Dave Zatz over at Zatz Not Funny and Mari Silbey of Connected Home 2 Go (and ZNF) got some hands-on time with the new Verizon FiOS TV 2.0 platform.
It looks pretty good, Dave has a ton of screen-shots in his post and Verizon has done a decent job on the UI. Verizon is using Motorola DVRs, which seem to be a popular platform for 3rd party DVR software – with TiVo and Moxi both developing OCAP software for the platform, and, of course, today’s i-Guide in common use.
Verizon’s FiOS TV provides multi-room viewing over coax using the MoCA standard. This is real-time streaming to client boxes from the master unit, unlike TiVo’s MRV over the network which does a copy. It is similar to Digeo’s planned Firewire-over-coax streaming on the forthcoming Moxi units. I like the fact that it is streaming so you have dynamic access to the central content, and I wish TiVo had that, but I’d like to see standard networks, especially WiFi supported. Streaming today is only for SD content, but Verizon plans to add HD streaming in 2008.
I love TiVo, but I do think it is time for an overhaul of the UI. It hasn’t really changed since the early days, and it is looking a little dated. I liked the simple refresh of the OCAP software I saw at CES – it still felt like TiVo, but it seemed ‘cleaner’ somehow.
EDIT: Update, Mari has posted a number of photos.
