Verizon’s latest DVR is less set-top box and more home media server: with six tuners and a 1TB hard drive, you can add a second DVR unit to record up to 12 channels at once and feed 10 TVs at any given time. The catchily named VMS1100 is Verizon’s FIOS Media Server, and is part of the company’s Quantum TV package. Using the grunt of all those tuners, it feeds video to other TVs around the house via existing cable wiring, and even allows you to pause and rewind live TV on the extender boxes as well, or pause a program in one room then resume it in another room.
We double checked the calendar too, but no, it’s not an April Fools joke — Verizon’s FIOS Media Server is finally available in a few areas as a part of the new Quantum TV package. The VMS1100 upgrades the standard cable boxes used by Verizon and other providers by shoving six tuners and a 1TB hard drive into a box that then feeds TV to other smaller set-top boxes in the rest of the house over existing cable wiring (MoCA). Better still, you can add more DVRs for the ability to record up to 12 channels at once, 2TB of storage and feeds for as many as ten TVs. Unlike some other multiroom systems, users can pause and rewind live TV on the extender boxes as well, or pause a program in one room, then resume it in another room.