Verizon DVR / STB Reviews Wanted

Looking for user input on which Verizon STB’s and DVR’s are the best and why. Interested especially in responses from users who have owned many different boxes. Please list your model #’s and why they are better than / worse than. What are the pros? What are the cons? And if there is anyone out there that is getting real-time navigation response out of the old 2500’s (no lag when using Guide or On Demand), please let us know and tell us how.
(Please, I’m not looking for a bash-fest of complaints. Just saying that this or that sucks will only make this thread useless. Genuinely interested in learning more.)
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First off, to a greater degree the 'newer" models definitely out weigh to older models performance-wise, ie; 72xx series outweighs 64xx series probably because of the cycles of their refurbishment as I personally never receive an out-of-box newest model I can only base my accessment on these facts.
Secondly, Motorola as with Sony has declined in their product assurance. Sony especially since adopting Western manufacturing tactics, SONY was a serious technologic contender back in the day even though they were propriety items and Motorola has shifted its focus toward the cheaper and faster route as well. These were the industry's top compete\itors in their field and now are just muddled-up junk (just check out your local garbage collected on "trash day"). Similarly Seagate, now Seagate/Maxtor of which most of these models, especially HD-DVR hard drives are comprised has gone the way of poor bperformance as well. I have changed out more of these drive's than any other. For better illustration, I have Seagate drives in use from the 1980' that still perform just as they were intended, although by no means are they fast performers however their stabiity plus workmanship are light years ahead of Seagate/Maxtor's newer models hands down.
All that being said my Motorola 7232-2 HD-DVR has been the best performer thus far, however at 1+ years old it's beginning to show it's age.
Lastly as with each successive models, once beloved features available on older models has been all but eliminated on the newer models. Thus making a "better of worse accessment" comparison just a trade-off rather than a decision.

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Acquired DVR, STB. and Router from Apartment cleanout; Return?

I am trying to do the right thing but poor customer service is not allowing me. I do IT work and received a DVR, STB, and Router from an apartment cleanout from a property owner. I am uncertain if the boxes are paid off or what, but rather than accept stolen property or flip them, I want to contact Verizon and have a return put out on the equipment. Hey maybe I'll get a credit or a few months of movies or something. But I certainly am not spending another minute sitting on hold to do this. I could not get through over 45 minutes yesterday. If I call and specify that I want to buy new service though, I get right through- only to be redirected anyways. Funny how it works. I love my FIOS service, always have, but to call them for anything requires taking a half day off of work. So, with that said- does anyone have contact info for equipment returns? Pittsburgh/Monroeville PA area. Again, if it's going to cost me anything, screw them. I will throw the stuff away as it should have been in the first place. If the equipment was paid for, it would be nice to have it activated to my account and no longer pay rental fees for my STB and DVR.
Message Edited by betteroff on 08-14-2009 06:47 AM

Don't know who to contact, but the video equipment is never considered paid off and remains forever Verizon property (that's how they make money on them). After a year I belive Verizon doesn't require the return of the router. They will not activate any STB without it being in their inventory and charging you a monthly fee.
If a forum member gives an answer you like, give them the Kudos they deserve. If a member gives you the answer to your question, mark the answer as Accepted Solution so others can see the solution to the problem.

How to bring life back into your Crippled Verizon DVR

Well, since Verizon DVR's come preshipped with all of the storage ports disabled, and the internal drive gets full of HD recorded shows in about a week, I decided to investigate what exactly can be done to get around this. It's obvious they don't care about their customers with this issue, because as I have found on google, people have been complaining about this for years. I can find posts that date back to 2006 with previous generation motorola boxes that also have every storage port purposely disabled.
HOWEVER...thanks to our good friends at the FCC...
The FCC has mandated that all cable boxes *MUST* have their firewire ports enabled.
What does that mean for us end users?
Well, if you connect the firewire port on any Verizon box to a computer, and install some hacked drivers, you can capture shows directly from your computer.
If you already bought an external storage drive and found out that it was useless due to Verizon's policies, you are NOT screwed!
All you have to do is plug that storage into the computer and use the DVHS Capture program and save shows to there.
If anyone would like to find out more information about this, and download the drivers and capture program, go to this website:
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/
I have the newer 7216 box, and even though it is not listed as being compatible on that site, it works perfectly.
The only problem is that some shows cannot be captured due to 5C copy protection...it basically encrypts the firewire stream on certain shows depending on what area you are in.
I have heard that some areas do not use any 5C encryption on any channel at all, so you should be free to record whatever content you want directly to your computer's storage.
The format outputted by the firewire port is MPEG-2 I believe. It's good enough, and yes, it is in HD.
How to do this briefly:
1.) Buy a firewire cable
2.) Connect back of STB to your laptop / desktop's firewire port (You may have to purchase a firewire card if you have an older computer)
3.) When windows says it's found a new device, follow the instructions on that website I linked you to to point to the right drivers.
4.) Turn the channel to whatever show you want captured
5.) Open the CapDVHS program, and press record
If the content is encrypted, the information section will be blank, and when you try to play back the video, it won't play.
If it's not encrypted, there will be stream info, and it should be able to get played back fine.
Keep in mind, if you are recording HD content, it fills up space FAST! Get an external hard drive.
I recommend esata..it's faster than usb or firewire, and they seem to be more reliable.
Hopefully no one will delete this post, because none of this is illegal, and people have the right to actually use the equipment they pay for how they want to, within the law, regardless of what features the service provider has enabled or disabled.
Message Edited by surgey on 10-25-2008 01:02 PM
Message Edited by surgey on 10-25-2008 01:08 PM

Very interesting. I don't really save a lot of the shows I record, but this would be great for HD movies. An external drive is the best bet since I doubt older computers could transfer data fast enough for HD content. A nice 500GB or big TB drive should be plenty of storage space, unless you record everything.
The best option for HD right now is downloading content and streaming it through an xbox 360 or ps3, if you're computer is fast enough to stream HD content. Mainly because you can download content that won't be available on tv for a year or 2. Personally I use an upconverting dvd player w/ hdmi, this makes DVD quality movies look very nice in HD. Even good quality divx/xvid movies are 10x better than the SD channels I have to watch currently.
Once somebody makes a true digital media player capable of playing .flv files via streaming data, HDtv owners will be in heaven. I believe only 1 is capable of it right now, but the quality is subpar. In about 10 years cable and sattelite providers will have another competitor, internet TV providers. Data transfer is getting fast enough now that streaming compressed data over the internet to a media center is a viable option. But like I said, someone still needs to make a media player capable of decompressing HD data and outputting it through an hdmi cable.

DVR/STB Troubleshooting

I have been having some issues with my service or DVR since the new guide/firmware update last year.
The first issue is that an average of 50% of my DVR recordings will have a glitch in them:
Jogging forward or fast forward causes the program to end and return to the recording menu.
Not channel specific or time specific; could be any recording.
Steps taken to resolve this issue:
Auto fix STB issues under In Home Agent - no change.
Auto fix DVR issues under In Home Agent - no change.
Power cycling STB - no change.
Called into support and they sent out a replacement DVR - issue seemed to be resolved for around a month but reoccurred.
The above process was repeated with the new DVR/STB with no change.
I have also tried turning Program Chaptering On/Off and the problem still occurs regardless of this setting. One thing that I have noticed is that during the affected recordings the information bar will often disappear completely or have the incorrect recording time (IE when playing a 30 minute recording and pressing Info button the program will show 10:00/1:30:00 or 10:00/0:00:00 as if the DVR does not know how long the recording is actually). The jog forward or fast forward causing the program to end usually occurs after 10 minutes of record time. This issue is very annoying as it defeats part of the purpose of the DVR and being able to skip through the program.
The second issue that I am having is intermittent issues with what seems like signal quality and delays changing channels:
Turning the DVR on and changing channels usually results in anywhere from a 30 sec to 2 minute delay (DVR stays on the selected channel or goes to a black screen until the DVR processes the channel change and goes to the selected channel).
Seems to occur when changing from a local channel to a premium or HD channel or vice versa (3 to the HD 503 or any channel to 70 or 76).
At times the signal seems to drop out and I get a lot of audio freezing and some artifacting in the picture.
The channel change/audio skip or freeze usually occur once or twice an hour.
Steps taken to resolve this issue:
I did a search and found that some users had success changing or turning off the SD override feature, I have tried Off, 480i, 480p and Stretched - no impact on channel change delay or audio/video freezing.
Auto fix STB/DVR with In Home Agent - no change.
These issues are very frustrating and hard to pin down from a diagnostic standpoint. Each time I call into support when the issue is occurring the Menu Diagnostics or STB/DVR reset throws a red herring in that the problem seems solved until the next day when the problems start again or I have a DVR full of recordings that I cannot fast forward through. No offense but I am tried of going through Level 1 phone support and running through the book resolutions only to solve the problem temporarily. If anyone can shed some more advanced light on this issue, it would be greatly appreciated.
Edit for formatting.

What you are describing in both scenarios is a signal disruption. Please unscrew the coax cord from both ends (from the DVR and from the wall). Make sure the tips are good and straight. Screw both back on. If you are still having troubles, then try using a different coax cord all together. If you are still having troubles, it might be a problem with the wall jack or the main splitter. For further assistance with those, please send me a private message.
Anthony_VZ
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Does the DVR/STB have to be on the LAN for In-Home Agent to work?

I'm a brand new user and am trying to learn the the new features that Fios brings to the party. When my install was done I asked that the wireless feature be disabled on the router (I have a good wired network for my PCs and they were all connected to the supplied router). All of my services work (TV, Ph, Internet) but I just noticed that when I go to In-Home Agent, the only selectable option is that for Internet. I have a sneaky suspicion that the DVR/STB are controlled over the network.
Can I connect the DVR to my wired network (Ethernet connection) and get the In-Home Agent functionality back?

Verizon boxes communicate with the LAN via MoCA. This is done over the coaxial cable. If you have guide information then that is working properly. Youy don't need wireless and the RJ-45 on the back of the STB is not active, so "hooking up" to your wired network would do no good.
If a forum member gives an answer you like, give them the Kudos they deserve. If a member gives you the answer to your question, mark the answer as Accepted Solution so others can see the solution to the problem.

Multiroom DVR STB Keeps Resetting

For the past 36 hours or so (maybe longer), the only thing that works on my MR-DVR STB (500gb motorola version) are tv channels. Menu, DVR, guide and everything else all nonfunctional. The STB acknowledges the command, but does not do anyting. The STB does not display the time when powered off.
Every 15 or 20 minutes (guess, havent measured). it reboots itself. On boot, it displays an error:
Please Re-Insert CableCard
I am not using a cable card. AFter displaying the message it boots up and displays TV, but again, none of the advanced features work.
I have tried resetting the MR-DVR from a separate STB. This fails with an error saying to try again later (tried many times).
I have tried resetting via in home agent. The first 5 times I used the app it did not even acknowledge I had TV service. When I finally got it to recognize that, it failed saying I had a problem it could not fix.
I have tried resetting via verizon website, but it says that it cannot reach my STB.
I refuse to pull the plug on the unit since the last 2 times I have done that it resulted in the DVR losing its pairing with my external drive (forced reformatting) and wiping 2TB worth of recordings.
I suspect that a recent update to the STB has not worked properly and it is stuck in a continual loop of trying of trying to apply it/fix itself.
Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Vicman wrote:
After 4 visits to my house to check the line after 4 replacement boxes after replacing the modem and a router and the main box in the basement I had 7 hours before it started rebooting right before the Patriots game .what the hell is going on I need help any ideas gentleman?
How good is your power. You Might try a UPS.

DVR STB Not Accessible on Web

For the past several months, I have not been able to access my DVR STB online. I used to do it all the time for programming, etc. Now no matter what I do i get the message that my STB is not responding. I gave up trying months ago, but I really want this functionality back. But honestly, I don't want to spend extended periods of time trying to work with telephone support.
Have others resolved this issue?
What can I do to fix this problem???
Thanks.

RichBClark wrote:
Hi, I forgot to check back for a few days, but I have used the link to submit the information.
    A good practice is to enable email subsciptions to threads/topics that you start or participate in
    especially when you want updates. Of course, this only helps when you check your email on a
    regular basis. At any rate, good luck!

I have a dvr and I want to monitor from my phone. this worked when I had a Belkin router that let me open ports. I use "canyouseeme" and it can't see 80, 9000 or 1025. How do I make them available?

I have a Lorex DVR that I want to monitor from my IPhone and IPad. I used to be able to do this when I had a Belkin router (easy to open ports) but I bought the AirPort Extreme router and no longer have that capability. When I use "canyouseeme" they can NOT see 80, 9000 or 1025. Lorex says I need them all available in order to access. Help! And all the help I see refers to a earlier version of the AirPort Utility so I cant use those to look at anything, I cant find the same screens, I have version 6.1 (610.31). I also don't really understand how ports work, so I need a pretty basic explanation.

Well...I went to the modem (Westell, WireSpeed), found the NAT settings, once again, I'm WAY over my head, I am assuming this is a TCP connection (as opposed to a UDP) and per Lorex my mobile devices will use port 1025. So I gave it a "global port range" of 1-10 and I indicated that the "base host port" was 80, 1025, & 9000 (ports 1,2,3). When I selected the 'enable' it asked for a "host devise" my choices are my IPhone, IMac and the IP address for the dvr, so I choose the dvr. I still cannot connect and canyouseeme still can NOT find these open ports. This is taking up my whole day! I don't know how people figure this stuff out.

I want to purchase an IPAD2, do I have to get a plan from ATT or Verizon if I only want the WI-FI option?

I want to purchase an Ipad2 do I have to get a plan from AT&T or Verizon if I only want the WI-FI option?

No you can just purchase the WiFi only version of the iPad and not worry about the 3G. Or if you buy the 3G just don't bother with a plan until you decide you want one.

DVR STB will not hold the display of the time of day.

I am new to FIOS. I have a DVR Set Top Box for my HD TV. I prefer to see the time of day displayed. I set this option in Menu/Settings/Set Top/Display and it works OK UNTIL you change the channel. Then it displays the new channel and DOES NOT revert back to the time of day as it is supposed to do.
Called Verizon. They reset the box. It worked OK for about 30 minutes then went back to the same problem. I don't want them to reset it again because when they did it wiped all of my favorites.
Any solutions will be greatly appreciated.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Try rebooting the STB and then change the clock setting and change it back. That worked for me when i had this issue. I have seen this reported a couple of times and most of the time if this fix didnt work, the issue resolved itself within a couple of days.
Also, it should be noted that with the 1.7IMG release they changed the way the front display functioned. It now changes to show the channel number at every program change and then reverts back to showing the clock after about 2 minutes.
"If your problem has been solved, please mark it as such. Don't forget to hand out your Kudos!"

Problems with DVR, STB`s

I had FIOS put in less than a week ago. The multi-room DVR recordings don`t show up on my STB`s. I have tried resetting them all at least 3 times. I tried resetting them through the internet, but it keeps saying login failed. In Home Agent freezes up when I try to reset the STB`s through that. I called tech support, and was on the phone with him for an hour and a half...and he couldn`t fix it. I`m ready to cancel this and go back to Dish network. Does anyone have any suggestions?

bryanp56 wrote:
I had FIOS put in less than a week ago. The multi-room DVR recordings don`t show up on my STB`s. I have tried resetting them all at least 3 times. I tried resetting them through the internet, but it keeps saying login failed. In Home Agent freezes up when I try to reset the STB`s through that. I called tech support, and was on the phone with him for an hour and a half...and he couldn`t fix it. I`m ready to cancel this and go back to Dish network. Does anyone have any suggestions?
The suggestion is to call back and reuqest a tech visit. Ask for a supervisor during the call if they put you off or try to go through the same troubleshooting you have already done, and keep escalating the complaint during the call as necessary. Once it gets to a certain level, you'll be suprised at the attention you will get from Verizon escalation management. My neighbor had a problem and once escalated, he was repeatedly contacted until it was fixed -- and a week after received a call to ensure that it was still working.

Another Remote DVR "STB Not Responding" Issue

I've had my FIOS install for a couple weeks now and 3-4 days ago tried to activate the Remote DVR feature. In all other respects my system is working fine. I can login to the FIOS TV Central page, see my STB in the listing, it shows that Remote DVR is enabled.
My STB works fine, records, has the guide, widgets, etc.
My computer network is also working fine. STB shows in my router control software, has a static IP (which does match the IP in the STB settings).
But no matter what I do, the TV Central site will always error with a "Set Top Box is not responding"
I've turned on and off the feature on the STB but that did not make any difference. I see in my router that there are 8 non-editable Port Forwarding rules set up, all identical.
192.168.1.101 Verizon FIOS Service Any HDM_CR_001404_QIP-6416_000-03081-42316-021 - TCP Any -> 35001 Active
Any thoughts here? Reading through the forums it would appear this is a somewhat common and finicky issue. Lots of folks see it and it "magically" gets better, or worse, or flip flops between.

The connection between your DVR and one of Verizon's Servers sometimes 'breaks', and in my experience, cycling the router and/or the DVR won't help. The connection needs to be reset from the Verizon end. If you call or use chat to the service people, they can usually fix it while you are online with them.
It doesn't involves wiping out anything on your DVR.
I went through this a couple weeks ago. Everything except worked, except for online, it always says the unit was not responding. I think I waited about a week before I finally ask Verizon to fix it.

DVR/Stb Functionality

I am new to this forum, so I don't if this has been discussed. I was with Comcast since Lord knows and have used their DVR for at least 4 years. One feature I got used to and loved was being able to pause live TV and "swap" to the other tuner to watch another show. I could then pause the other tuner (or not) and swap back to the first and continue watching from where it was paused. I have yet to figure out how to do this with the FIOS DVR. If i have something paused and change the channel and change it back it is live.
Another question I have is it seems like i can't keep something paused for more than an hour before it unpauses itself and returns live. If anything, I would prefer it to remain paused a little longer than one hour or resume from where it is paused. you have very little room for error.
One last question, how do I get to the settings of the STBs? I have an HDTV that use to switch from 4:3 to 16:9 accordingly with the channels with the STB. But when I got another one moved it to another TV, it now stretches 4:3 to widescreen and I can't stand it. My wife doesn't mind, but i have to change the display manually on the tv whenever we go from HD to SD.

HelluvaEngineer wrote:
I am new to this forum, so I don't if this has been discussed. I was with Comcast since Lord knows and have used their DVR for at least 4 years. One feature I got used to and loved was being able to pause live TV and "swap" to the other tuner to watch another show. I could then pause the other tuner (or not) and swap back to the first and continue watching from where it was paused. I have yet to figure out how to do this with the FIOS DVR. If i have something paused and change the channel and change it back it is live.
Another question I have is it seems like i can't keep something paused for more than an hour before it unpauses itself and returns live. If anything, I would prefer it to remain paused a little longer than one hour or resume from where it is paused. you have very little room for error.
One last question, how do I get to the settings of the STBs? I have an HDTV that use to switch from 4:3 to 16:9 accordingly with the channels with the STB. But when I got another one moved it to another TV, it now stretches 4:3 to widescreen and I can't stand it. My wife doesn't mind, but i have to change the display manually on the tv whenever we go from HD to SD.
To swap paused tuners you need to use the LAST button on the remote. Pause the channel you are watching, select other channel you want to watch, pause the second channel, now hit LAST and you should return to the paused first channel.
The 1 hour limitation is due to the buffer size on the DVR (which coincidentally is 1 hour). It would make sense if the buffer is an hour it won't hold pause any longer than that.
The last issues sounds like a setting in the TV. If you have to go and "change the display manually on the TV" it is not the STB, but a setting in the TV. The other possibility is that the 4:3 override in the STB has changed. You can try playing with the different modes (OFF, 480i, 480p, or stretch).
If a forum member gives an answer you like, give them the Kudos they deserve. If a member gives you the answer to your question, mark the answer as Accepted Solution so others can see the solution to the problem.

DVR/STB/Remote issues - Help Needed

New to Verizon FIOS (Installed about 2 weeks ago). Have a few issues. Any help is appreciated
1) When im on the Home Media DVR and i fast forward through a program, when i stop or hit play, an extremely loud beep that lasts for 1-3 seconds comes from the speakers. How do i get this to stop, what is causing it, etc?
2) When i fast forward from one of the STB (regular HD box), if i hit FF once, it fast forwards pretty slow, if i hit it again, it goes somewhat faster. The problem is. When i hit it that 2nd time, it seems that 70-80% of the time, it jumps me back to an early portion of the program. I.E. Was watching the 2 hour episode of "24", was one hour and 20 min in, got to commercials, i hit FF twice and it jumped me back to 23 minutes in. Tried again at next commercial break and it jumped me back to 11 minutes in. What is the deal here? How do i fix it?
3) Are there only 2 fast forward speeds on STB? I came from Brighthouse that had 4 speeds, im a little disappointed with only 2 speeds. Can anyone verify?
4) The remotes seem to take 2 seconds or so to register when performing any function other than changing channels. When i hit FF or REW, DVR or Last, it seems to take a few seconds to kick in. Is this a known issue, or possibly my box or remotes?
Thanks for any and all help

Sorry the ff speeds are the same. On the main MR-DVR there are 3 ff speeds, where the remote STB has 2 ff speeds. I think they did that because how the remote system works, it has slower responses being remote. But with the update you will not need to worry about the ff, because you will not get the hub error. I was one of the first people to get the update and I have not seen the hub error yet.
As far as a time frame I don't believe there is any thing public about it, I think the only thing they have said is it is going to be rolled out per market, and one market a week. But nothing on the order of the markets.

DVR/STB not responding

I am no longer able to connect to our DVR from the iphone mobile app or the my verizon web site. We have recycled the router and STB without any luck. Can someone please help?

Your DVR isn't processing its daily registration. You can unplug the STB then when it comes back up got into the menu, scroll down to customer support, then self diagnostic and start it. You should then see that listener 1 or 2 started. Try accessing the DVR via the phone or web again. If your still having an issue go back to menu to setting to remote DVR then web access. Here you should have the option to disable. Disable the remote DVR and then enable it again and test for access. If at this point it still isn't working we may need to send a trouble ticket over to the group that handles the remote DVR access. Let us know if that worked.
Mark

Verizon DVR / STB Reviews Wanted

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