content however defaults to 480i, there is no option to have the STB up-res to 480p/720p/1080i as was with my old DirecTv box.  This causes some major annoyances for my when switching channels.  The 4:3 CRT does not have a very bright display image with a 480i input.  However, 480p looks perfect for SD.  The 16:9 LCD defaults to “Wide Mode” when it receives an HD signal and will not return to 4:3 mode when a SD input is received so the aspect ratio is distorted.  The user manual that came with the STB stated that it has a “SD Override” setting to specify how to output SD content but this functionality was not included in the IPG software release from Verizon.  Again this can easily be corrected with a software upgrade.

[b]Video On Demand;[/b]
There wasn’t much on Friday night that I wanted to watch, so I began to flip through the VOD offerings which are conveniently arranged in a directory tree style.  I found a show from Discovery channel about Mars and decided to watch.  I actually forgot that I was watching a VOD program at times.  The quality was as good as watching a live network feed.  There were 3 instances that reminded me that it was a VOD streaming feed, 2 audio dropouts that lasted less than a second each and one mild video hiccup that caused less than 1% of the screen to get a pixilated green line for about a second.  It was very nice to be able to pause the show to take a bathroom break and get something to drink, then press the play button and the show started right up as though it were recorded on the PVR.

[b]PVR Operation;[/b]
This is my first PVR other than my HTPCs so I have nothing to compare it to, but it seems pretty darn good.  Selecting a future show from the guide or from a search gives you the option to record it.  I recorded the Steeler game last night (yes I know they lost) and the playback was just as good as watching the live OTA HD broadcast.  I also recorded one of the re-mastered Star Trek episodes just to check out the upgraded SFX.  WOW!  I can really get used to this.  Now the internal HD is not that large so recording space is limited particularly for HD content.  However, there are 2 1394 and 2 USB ports,  it would be quite nice if the PVR could record to an external HD to enable you to expand the recording capacity.

Well that’s my 1st 4 days w/ FIOS TV.  I plan to get an external QAM tuner just to see what is coming across un-encrypted so if any one has any suggestions on a good QAM USB tuner let me know.  I’ll let every one know more as I learn.