I have a regional service provider for my phone, internet, and TV called Hotwire. I have used them for roughly 3 months, with prior TV service being supplied by Dish, which absolutely sucks in NYC. The building is new so it has centralized cabling, meaning that the whole building is wired with a Ethernet type cable that can supply all services to all jacks in your apartment. This also means that it's a big local network in the building.
Recently they began switching everybody to an IPTV based solution provided through Fiber, then distributed locally through the network. I was on the initial rollout for testing. The box used is an ADB-3800W, which is a nice compact box that has full HDMI, component, optical, and USB for something (haven't explored). I have HDMI running through my Pioneer VSX-82TXS, then to my Toshiba 52HM84.
The service has been OK so far. The HD channels look absolutely amazing, very little compression artifacts and much more clear than OTA (NYC OTA in Manhattan kinda sucks), Comcast (Northern VA), and Brighthouse (Orlando). However, due to the initial rollout and bandwith limitations, it's stuttery sometimes. Another large problem is that local HD channels lag the SD channels (which are on real-time) by 1-2 hours, they are trying to fix this now.
My biggest complaint is that the two-way communication between the STB and the IPTV serving systems takes a long time. This results in very slow response to remote commands, often 5-10 seconds to flip through each page of the tv guide. If you don't wait for the box to respond you get remote "lag" until the box catches up. My wife didn't realize this and caused a lag of about 15min. Needless to say she wasn't happy.
I am really looking forward to them improving the lag times, stuttering, and control issues, because the picture is very very good, easily on par with the FIOS implementations I have seen.
Recently they began switching everybody to an IPTV based solution provided through Fiber, then distributed locally through the network. I was on the initial rollout for testing. The box used is an ADB-3800W, which is a nice compact box that has full HDMI, component, optical, and USB for something (haven't explored). I have HDMI running through my Pioneer VSX-82TXS, then to my Toshiba 52HM84.
The service has been OK so far. The HD channels look absolutely amazing, very little compression artifacts and much more clear than OTA (NYC OTA in Manhattan kinda sucks), Comcast (Northern VA), and Brighthouse (Orlando). However, due to the initial rollout and bandwith limitations, it's stuttery sometimes. Another large problem is that local HD channels lag the SD channels (which are on real-time) by 1-2 hours, they are trying to fix this now.
My biggest complaint is that the two-way communication between the STB and the IPTV serving systems takes a long time. This results in very slow response to remote commands, often 5-10 seconds to flip through each page of the tv guide. If you don't wait for the box to respond you get remote "lag" until the box catches up. My wife didn't realize this and caused a lag of about 15min. Needless to say she wasn't happy.
I am really looking forward to them improving the lag times, stuttering, and control issues, because the picture is very very good, easily on par with the FIOS implementations I have seen.
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