FIOS TV review from an old Comcast subscriber
Well i've had FIOS TV now for a couple of weeks and I can safely say it's quite superior to Comcast. The main difference? The regular non-HD channels. They are clearer and have less interference. I'm not going to lie and say they look almost HD or anything but they look as good as a non-HD channel can look. Also, another thing that is better is the closed caption. I like closed caption as I watch TV late at night and I don't want to upset my neighbors. The FIOS CC scrolls better, doesn't become garbled as much and has a much sharper font. Now even though a lot of people may not be interested in closed caption this still is something to mention because it shows what having superior bandwidth can do for a television service in general. The sound seems a bit better too but to be honest I never had much real issue with Comcast other than my sound cutting out and that turned out to be a cable on my stereo, not Comcast.
The biggest change to get used to of course is the guide. The guide and remote actually take a bit of getting used to, although the switch effort may not be as difficult as you think. The guide is overall better although I still have a couple of issues with it that somewhat hold it back overall. It works with MUCH, MUCH, MUCH less lag than Comcast. Nearly every button press is 100% instant. In fact, save for one button discussed later I’d go so far as to say there is zero lag. This is huge to me because that was one huge thing that I disliked about Comcast guide was the constant lag and the ol' "did I press the button hard enough?" debate. The guide is laid out in a logical fashion and is very easy to use. There is not an option to change colors or anything though like Comcast, to me a minor issue, since the FIOS guide looks better than Comcast to begin with color wise. It's easy to do searches and find your programs. It offers all the recording options that Comcast does, including the ability to manually record, extend the length of your recording by 5 or 10 or 15 minutes, etc (something F/X is notorious for doing is having their programs run over). It does tell you when there is a conflict for recordings but it doesn't tell you exactly where the conflict is, a minor annoyance. It gives you the option to do only new programs, or new & repeat, as well as keep only a certain number of episodes, etc, all the same as Comcast.
Now as for the issues I have with the guide, there are a few that need to be noted here. First of all there is no easy way to skip ahead by multiple hours or an entire day like Comcast has. This is annoying to me because if it's 8pm on a Monday I usually bring up the guide and then like to flip ahead to 8pm Tuesday and see what's on, then do the same for Wednesday, etc. On FIOS the only way to do this is to hold down the forward scroll button and wait...then wait....then wait some more. The second big annoyance is that there is no PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN feature in the guide. So if you like to flip thru a whole page of listings up or down you cannot do so. I called FIOS and they assured me both of these issues are known and they plan to add the go forward a day, page up and page down features to their new guide which is going to be released in September. The biggest time you notice these lack of features is when you initially setup your recordings because when you do so you like to flip around from day to day and up and down and find your stuff. So I will say although I hate these features missing I have not had as much of an issue with it now that all of my weekly recordings are all setup to record for me.
The remote is great and far superior to Comcast. Where do I start? Well first of all it's backlit which is a huge thing to me since I watch TV in the dark most of the time. Second of all it allows for up to four programmable devices. This allowed me to program my TV, my DVD and my stereo all on this remote (The FIOS STB takes up the fourth of course) which was something I couldn't do on my old Comcast remote since it only allowed for control of a total of 3 devices. Sure I know you can go buy a programmable remote and I plan to do that but this remote works so well I am now in no big hurry to do so. Lastly, and this is a big feature to a lot of people, the FIOS remote has a "SKIP AHEAD 30 SECONDS" button on it which is fantastic for skipping ahead of those pesky commercials. Comcast's remote does not have this but if you do some poking around on the net you can find a way to program the remote to have it (I did and it works great). This is the only single feature however that I have found lag on. When I first got the remote and got to a commercial I pressed the SKIP AHEAD button and nothing happened so I pressed it like 5 more times. Nothing happened for a second, then all of a sudden the program skipped ahead like 3 minutes or whatever and I had to rewind. It's not a big deal though, once you realize this you can just adjust so you hit the button 3 or 4 times, see if you're back to your program, if not, press again. Lastly the widgets feature is nice, it offers weather and traffic on the remote. However I can't get to it by pressing the A button on the remote for some reason, I have to go to Enhanced TV and choose Widgets there and then it works. FIOS has no explanation for this.
In closing I give the service an A- compared to Comcast's rating of a C+. I can't give FIOS an A+ until they fix the skip ahead a day, page up/page down, allow us to choose our own colors for our guide and fix the lag on the SKIP AHEAD button. Why may you ask is there such a difference rating wise from FIOS to Comcast? Simple reason: value. Although TV is TV overall and FIOS is just a bit better than Comcast, the truth is that you have to factor into the fact that I am now getting everything else I got from Comcast before channel wise, plus I get Cinemax, NFL Network (in HD too), a better remote and I pay $50 less a month. And you can't discount the fact that when I get a living room TV all I need is a basic set top box from Verizon and I can watch my recorded programs in any room, something Comcast cannot do because they don't have their set top box running through a home network like FIOS does (your STB connects to your FIOS router is how they accomplish this feat btw). That creates a pretty decent gap in the services and it's why FIOS is the clear winner. Comcast, well I don't know what to tell you, I would say I feel sorry for them, but guess what? I don't!
The biggest change to get used to of course is the guide. The guide and remote actually take a bit of getting used to, although the switch effort may not be as difficult as you think. The guide is overall better although I still have a couple of issues with it that somewhat hold it back overall. It works with MUCH, MUCH, MUCH less lag than Comcast. Nearly every button press is 100% instant. In fact, save for one button discussed later I’d go so far as to say there is zero lag. This is huge to me because that was one huge thing that I disliked about Comcast guide was the constant lag and the ol' "did I press the button hard enough?" debate. The guide is laid out in a logical fashion and is very easy to use. There is not an option to change colors or anything though like Comcast, to me a minor issue, since the FIOS guide looks better than Comcast to begin with color wise. It's easy to do searches and find your programs. It offers all the recording options that Comcast does, including the ability to manually record, extend the length of your recording by 5 or 10 or 15 minutes, etc (something F/X is notorious for doing is having their programs run over). It does tell you when there is a conflict for recordings but it doesn't tell you exactly where the conflict is, a minor annoyance. It gives you the option to do only new programs, or new & repeat, as well as keep only a certain number of episodes, etc, all the same as Comcast.
Now as for the issues I have with the guide, there are a few that need to be noted here. First of all there is no easy way to skip ahead by multiple hours or an entire day like Comcast has. This is annoying to me because if it's 8pm on a Monday I usually bring up the guide and then like to flip ahead to 8pm Tuesday and see what's on, then do the same for Wednesday, etc. On FIOS the only way to do this is to hold down the forward scroll button and wait...then wait....then wait some more. The second big annoyance is that there is no PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN feature in the guide. So if you like to flip thru a whole page of listings up or down you cannot do so. I called FIOS and they assured me both of these issues are known and they plan to add the go forward a day, page up and page down features to their new guide which is going to be released in September. The biggest time you notice these lack of features is when you initially setup your recordings because when you do so you like to flip around from day to day and up and down and find your stuff. So I will say although I hate these features missing I have not had as much of an issue with it now that all of my weekly recordings are all setup to record for me.
The remote is great and far superior to Comcast. Where do I start? Well first of all it's backlit which is a huge thing to me since I watch TV in the dark most of the time. Second of all it allows for up to four programmable devices. This allowed me to program my TV, my DVD and my stereo all on this remote (The FIOS STB takes up the fourth of course) which was something I couldn't do on my old Comcast remote since it only allowed for control of a total of 3 devices. Sure I know you can go buy a programmable remote and I plan to do that but this remote works so well I am now in no big hurry to do so. Lastly, and this is a big feature to a lot of people, the FIOS remote has a "SKIP AHEAD 30 SECONDS" button on it which is fantastic for skipping ahead of those pesky commercials. Comcast's remote does not have this but if you do some poking around on the net you can find a way to program the remote to have it (I did and it works great). This is the only single feature however that I have found lag on. When I first got the remote and got to a commercial I pressed the SKIP AHEAD button and nothing happened so I pressed it like 5 more times. Nothing happened for a second, then all of a sudden the program skipped ahead like 3 minutes or whatever and I had to rewind. It's not a big deal though, once you realize this you can just adjust so you hit the button 3 or 4 times, see if you're back to your program, if not, press again. Lastly the widgets feature is nice, it offers weather and traffic on the remote. However I can't get to it by pressing the A button on the remote for some reason, I have to go to Enhanced TV and choose Widgets there and then it works. FIOS has no explanation for this.
In closing I give the service an A- compared to Comcast's rating of a C+. I can't give FIOS an A+ until they fix the skip ahead a day, page up/page down, allow us to choose our own colors for our guide and fix the lag on the SKIP AHEAD button. Why may you ask is there such a difference rating wise from FIOS to Comcast? Simple reason: value. Although TV is TV overall and FIOS is just a bit better than Comcast, the truth is that you have to factor into the fact that I am now getting everything else I got from Comcast before channel wise, plus I get Cinemax, NFL Network (in HD too), a better remote and I pay $50 less a month. And you can't discount the fact that when I get a living room TV all I need is a basic set top box from Verizon and I can watch my recorded programs in any room, something Comcast cannot do because they don't have their set top box running through a home network like FIOS does (your STB connects to your FIOS router is how they accomplish this feat btw). That creates a pretty decent gap in the services and it's why FIOS is the clear winner. Comcast, well I don't know what to tell you, I would say I feel sorry for them, but guess what? I don't!
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