I’m not sure whether it was the prior incident involving the State Corporation Commission or blind luck, but my Verizon FiOS install couldn’t have gone smoother. They sent two guys. One for internet, one for television.
Things working in my favor was an unfinished basement, CAT 5 wiring all throughout the residence, my desire to run wireless, a space set aside for a wall mounted battery with outlet, and separate internet (Adelphia) and satellite (DirectTV).
Basically they connected the fiber to the house and hooked it up in such a way that none of my copper wiring had to change, allowing me to keep my phone switch. Time to look into Asterisk seriously now.
We reused the existing coax for the FiOS TV. A new coax was strung into the basement and hooked to a router, and they happily allowed me access to my router’s username and password to twiddle all the information I wanted. I didn’t even have it share that with them. I could have as many machines behind the router that I wanted, which came with a default of four ethernet ports and wireless (802.11 “double g” ).
Now there’s been a lot of concern about what Verizon does shortly after. And I wasn’t all that thrilled when I was asked to go to their website. He saw the concern in my eyes and said, “don’t worry — it doesn’t install anything, and we can do it from my laptop if you’d like.” He then explained that we needed to activate the account (where he plugs in his order number), and that a side effect was it made an email address that I never had to use.
Knowing I had an image of my hard drive that I could instantly recover from, I used the Mac, which allowed me to take screen shots as we worked.
The first step was to go to http://activatemyfios.verizon.net/, which didn’t like Firefox, and insisted I use Safari! This downloaded a verzion.dmg disk image, to which I mounted it and ran a program that was nothing more than a config file. The installer had me go to custom installation and uncheck everything — this is how you avoid garbage getting installed on your machine.
The installer was surprised that there were only four things in my list. “Ghezz, with Windows, there’s a lot of stuff it wants to install.”
Anyhow, here’s screen shots of the whole procedure!
The real problem, however, was getting TiVo to work with Verizon’s Motorola QIP2500-3 receiver, which was beaming video just fine into my television. The Verizon guys were unfamiliar with TiVo, so TiVo owners have to go it alone for this one.
Only one guy on the TiVo forums was able to point me in the right direction with his post.
I was switching from a Huges DirectTV using the infrared (IR) method of changing channels. Turns out the QIP2500-3 needs to use the serial connector that came with TiVo. Lucky for me, I hadn’t thrown mine out. It looks like a stereo headphone jack with a serial connector on the other end. A note of warning, it does not plug into the IR jack, but has its own jack; be careful.
The hard part was figuring out how to tell TiVo to use a serial connector instead of the IR. I have a Series 2, and it turns out the only way to do that was to go to “Messages & Settings”, “Restart or Reset System”, and do a guided setup all over again.
I was happily surprised. TiVo recognized the Verizon FiOS TV service, recognized I had a Motorola box, recommended the serial connector (which didn’t require channel changing speed tests). The only tests it did ask me was a bit about what I saw on channel 48 (TV Guide) and channel 50 (USA Network). TiVo preserved all my recordings, and mapped all my season passes to their new channels. Wow.
So far, Walt is giving Verizon ViOS and its installation team a thumbs up.
UPDATE: Maybe my praise of Verizon is a little premature. Some time after everything was working, the serial connection stopped functioning. At first I thought it was TiVo. Now it appears that Verizon has turned off the serial interface. Sounds like something they’d do.
I don’t have Fios (not available in CO) but I have Tivo, and the IR connection is weak-sauce compared to the serial connection. For me, the IR connection would sometimes not change channels correctly, especially if the double-stick tape started to come loose! My original Comcast cable-box only supported IR and composite video. I was able to trade up (for no charge) at a Comcast store to a cable-box supporting serial connections and s-video connections. Much better!
Mike, I had similar problems until I tried something contrarian — move the IR transmitters further AWAY from the until. I found if they get too close to the cable box, it “blinds” it. I had a good 3-4 inches of space and was always getting reliable channel changes. Well, that was until the cats decide to play with them and I have to put them back.
Just ran across your post Walt. I am in Arlington and thinking about FiOS TV. I have a series 2 Tivo that I don’t want to get rid of and have seen mostly non-working serial port reports while searching. Do you think that since you got service recently that there’s been a new model box or firmware update to enable the port?
I have a TiVo Series 2 box myself, and one of the early ones at that. That’s what I’m using with my Verizon FiOS.
My TiVo system, prior to the big switch over, was connected to the Internet full time via Ethernet. So I’m pretty sure I had the latest and greatest updates.
As a side note, I have a friend who bought a TiVo Series 2 and a Wireless USB Ethernet to go with it. It didn’t work. He called TiVo, they said that he needed the next minor OS update from them, and that would happen the moment he connected to their service — by phone.
So, he did. The update came down. The USB Wireless Ethernet was instantly recognized. And he disconnected the phone, never needing it again.
My guess is that those non-working serial ports are either the “stereo jack” not plugged in all the way, or not having an update.
I have to say, when I did the System Setup, the TiVo instantly recognized the Verizon FiOS service and had no problem what-so-ever communicating with the box via the serial port. Keep in mind, I’m using the TiVo included serial port cable and not a USB to Serial Port.
Honestly, I don’t think you’re going to have any problems. TiVo has been really good about pushing out updates.
UPDATE 5-MAR-2007: Things had been working perfectly for months without problem or interruption. Then sometime after 2AM, TiVo became unable to change the channels via the serial port. It’s almost acting like there was a TiVo update that broke things, but at the moment that’s pure speculation.
Switching back to the IR connector solved the problem in the meanwhile.
My Series 2 TiVo also worked well with the serial port connection with FiOS in Northern Virginia until early March. Personally, I blame an update from Verizon over a TiVo update, but I would love to get the serial connection functionality back as the IR connector functionality is much more troublesome.
I’ve run into an issue where TIVO will only record what I’m watching when on digital channels. I have the Series 2 and could record HBO and watch a different channel with no problems. If anyone has a suggestion, please email me at [email protected] or post here and I can look.
Thanks
what is the IR setting in TIVO
Hello everyone, I’m real confused. I have a high interest in getting Tivo series 2 to work with FIOS, but my Motorola DVR (FIOS) does not have a serial port. Should I be looking at a USB/serial converter for the Motorola box? Will that work with the Tivo serial port?
I wish there was an easy way to see how all the connections are made, can anyone explain how video/audio connections should be made between the FIOS/Tivo/TV? Sorry to be so DUMB, but this is not my best topic…..
Basically, a number of “cable boxes” have Infra Red (IR), which is used for the remote control, and a Serial Port (9 pin RS-232), which is used for “computer control” of changing channels. Obviously, this not really intended as something to hook your PC or Mac up to, but more likely some advanced stereo electronics that keeps devices in sync.
The serial port has two features the IR port does not. 1) It is amazingly fast compared to standard push-the-button remote control entry. 2) It can provide confirmation the channel has actually been changed.
TiVo, it turns out, supports both. And when I initially told TiVo that I was using FiOS, it made use of the serial port. As you can imagine, I never missed a show.
Then, it appears that Verizon did an update to my desktop box, cutting off the serial port access. This explains why channels weren’t switching and why TiVo didn’t know the device was off after a power failure.
This forced me to switch back to the IR solution, which is slower and less reliable, and my love and trust for Verizon started its downhill slope.
Bob, you should be aware that TiVo has a toll-free number which you can call to get your device set up; it’s not intended for technical support. Check the last page in your TiVo guide. But in a nutshell, I have FiOS going into TiVo, and TiVo going to the TV, where the TiVo controlls the FiOS unit via IR.
I have the QIP2500 series box with Fios from Verizon, and if the TV itself is not on, the cable box will shut down over time- maybe an energy saving effort?- but that prevents the tivo from recording it’s scheduled shows. Just installed fios the other day, so am just discovering the issue. Anyone else come across this or know of a solution?
I just installed 3 Verizon FiOS boxes with my Tivo2 boxes (1-40 1-80 1-HumaxDVD) This issue is that it will not change channels above 999. Anyone have any idea’s?
I share your pain. I have had Verizon Fios for a couple of years now with the Motorola QIP2500 set top box from Verizon. I also have a TiVo Series 2 DVR. All except the dual tuner (record one show and watch another on TiVo) function has worked all this time. Just a couple of weeks ago, changing channels with the TiVo control stopped working. I changed the serial cable and that did not fix it. I spoke with TiVo and they recommended the IR solution. I tried speaking with Verizon but their tech support was useless. I wasn’t able to find a solution in the threads above. I read something about firmware updates but no specifics. Does anyone have a solution to this?