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there anyway to watch FIOS on your TV w/out the set top box?

purbeast0

purbeast0

No Lifer
as someone who's had extremely basic cable the past 5.5 years (only cable we can get in my apartment complex) that requires no box or anything, and simply runs from a coaxial cable from the wall to my tv, i've been pricing out FIOS since my wife and i are about to move into a house.

upon the final estimates of cost, to get the multiroom DVR and a stand alone set top box, only for 2 TV's, it is going to cost about $33/month to rent that shit from verizon.

it's pretty ridiculous how much that is simply to use their service, when i will already be paying $110/mo for the service. hell i'd rather them include it into the cost instead of adding it on separately (like how i'd prefer airlines to add in baggage fees to the total cost instead of adding them at the end).

is there anyway to hook it up to a TV w/out a set top box? i mean of course i want to at least have a DVR so that one is key, but we may want a 3rd or 4th tv in the house eventually, but no way in hell i really want to pay them for another damn set top box.

so are there anyways to watch fios w/out one of the boxes? any alternatives?
 
You can rent an adapter that costs less than the set top box but doesn't give you an on-screen guide or VOD capabilities. You can't view it without some kind of equipment though.
 
MrChad said:
You can rent an adapter that costs less than the set top box but doesn't give you an on-screen guide or VOD capabilities. You can't view it without some kind of equipment though.
Click to expand...

and this is actually through verizon?

is there anything i can just buy so that i don't have to be leaning on verizon for everything?
 
They support cablecards and have a lower priced box for rent in addition to the full featured STB.
 
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If your tv set has what is known as a QAM Tuner, then hook it up to the cable and redo the channel scan from the setup menu. Any digital cable channels that are Not Scrambled will be able to be watched. But as mentioned, you will not get the Channel Guide or any other interactive features, such as games or pay per view.
 
Savij said:
They support cablecards.
Click to expand...

I was just reading about this.

i actually own a tivo that has tivo light for life on it. i wonder if it has a cablecard slot in it somewhere.

however we don't plan to get a land line so the tivo won't be able to update it's listings accordingly either.

but i may look into this, and get a land line instead cause it is like $5/mo i think with the package we're getting, and the set top box is $10/mo. but then we have to rent the cablecard for like $4/mo so it basically evens out, but we'll have 2 separate dvr's.

gonna have to decide on this one...
 
bruceb said:
If your tv set has what is known as a QAM Tuner, then hook it up to the cable and redo the channel scan from the setup menu. Any digital cable channels that are Not Scrambled will be able to be watched. But as mentioned, you will not get the Channel Guide or any other interactive features, such as games or pay per view.
Click to expand...

i think this will only give the basic cable channels though. ie - all the good stuff is scrambled 🙁
 
purbeast0 said:
I was just reading about this.

i actually own a tivo that has tivo light for life on it. i wonder if it has a cablecard slot in it somewhere.

however we don't plan to get a land line so the tivo won't be able to update it's listings accordingly either.

but i may look into this, and get a land line instead cause it is like $5/mo i think with the package we're getting, and the set top box is $10/mo. but then we have to rent the cablecard for like $4/mo so it basically evens out, but we'll have 2 separate dvr's.

gonna have to decide on this one...
Click to expand...

How old is your Tivo? Tivo Series 3, HD and Premiere/Series 4 all support cablecards and I believe can connect via ethernet or wireless. Only the older Series 1 and 2 Tivos use a phone line, and they don't support cablecards either.
 
MrChad said:
How old is your Tivo? Tivo Series 3, HD and Premiere/Series 4 all support cablecards and I believe can connect via ethernet or wireless. Only the older Series 1 and 2 Tivos use a phone line, and they don't support cablecards either.
Click to expand...

the tivo i have only takes a phone line cord, no ethernet or wireless so it is pretty old. it's a toshiba model that has a built in dvd player as well. not sure of the model number.
 
This is why I have satellite. Considering the cost of the boxes satellite comes out significantly cheaper than cable for my needs.(TWC vs DirecTV)
 
I use a Ceton InfiniTV4 tuner with FIOS. Cable card rental is $3.99/month. In the year+ that I've had it it has already payed for itself and the Media Center extender I bought for the other TV. There is also the Silicon Dust HD Homerun Prime and the Hauppauge cable card tuner, both of which will work with a cable card from Verizon.
 
TastesLikeChicken said:
I use a Ceton InfiniTV4 tuner with FIOS. Cable card rental is $3.99/month. In the year+ that I've had it it has already payed for itself and the Media Center extender I bought for the other TV. There is also the Silicon Dust HD Homerun Prime and the Hauppauge cable card tuner, both of which will work with a cable card from Verizon.
Click to expand...

Is it true that with this, you don't get any features, like using the guide or VOD?

And with this, do you have access to ALL of the channels that you pay verizon for with your service?

ie. if you get the Extreme package, can you view ALL of the Extreme channels?
 
purbeast0 said:
Is it true that with this, you don't get any features, like using the guide or VOD?

And with this, do you have access to ALL of the channels that you pay verizon for with your service?

ie. if you get the Extreme package, can you view ALL of the Extreme channels?
Click to expand...

You get a guide through Windows Media Center but no on demand.
 
boomhower said:
You get a guide through Windows Media Center but no on demand.
Click to expand...

so i'm a little confused by that ceton intinitv thing...

so you get 4 tuners at once it sounds like from reading the description.

so in theory, you could have 4 TV's hooked up to this one tuner, and they are all watching 4 separate things from FIOS, in HD?

how do you hook up 4 tv's to the card?
 
Heh, I asked the woman who installed our fios, and she said I would get certain channels just like I did on TWC. I was skeptical when she said it since she was the first person I've ever heard say you could just hook it up via coax. I haven't tried yet, but I think I will just to see if she is full of shit or not.

She also installed a shit ton of boxes in and outside our house and ran a bunch of coax lines to different locations of the house for the digital phone, although I told her over and over that I wouldn't use the phone, I only got it because it was cheaper as a package. Now I have a ton of holes in my house and a battery backup in our closet, and I've never even activated the phone line.
 
purbeast0 said:
Is it true that with this, you don't get any features, like using the guide or VOD?

And with this, do you have access to ALL of the channels that you pay verizon for with your service?

ie. if you get the Extreme package, can you view ALL of the Extreme channels?
Click to expand...
You get the Media Center guide which many prefer to cableco guides. I cringe when I have to use a non-Media Center guide because they look and feel so archaic in comparison.

You will get all of your channels but there won't be any VOD. imo, that isn't much of a loss because you can use the computer the Ceton card is in for Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon on-demand, etc. A computer is far more flexible than a set-top box.
 
I hooked my sister's TV straight up to FIOS coax, avoiding the box completely. It got the major channels, and a whoooole lot of local broadcast/cable access/useless channels. So, it's good in a pinch, but you're not getting anywhere near the complete cable listing.
 
I'm using the HD HomeRun Prime.

All you need is a PC or Xbox hooked up to the tv. FIOS gets retarded expensive once you add 2-3 set tops, especially DVRs. CableCARD keeps my bill where I want it, under $100/mo for 85/35 internet and HD Prime tv package. Really don't even watch the tv, but the same internet package by itself is like $90 with taxes, and 10 less mbps down, so why not.

I'm hoping the new MS Tablets will have WMC8 that's compatible as an extender with the HomeRun Prime. Then I can just plug the tablet into any tv in the house with hdmi, or walk/sit anywhere with the tablet and watch live tv in HD.
 
this is the cable companies fuking us over by paying the "cost" of them applying DRM to the signals.
 
purbeast0 said:
so i'm a little confused by that ceton intinitv thing...

so you get 4 tuners at once it sounds like from reading the description.

so in theory, you could have 4 TV's hooked up to this one tuner, and they are all watching 4 separate things from FIOS, in HD?

how do you hook up 4 tv's to the card?
Click to expand...
It's done over your local network using a Windows Media extender device like the Xbox360 or a LinkSys DMA-2100. Each extender can stream live or recorded TV from the computer where the Ceton is installed. With the Ceton it can also be done from one Win7 computer to another (using Media Center on each one) by assigning a dedicated tuner from the system with the Ceton to another computer.

One advantage of the HD Homerun Prime is that it dynamically allocates tuners so you can watch TV on any Win7 Media Center system on your local network without having to dedicate a tuner to that purpose. The only drawback of the HDHR Prime compared to the Ceton is that it has 3 tuners compared to the 4 that the Ceton has. You could, however, have 2 or more HDHR Primes on your local network but you would need to lease 2, or more cablecards from Verizon. The first one is $3.99. I'm not positive, but I think the second one is $9.99. You could also have a system with 2 (or more) Cetons for a total of 8 tuners. Quite a few people over at AVS Forums are doing that.
 
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