How do you think TIVO stacks up against FiOS Media Center?

[mvltmn1]

I just found the marketing information about the new FiOS Media Center. This thing seems great. I love my TIVO but how does TIVO compete against all of these features?

[wmcbrine]

I've never heard of "Fios Media Center". AFAIK, the best you can get right now from Fios is a "multi-room DVR" that can't even talk to HD recievers, among many other flaws. To compare it to a Tivo would be a joke. The only pluses are that it can do VOD, and you don't have to pay up front. (Of course Tivo has their own quasi-VOD service instead.)

[jmoak]

Is this the one you're talking about?

Verizon's FiOS Presentation (http://www.engadget.com/photos/verizon-launches-fios-interactive-media-guide/250282/)

If so, it looks pretty cool! At a quick glance, my tivo already has most of the features they tout as "New! Improved!", sans vod, of course.
:o

Looks like Tivo's competing pretty good. I'm just waiting for the rest of 'em to catch up.

Heay, Brighthouse! Transferring vids from your dvr to my portable player would be nice. How about it, eh? How about remote scheduling?

Come to think about it, I think you've got it backwards. How does cable compete against all of these Tivo features?
:)

[wmcbrine]

If so, it looks pretty cool!Yeah. Looks can be deceiving. Actually I'd say that looks are the one thing it has going for it. Functionality, not so much.

[mvltmn1]

Oh, so the verizon version can't do HD?

[bkdtv]

Oh, so the verizon version can't do HD?Verizon's multi-room is not supported with HD, if that is what you mean.

[TiVotion]

I maintain the set top boxes in addition to my TiVos in each room, just for the ability to do VoD.

I can tell you, looks can be deceiving. That menu looks pretty, but it's a navigational clusterfark. If you've used a TiVo before, and you try to use the Verizon IMG, you'll puke. First off, the menu lag is so awful you'll sometimes press the remote button 3 or 4 times thinking the remote's signal didn't register, only to find yourself skipping thru menus when the guide finally catches up. Second, searches aren't very intuitive nor are they very refined. Worse, these tabbed-type menus aren't as logically organized as they could be, and are maddening to navigate on top of the menu lag.

At this point in time, saying that Verizon's current offering compares with a TiVo box is like saying horse manure compares with ice cream.

[kas25]

I agree. It looks cool and has some nice features but its just not as smooth and realiable as a tivo. I tried it an got a S3. I keep Verizon set top boxes in my other rooms though. Still waiting to buy more HD Tivos.

[ilh]

I went from their media center to TiVo HD with 2 CableCARDs and no looking back. I had a Series 2 DirecTiVo before that, and found the FiOS DVR menus and performance to be terrible. In the 3-4 weeks I used it, it must have dropped dozens of recordings (e.g., they would show up as 7s long with an error message about channel not received -- wrong, channel always visible via live viewing). It also spontaneously rebooted maybe a dozen times, often while traversing menus. What a piece of junk.

[shelbel]

I've had the FIOS dvr about 2 weeks and I'm actually on this forum this morning researching FIOS's plain set-top box, hoping I can get one to replace their dvr for my TiVo. It's just that bad.

As it's been pointed out here, their navigation menus are hard to use, the response from their remote has a time-lag that makes the smallest task take forever (and don't get me started on the Fast-Forward, which is almost useless for that very reason). It has spontaneously shut down at least twice, meaning it wasn't recording when I had recordings scheduled. And I don't know if its' just my machine, but when you're watching a recorded show, and it begins recording a new one, it switches you over to the show being recorded, meaning you have to go back to the menu and find your recorded show all over again.

[wkearney]

I tried the FIOS DVR at a neighbor's house and hated it. For all the reasons listed here. I went with a TivoHD and cablecards. And now, having seen mine, so has my neighbor! Sure, we don't get VOD and PPV but we never used them anyway. I suppose we might, if they were accessible via Tivo. But the amount of time we depend on using Tivo features FAR outweigh any need for VoD or PPV. Besides, we use Netflix for movies most of the time. Haven't tried Amazon unbox, yet.

[mr.unnatural]

I've had FIOS with two series 3 Tivos for about a year now. I have set top boxes in several other rooms but never use them myself. I could care less about VOD or any of the "Widgets". If I never see another set top box for TV reception I'd be a happy man. The program guide is a mess and is hardly what I would call an improvement over what they originally had.

I looked into the Verizon DVR (A Motorola QIP6416 IIRC) and quickly dismissed it. Besides being a total POS, it only has a 160GB drive and only one set of IR codes, making it near impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to have more than one of them in the same room without them both being controlled simultaneously. A 3-year prepaid plan with Tivo and two cablecards is less than the cost of the Verizon DVR (or at least it was just prior to the increased rates) on a monthly basis.

The MRV solution offered by Verizon only supports standard definition programming but I believe you need a HD DVR in order to use it for distributing signals to other rooms, but I may be off on this. It's been almost a year since I read up on it and I don't recall all of the details.