[mythtv-users] Verizon Fios, any success stories?

[Jarod Wilson]

On Aug 26, 2009, at 3:15 PM, Richard Freeman wrote:

> Ajay Sharma wrote:
>> Right now I'm only doing normal SD Video (no HD stuff yet as I  
>> don't have an
>> HDTV).  But I'm thinking about making the plunge to go HD, so the  
>> HD-PVR
>> seems like the best bet at the moment.
>
> This thread had a lot of good info on HD video capture, but I'm  
> actually interested in sticking with SD since half of my hardware  
> won't support HD and I don't have tons of space to burn.
>
> Right now I'm using DirecTV and I have two receivers attached to a  
> PVR-500, with serial control for channel changes.  I also have an  
> ATI HD tuner which I occassionally tinker with, but I tend not to  
> use it since I need to transcode everything I capture before I can  
> watch it on my front end.  I also have a single Firewire port that I  
> occasionally use for DV capture from a camera (not sure if Firewire  
> supports multiple devices on a single interface like USB).

It does, FireWire is also a bus topology.

> I'm considering switching to FIOS.  What are my options?  It seems  
> like my options are:
>
> 1.  Get two SD tuner boxes.  That will cost me about $14/month and  
> I'll need to get IR Blasters to control them (with all the problems  
> associated with those).  That is, of course, assuming IR control of  
> these boxes is well-supported.

Its is. Verizon uses fairly common Motorola equipment. At least, I've  
never seen anything from them that *wasn't* Motorola.

> 2.  Get two digital media box of some kind that outputs firewire.  I  
> won't get all channels (I'm getting the cheapest package, so no  
> premium channels, but it sounds like TNT at least isn't supported  
> over firewire).  Plus, I suspect I'll have to transcode all my  
> recordings to watch them in SD.

Yeah, you probably won't get all channels w/o using an HD PVR or SD  
capture device off SVid (but then, what's the point of the digital box  
over the SD box...)

> And, I'm sure there is a rental fee of some kind.

Yes.

> Also - I'm not sure if I need a second firewire adapter to capture  
> two shows at once.

Maybe, maybe not. I've heard two boxes on the same firewire bus can  
cause issues -- one triggering a bus reset may interfere with a  
recording on the other.

> 3.  Use my existing HD tuner and QAM.  This limits me to one  
> recording at a time.

No it doesn't. It limits you to recording from only one frequency at a  
time, but each freq may have multiple program streams in it. Search  
the wiki for info on multirec for more details.

> Also, I'll get even fewer channels than with firewire. Also, I'll  
> have to transcode all my recordings to watch them.  However, it  
> won't cost me anything per month and tuning is a no-brainer.

Yup.

> 4.  Get some digital converter boxes and then use option 2 or 3 in  
> combination with my existing SD tuners.  That would at least  
> eliminate the need to transcode everything, with a significant up- 
> front cost.

I use a combination of stuff myself.

> Am I missing any options?  Has anybody had success with changing  
> channels on their SD tuners?

Yes, works just fine using standard lirc motorola configs here.

> That would be the configuration most analogous to my current setup.   
> To be honest, I can't see how FIOS is going to be competitive with  
> DirecTV on cost with the need to rent one extra tuner (since DirecTV  
> gives you one for free and FIOS apparently does not).

I actually spent some time looking at DirecTV and DISH Network  
packages last night. To be quite frank, their cheaper packages are  
crap. To get anything comparable to what I get now with FiOS, I'd be  
spending at least as much, if not more.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com