No Free Lunch …
Or, video, for that matter.
We received a mailer from Verizon the other day, pushing their FiOS system for TV. Some of you may remember that I’ve been pretty excited about the technology — and the chance to get away from Comcast. And, the price that Verizon’s advertising ($39.95 a month) is really enticing.
Until you get to the fine print.
In order to view all the channels, you must have a converter box, at $3.95 per TV. In order to get HD channels, you must have a different converter box, at $9.95 per HD set. In order to record stuff off TV, you must have a DVR. The DVR is $12.95 per month.
We have 5 TV sets in our house. One’s an HD set, and, I’d like to have the DVR, I think. But, that works out to $39.95+(4+$3.95)+$9.95+$12.95, or, $78.65 a month! $20 more than we’re paying now (we don’t have digital cable or HD cable) and nearly twice the advertised price!
Comparing apples to apples, Comcast would be about $95 a month, plus whatever converter boxes are necessary (Comcast conveniently doesn’t list them on their web site, but I know they’re required for digital cable).
So, Verizon’s still a good deal less expensive than Comcast, and may be even more of a savings if you do a bundle — I haven’t even looked into that yet….
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Comcast will rent you a DVR (NOwhere near as good as a real TiVO but sufficient though buggy) which is also the digital tuner for about $10/month. You can also continue analog cable at the same time; I have three TVs, all can get analog and one (with the DVR) can also get digital.
In Atlanta, at least, the same $10/month will give you (me) HD service, all you (I) have to do is swap one DVR for another, no increase in fee.
Up hear, the Comcast DVR is actually a bit better than a TIVO, and it allows you to connect a DVD-RW to it via a firewire port. Pretty cool.
I’m still looking into all of this. I think we’re going to harass the Verizon people at the mall tonight. Should be fun.
One thing I didn’t mention about the DVR that Verizon offers is this: if you have other sets with tuner boxes attached (up to three), they can access content from the DVR. Also, certain functionality of the DVR can be accessed/controlled from a network-attached PC, and the DVR can access certain media types stored on the network. Very cool.
So, they’re using TiVo To Go/TiVo Desktop, or their version of it?
TtG lets you transfer content between DVRs that are connected via your home network, and TD allows transfer between the DVR and your desktop, and also allows you to play certain video and audio files from your Windows-based media server.
Honestly, it’s a fair amount of chrome and go-faster stripes. The only real important function that I use regularly is archiving TiVo’d content to DVD. And, despite how easy they try to make THAT sound, their partner (Roxio/Sonic) doesn’t really have the interoperation they claim - in fact, the MyDVD software’s pretty much upgefukt. So, I strip off the TtG DRM with a 3rd-party utility, transcode the video with Nero Recode, and fire it off to DVD with nice custom menus with Nero Vision. This is an area where a DVR unit with easier-to-use DVD burning would have an edge.
Not exactly TtG. In the Verizon system, there is only a single DVR. It’s also, apparently, a streaming server that can process up to two “outbound” streams, which can then be “tuned in” on any standard or HD converter in your home.
I also learned last night that, for my HD set, I’d just need to use a DVR — there’s an HD converter built in.
Bottom line, though, is that it’s still a lot of money for television. Though, once it’s available in what should be just a few weeks, we’re still going to switch over to it.
On the Sonic software, I’ve got the MyDVD software on my laptop (came with), and I’ve not had any trouble with it at all. Of course, if I need something fancy, I’ll use Adobe Encore 2.0.
I’ve got a version of Sonic MyDVD on the laptop (pre-Roxio) that’s OK for what it does. Roxio has a habit of giving bad-software cooties to everything it touches/acquires. I snagged a copy of the most recent package from their website, and it a) crashes horribly when you feed it a TiVo file, and b) installs an MPEG-2 codec that doesn’t actually produce valid MPEG-2 files (ie: every non-MyDVD package that attempts to open them throws an error - Nero, Windows Media Encoder, etc.).
BTW - Verizon and Baltimore County appear to have finally inked a franchise deal. I also understand that there are crews scheduled to pull fiber into the Frederick Rd. corridor, for a completion date estimated at March ‘07.
If nothing else, I can always parlay FiOS into a Comcast discount. Or, I can switch over and for the same amount of cash per month get faster internet service and the digital cable channels. Unfortunately, I think that FiOS make my dual-tuner TiVo essentially a single-tuner box, since there’s only one input from the converter box. Of course, I really don’t give a toss about most of the channels I don’t already get with the standard Comcast lineup, and 15/2Mbps FiOS internet is about the same price as Comcast’s 6Mbps/384Kbps service, so that might be something to pick up.
Verizon were going to pull the fiber no matter what. They figure they’ll get people into the faster internet and telco infrastructure upgrade, even if they didn’t get the cable deal.
What should be really interesting is what’s happening in some of the IPTV stuff some of the baby bells are playing with. There seems to be some question as to whether or not it’s regulated under the cable franchise acts.
At any rate, we interrogated the Verizon booth bimbo at Mall last night. She was actually fairly knowledgeable. Really, the only thing she couldn’t tell me was whether or not the IP address(es) are static or dynamic. We’ll likely be making the switch. It’s just a matter of when.