Yesterday was a tremendous pain in the neck.  I stayed home so we could get rid of the Voice-over-IP system we were using and replace it with standard telephone service from Verizon.  While they were out I asked them to switch my TV service to FiOS as well.

The telephone portion ran quite smoothly and even the TV portion went ok.  But it turns out that Tivo won’t function they way it used to.  It only gets the first 50 channels because it does not have Verizon’s proprietary descramber box.

My TV has several input options – one is set to Tivo and one is set to Cable.  When I want to watch something on Tivo I use the television’s remote to switch it over to the Tivo input.  But now, because I need a descrambler / cable-box the Tivo box has to be inserted in between the television and the cable-box.  The cable-box can only put out one channel at a time, so Tivo also needs a way to change the cable-box’s channel.  But if it does that I can’t watch something else at the same time Tivo is recording something.

At my house, Tivo rules.  The whole family uses Tivo to record shows we like.  If this system doesn’t work with Tivo, then it’s a deal breaker.

As far as I can tell, I have only two solutions. 

1. I have an extra cable-box that I am renting.  I got one box for each TV, but one of the TV’s is only ever used to watch network tv so it doesn’t need a box.  I can devote the extra cable-box to the Tivo and let Tivo change the channels on that one willy-nilly without impacting what I am watching on the other cable-box.  This option will cost $4 a month.
2. I can dump this FiOS-tv and return to Comcast.  With my tail between my legs.  They might not see it that way though.  I wonder if they would give me any incentives to come back.

I think Liz would prefer option #2 anyway because, although it doesn’t offer 20-bajillion channels (50 may be sufficient for us) she is familiar with where they all are.

More on that as things shake out.

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