FiOS adds HD in a logical way

Over the past few months, Verizon has reorganized our FiOS TV lineup and added new HD channels. Slowly but surely, many of the cable network HD feeds are being filled in. This includes CNN, A&E, FX, USA, TBS, TNT, Smithsonian, and even Disney.

While this is nothing extraordinary, the way they reorganized the channels is something to note. The old channel lineup was between 1 and 1000 and the HD channels existed in the 800 range. The HD channel order beared little resemblence to the standard definion channel lineup that was between 1 and 300.

When they reorganized the channels a few months ago, they kept the SD channels between about 1 and 499 and moved the HD channels to 500 through 999. International channels and the music channels are now between 1000 and 1999.

The neat thing that they did was align the SD channels in the same order as the HD channels. All you need to do to get the HD version of a channel (if it exists) is add 500 to the SD channel number. Of course not all SD channels have HD equivalents, and some HD channels (notably HDNet, HDMovies, and Universal HD) don't have SD equivalents.

For most cases, it's easy to fip around. For example:

• Local NBC affiliate 4 is 4 for SD and 504 for HD. It used to be 807 for HD.
• USA SD is still 50 and USA HD is 550.
  
• CNN SD is 100 while the HD version is 600.

This is a great step up for usability. If you know the trick and are able to do simple math, it's easy to switch around and see if there's an HD version of a channel. Plus, if there's a non-HD TV in the house you can easily find the SD version of a given channel you're used to watching in HD.

I don't remember seeing any tips from Verizon touting this usability feature. It took me about a day to figure it out just by using the new channel lineup. They might want to highlight this more.

The next step up is to have one channel lineup with the ability to switch a network between SD and HD.

Verizon FiOS IMG 1.6 has arrived!

What timing. We just got a second HD set-to-box delivered yesterday, and today we wake up to find out that the Verizon FiOS Interactive Media Guide 1.6 update has been applied in Fairfax County!

Kudos to Verizon for pushing this out well before the end of the year. It would have been nice to be notified beforehand, but they are usually tight-lipped about these things. C'est la vie.

When I called to order the second HD STB last week, I actually taught the Verizon rep about the upcoming upgrade. She hadn't heard that the multi-room streaming of HD DVR recordings was coming. She checked with her technical support to confirm and we were both pleased with their answer.

So we'll keep FiOS for now. :-)

Vista in the living room

For some reason, I am obsessed with putting computers all around the house. Now that we have an HDTV in the living room, I've revived my quest of an internet-connected experience in the living room.


I've been waiting for a Windows PC to really take on the form factor of the Apple Mac Mini. Sure, there's always the Shuttle and some specialty PC makers that have home theatre PCs (aka HTPC), but they often run into the $1000s and aren't that small.

Then there is the Apple TV, Windows Media Extenders like the Linksys DMA2100, the Roku Netflix box, and others. While these have simple interfaces they are limited in what they can view and download. I'd like something more flexible.

Then Dell comes out with the Studio Hybrid Desktop. This looks very promising. Sort of similar to the line of Sony VAIO HTPCs, but less expensive.

Starting at $499, it comes with HDMI and DVI output and Windows Vista Home Basic (I didn't know anyone still sold that). So upgraded with decent specs and a real version of Vista, it comes to $1122:

• Vista Home Premium
• Intel Core 2 Duo T5850
  
• 3GB RAM
• 320GB hard drive
• Blu Ray/DVD-RW
  
• Media Center remote

Unfortunately, unlike the Dell XPS 420 you cannot get an optional digital cable tuner. :-(

I will be keeping an eye on this new development, and waiting for other manufacturers to follow suit.

HD on the PC

So I love TV. I don't revolve my life around it like I used to, but I love a good show and relish a good movie.

When we finally took the plunge into the high definition television universe about a year ago we had a slight adjustment to how we watched TV. We had been so used to our ReplayTVs, we rarely ever watched TV shows at their regularly scheduled times.

We didn't get an HD DVR from the cable company right away. We got an HD cable box and tried recording the S-video output to the ReplayTV. It was ok, but HD shows were more like DVD shows. Naturally, an S-video connection is surely sub-par when it comes to anything above VHS quality. So we watched HD shows like Lost, Ugly Betty and American Idol live at their original airing times. With commercials.

When we switched to Verizon FiOS we decided to try their HomeMedia DVR and have been using it ever since. However, as nice as the mid-2007 media guide upgrade has been, it's no ReplayTV and it's surely not as slick as the Tivo interface.

So the alternative to the cable company's DVR, besides the expensive HD Tivo and its service fee, is a PC DVR like Windows Media Center or Snapstream. Fine and dandy, except when you want to record HD content.

Over the air HD tuners are readily available for new and custom build PCs. However, there currently is no easy way to get cable TV-based HD content on a PC. (QAM is supported on some cards, but FiOS doesn't appear to support that very well.)

New PCs with video cards that support the CableCard standard have been trickling out from companies like Dell. However, you need to buy a PC with the special video card already installed--they aren't readily available on the aftermarket.

So what's a person who already has a decent PC but doesn't want to spend $2000 on a new box to do?

Check this out: the new Hauppauge HD PVR that can record HD content from component outputs.

I am excited to see how this develops.

Verizon update on the Fios fiasco

So today on the Verizon Policy blog was a nice post in response to the feedback they received about the FioS IMG upgrade.

There are links to a blogger who discusses some of the new features coming in 2008 as well as the bug fixes coming before the end of the year. (Not soon enough!)

Verizon Policy Blog gets lots of feedback about FiOS

I love the Verizon Policy blog. Not only can you read the thoughts of some execs at Verizon, you can read the feedback from all of the happy Verizon customers.

There has been a lot about FiOS on the blog recently, including this. Notice my comment.

Then check this out, an interesting take on why they haven't been adding more HD channels.

There was an earlier post on the FiOS Interactive Media Guide (IMG) that got over 100 comments about the bugs in the upgrade.

They rolled out a beautiful new guide interface, but added at least two dozen bugs into the system including shows not being recorded, auto-restarting DVRs, and sluggish performance. It really is a nice looking guide and I give them kudos for the graphic design, but I’d prefer the old guide because it was at least 95% reliable as opposed to the new guide interface which is maybe 50-75% reliable.

So, we are still happy enough with FiOS, but the buggy guide upgrade and lack of an easy online support option (e.g. a real customer support email address, not a support bot) have soured our happiness just a little.

Sweet Vista Goodness

I finally reformatted the old desktop (Athlon64 3200+, 1GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 6600, 320GB hard drive) with a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate. I had almost given up on the damn thing because of all the problems I've had with the hardware. It had been sitting idle in the basement for months.

After replacing the power supply and video card last year and getting new SATA hard drive this year, we may have at least a temporary success. Besides the DVD drives (and case), the only original hardware is now the motherboard and RAM. We know what to blame if we still have problems.

Now it has a fresh, clean install of Windows Vista, with no programs except Windows and Skype. I hooked it up to our new Sony 50" SXRD via DVI-to-HDMI and SPDIF to the receiver. It runs the Windows Media Center interface at full 1080p resolution (59Hz) and plays DVDs with full Dolby Digital 5.1 channel sound. Sweet.

Oddly, the regular desktop interface overflows the screen if I set the resolution to 1920x1080, so I'm running it slightly under that which allows the whole desktop to show but puts a black border around it. When switching to Media Center it goes to full 1080p, which is nice.

Sony says to use the VGA input on the back of the SXRD for connecting PCs, but I'm using the HDMI input because it allows up to 1920x1080 resolution which fills the screen. The VGA input, for some reason, plops a small window in the middle of the screen with huge black borders and no way to stretch it. There's no way to even get close to 1080p using the VGA input.

Besides the desire to use Media Center as it was intended, on a TV, the other reason I did this was so we could actually use our Netflix video streaming hours. We get so many hours per month but we never use them because, let's face it, who wants to watch movies on a small laptop screen?

Let me tell you, the Netflix streaming works very well if you have a decent internet connection. We have the basic Verizon FiOS service (5Mbps), and we get the highest quality video. Watching videos via netflix.com is almost DVD quality. No Dolby Digital surround via Netflix though, at least not yet. But this is very, very usable. I'm hoping that Netflix makes a plug in for Media Center and/or releases a cool Avalon/Windows Presentation Foundation-based video browser that can be controlled via remote. And maybe Mac-support too. :-)

Man, this is more awesome than even I expected.