I logged into the app and found I had to reenter my password and agree to the terms again - when I did, I realized that the restrictions HAVE BEEN REMOVED from my tablet and I can now watch TV programming on it, just like I can on my phone. Getting to this step required sending Verizon links to information about the tablet, including a series of forum posts that reiterated over and over again that the tablet IS NOT ROOTED and never has been; it also required sending screenshots to the guys responding from within the app itself (in the Report Issue section of the app) of the information shown on the tab in Settings, About Tablet, Status section. Originally the folks whom I was corresponding with there wanted me to send screenshots of just what the tablet was saying in that area - they suggested that it should have something like "original", "official", "genuine" etc. in that Status area. I went them one better, and sent them screenshots of not only what the TABLET had there, but also from the same area from my PHONE (which is an LG Tracfone running Android 4.4, also stock - not rooted) AND from my girlfriend's Google Nexus 7 (2012 model) tablet, running Lollipop 5.1 stock - ALSO NOT ROOTED. My girlfriend installed the app on her Nexus tablet as a test and it works there just fine, as well as my phone. In NONE of those will you find the words "original, official, genuine". I asked them to show me from those status screenshots how you could tell a device was rooted. I got a note back thanking me for "all that information" and they said they'd forward it to the app's developers. Right after that I saw that the "Report Issue" link had been removed from the tablet's version of the app. A couple of days ago I got an email asking me to look at the app or else they'd close the support ticket - that's when I realized that they had removed the restrictions and the app is now fully functional.
However, after saying and going through all this - wow, the video quality SUCKS BIG TIME through it. Even on the Nexus 7 with its smaller screen, video quality is absolutely horrible, even on the so-called "HD" versions - and this is WITH the highest quality bandwidth checked. Gah. It's painful to watch. On Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, and even many current YouTube videos the streaming video quality is massively better than what's showing through the Verizon app. Seriously? All this and the only device I have where it looks almost watchable is on that 4" phone screen?
On my end, this SPECIFIC issue is as resolved as it's going to get - best of luck to all of you who are still fighting to see what turned out to be awful video quality. There may still be some issues on my end concerning something called "subscriptions" - as an example, I can watch the Smithsonian Channel on my TVs. When I tried to watch it on my PHONE, I got a message saying "You are not subscribed". WHAT? So how come I can see it on my TVs? But that may be a second support ticket.