Verizon will offer MPEG-4 QAM channels that matches the master satellite broadcast

[HDTV1080P]

Verizon FIOS to offer both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 QAM channels with the exact same bit for bit picture quality as the master broadcast.

Verizon FIOS channels are currently 100% digital QAM. Verizon FIOS currently offers the native MPEG-2 satellite feeds (channels) and local broadcast channels with the exact same bit for bit picture quality as the master broadcast when using MPEG-2 QAM (no extra video compression is used by Verizon). Since many satellite feeds (channels) are now using MPEG-4, Verizon is now going to offer MPEG-4 QAM channels with the exact same bit for bit picture quality as the master broadcast. In the future all cable companies will be switching most of their QAM channels from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 since MPEG-4 is a more efficient codec that takes up less bandwidth.

On or shortly after April 15th 2013 Verizon FIOS announced that in some areas in the United States, around 20 MPEG-4 QAM channels will be added. Currently native MPEG-4 satellite feeds are currently converted to MPEG-2 by Verizon so that they will work with older Motorola 6000 series cable boxes which only support MPEG-2. Verizon is in the process of replacing all the Motorola 6000 series boxes with the new Motorola 7000 series boxes. The advantage of the Motorola 7000 series boxes is that they support both MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 QAM channels. The disadvantage of the Motorola 7000 series boxes is that the IEEE-1394 interface has a special copy protection feature that will not allow consumers to record programs to an external device when using the IEEE-1394 interface. With the old Motorola 6000 series boxes consumers could make a perfect bit for bit copy of a program that was marked as “copy always” or “copy once” under the 5C copy protection system onto to a 1080i D-VHS machine (or possible future external Blu-ray recorders over the IEEE-1394 interface). Now with the new Motorola 7000 series boxes the IEEE-1394 interface is designed for only live viewing since a new copy protection system prevents consumers from recording over the firewire connection. The new Motorola 7000 series boxes when using the IEEE-1394 interface cannot even be used to make a recording of the local news to a D-VHS, etc. Of course, the Motorola 7000 series HD DVR’s with an external e-SATA jack will allow consumers to connect a 2TB hard drive for recordings. However since the external hard drive is encrypted with a special key it prevents consumers from making a backup copy of the recordings onto another hard drive. To make matters worse if the Motorola 7000 series HD DVR box breaks and needs exchanged for another Motorola 7000 series HD DVR box one ends up losing all of their recordings on the external 2TB hard drive since each Motorola box generates a special serial number key for any attached external hard drive. To make a long story short a consumer will lose all their recordings on an external 2TB hard drive if they try and switch the external e-SATA hard drive to another Motorola 7000 series HD DVR box. The Motorola 7000 series HD DVR generates a new encrypted key in order to use any newly attached external hard drive and in the process will erase all contents on the hard drive.

According to TIVO customer service only the current TIVO Premiere, Premiere 4, and Premiere XL4 boxes will support both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 channels (Older TIVO boxes are only MPEG-2). Also the modern Scientific Atlanta and Motorola 7000 series boxes will also support both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 channels.

[grrrarg]

About time, some of the mpeg2 re-encoded channels don't look that great, will be nice to see them as intended!!

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

[The disadvantage of the Motorola 7000 series boxes is that the IEEE-1394 interface has a special copy protection feature that will not allow consumers to record programs to an external device when using the IEEE-1394 interface. With the old Motorola 6000 series boxes consumers could make a perfect bit for bit copy of a program that was marked as “copy always” or “copy once” under the 5C copy protection system onto to a 1080i D-VHS machine (or possible future external Blu-ray recorders over the IEEE-1394 interface).

Er, this is just wrong. On all the 7000/7100 series boxes firewire works as it always has... No idea where they came up with that!

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by grrrarg

About time, some of the mpeg2 re-encoded channels don't look that great, will be nice to see them as intended!!



Er, this is just wrong. On all the 7000/7100 series boxes firewire works as it always has... No idea where they came up with that!

It has been well documented in other posts by me and others in the AVS forum that the Motorola 7000/7100 series boxes with firewire will work perfectly fine as long as one does not try and record a program. Older HDTV’s with firewire inputs before the days of HDMI will work fine with Firewire.
The problem occurs on the Motorola 7000/7100 series when a consumer pushes the record button on an external 1080i D-VHS machine or an imported external Blu-ray recorder that uses firewire. The Motorola 7000/7100 series boxes when a program is recorded will insert digital artifacts every 2-3 seconds into the recording over IEEE-1394 interface. This only occurs if the consumer attempts to record a program with firewire. In compression the Motorola 6000 series boxes with two firewire connections will allow recording over the IEEE-1394 interface with no problems.

[grrrarg]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

It has been well documented in other posts by me and others in the AVS forum that the Motorola 7000/7100 series boxes with firewire will work perfectly fine as long as one does not try and record a program. Older HDTV’s with firewire inputs before the days of HDMI will work fine with Firewire.
The problem occurs on the Motorola 7000/7100 series when a consumer pushes the record button on an external 1080i D-VHS machine or an imported external Blu-ray recorder that uses firewire. The Motorola 7000/7100 series boxes when a program is recorded will insert digital artifacts every 2-3 seconds into the recording over IEEE-1394 interface. This only occurs if the consumer attempts to record a program with firewire. In compression the Motorola 6000 series boxes with two firewire connections will allow recording over the IEEE-1394 interface with no problems.

Totally just noticed that you replied... I guess I'm just lucky that the record button works just fine on the several devices I can record on.

Never bothered reading avs re: the 7100 since it works flawlessly for me to this day!

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by grrrarg

Totally just noticed that you replied... I guess I'm just lucky that the record button works just fine on the several devices I can record on.

Never bothered reading avs re: the 7100 since it works flawlessly for me to this day!

What device are you using to record with the IEEE-1394 interface? The 7000 series only has one IEEE-1394 interface, if you have two IEEE-1394 interfaces its a 6000 series box.

[grrrarg]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

What device are you using to record with the IEEE-1394 interface? The 7000 series only has one IEEE-1394 interface, if you have two IEEE-1394 interfaces its a 6000 series box.

Using a QIP7100-2 non-dvr box with 1 firewire port.

Copy freely material records fine connected to a pc via cap d-vhs.

Copy once material records fine to a JVC d-vhs deck, but I haven't used it in a while as, fortunately, most channels are still copy freely. Maybe there has been an update that affects this since I last used it? Will have to give it a try I guess.

Or perhaps it is an issue with DVRs only? I haven't tried one...

Or maybe it affects only some areas?

[HDTV1080P]

With Verizon FIOS copy always programs works perfectly fine with the 6000 series DVR’s and non DVR’s. However when one connects the exact same D-VHS machine to a 7000 series (7100 series) DVR or non DVR all channels including the local news contains massive digital artifacts in the recording every few seconds that mutes the audio.

You must be one of the lucky ones that lives in area that has an older firmware version that allows the IEEE-1394 interface to still be used for recording.