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Verizon FiOS TV users get new program guide
Verizon FiOS TV subscribers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a market Verizon just launched the service in, are the first users to experience the company's new programming guide. The interface, which Verizon calls its Interactive Media Guide, will launch to all FiOS TV subs by the end of the summer.
According to the Verizon website, the IMG's display and navigation is greatly improved:
- An enhanced interface with 32-bit graphics, 16 million colors and 8-bit transparency.
- It features a "hierarchical, tabbed menu system" with "animated layering displays" and "fixed-focus magnifying viewer" that presents information at the center of the screen.
- The IMG also boasts low latency of less than one-fifth of a second response time to user input.
The IMG's search function also brings enhancements:
- Network powered search with global queries of TV and movie channels, On Demand titles and DVR contents.
- Onscreen text entry options include: multitap, virtual keyboard and scroll wheel.
- Predictive results come up after the first character is entered and refined as additional ones are entered.
The IMG also features a number of "widgets" that currently include basics like weather, traffic and community info updates. More widgets are on the way, according to Verizon.
For more on the new FiOS TV guide:
- see this fact sheet on the IMG (.pdf)
- and view this demo of the interface (video)
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | September 30, 2007 - 10:04pm
I would like to see you add RFD TV to your programming
Posted by david David | November 8, 2007 - 9:55pm
This new system needs ALOT of work. I liked the way you could actually hid channels you dont want to see.
I dont like clicking on favorites and it always starts at the beginning even if you are on 500. I agree the buttons around the ok were great to control the dvr. now you have to use the buttons at the top and they are not easy to reach if you try to hold it in one hand.
Another thing is I think the favorites has a limit on how many channels you can have in it. when i use it i can not scroll all the way to the HD channels. I dont mind change if things are better but if you ask me even though it may be prettier it is not near as usable as it used to be.
Oh yeah it is also harder to see when you are paging down because the expanded hightlighted selection in the center of the page....how about at the top or bottom instead...or better yet make it configurable so the users that want it in the middle can have it that way and the users that want it elseware they can have it that way.....
I think verizon should have field tested this software before they implemented it. and yes I am in I.T.
Sorry for any typos!
Posted by Anonymous | January 16, 2008 - 12:21pm
I would also like to see RFD tv added to the programming.
Posted by Anonymous | January 20, 2008 - 1:39am
New FIOS guide is overblown - too much - confusing and disorienting the way the channels pop out and scroll - and with all that razzmatazz they lost the star ratings - didn't always agree w them but at least they offered some indication about a movie
Posted by Disappointed User | January 22, 2008 - 3:41pm
This new guide is horrible!
Too busy, too hard to read, etc.
At least give us the option to configure it to look the way we want. Give the option to shut off that stupid magnifying window in the middle of the screen! Also, the guide should follow the current displayed format. A 4:3 guide on a 16:9 screen is stupid!
Posted by Anonymous | April 9, 2008 - 2:15pm
The old guide you could set reminder for as many shows as you wanted and the tv would automatically go to the program. I hate the new guide
Posted by Jerry Kellum | August 9, 2008 - 10:47pm
WORTHLESS ... FISO is worthless with all those channels and no published guide by them time a program worth watching is located, it alread over. When will some enterprising young man publish a local or regional monthly guide (like Orbit or Satellite Direct. If it doesn't happen soon, I'm giving Verizon's system back and regurn to Direct TV or DISH.
JDK
Plano, Texas
Posted by Guide sucks so bad | August 21, 2008 - 8:26pm
Just switched from Comcast Digital with a hd/dvr box... I should have stayed. I'm sure there is a lot of great content on Fios but good luck finding it. The guide doesn't stretch the full screen, descriptions are truncated, you can have only 1 favorites list, try to find the digital music channels!!! They're past all the spanish ones--- have patiencs, there is no page up or page down. The maginifying guide can't be turned off. I end up watching on demand content out of frustration. I've had it less then a week and I know it's going back.
Posted by JWR | September 10, 2008 - 1:14pm
I kept one TV of 4 hooked up to DirectTV during this, the first week of our new FiOS TV service. We had a heavy rainstorm and the single Direct TV feed died as is usual, in spite of what DTV says in their ads. I like the clean picture and fast channel changes. Hope they get a local program guide online like we used to use our Wy-fi connected laptop in the living room; to look up shows in the evening, again.
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