The RVU Alliance picks up Verizon as a founding promoter

Obviously Verizon is all about delivering a whole home DVR solution, so it's no shocker that something like the RVU Alliance is right up its alley. But we are glad to see the fiber to the home provider doesn't shy away from adopting someone else's technology -- we say this because we all know how much Verizon loves, tru2way -- and ask much as we want to be able to have access to the same content in every room of our house, we're not big on the current Verizon solution. The bottom line is that we are on the same page with Verizon here are glad to hear the CTO say that Verizon wants to "lead the industry to an ever-simpler process for integrating consumer electronics." What we hope he means though, is that Verizon will be bring an RVU server to the party so we can enjoy all those HD channels on a Samsung HDTV without a STB.

[The Punisher Posted Sep 6th 2009 4:16PM]

Is this like IPTV or what?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 6th 2009 6:39PM]

I'm not 100% up to date on the RVU alliance, but I'm all for the demise of the set top box (and the promotion of better user interfaces -- the UI in the current Verizon DVRs is awful)

However, I wouldn't bank on Samsung implementing this properly. The built-in DLNA support on their TVs is appallingly bad, to the point of being completely unusable. Unless all of your videos are encoded at one of the few supported codec/resolution combinations, forget about it. (Also, rewinding and fast forwarding are bafflingly unsupported)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 7th 2009 1:22PM]

From the article: "Verizon has joined as an RVU “founding promoter,” which costs $15,000 annually".
Ben, let's get a few of us like minded guys to pool together the $15k so we can make sure this is the solution we really want. Whaddya say, are you in? :-)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 14th 2009 11:50AM]

Except their "whole home DVR" solution SUCKS for anyone who records/watches HD. 160GB? Come on. Put a 1 or 2 TB drive in the stupid thing and give us an HD program guide.

I now have FIOS as an option, and I was convinced that as soon as it became available I would be switching from Comcast. But until they fix their DVR situation (either put in a bigger drive or at least unlock the expansion ports like Comcast) I can't justify switching. Sure, Comcast's VR only has a 160GB drive too, but at least that I can easily slap a 1TB eSATA and have some decent recording time.