Directv vs AT&T Uverse quality wise? - Page 3

UVerse is connected through your phone line, if you are not in an area that is FTTP, which then you would have a ONT. As for Picture Quality, yes it can vary on how you are hooked up to the RG if you have one, or if you have a iNID, how good the coax is, that is connected to it, to the set top boxes.

I have our boxes that are connected to hdtv's set at 1080i, and only time we see any problems, is if there is a confetti drop on a tv show, or fast motion camera movements. Other than that, PQ is better than what Comcast can offer.

It is really up to the consumer to make the choice in what fits their pocket book, and what they watch on tv (ie sports). As for checking Signal Quality, it is always suggested to use UVerse Realtime, which can be found at http://www.uvrealtime.com, and look at the info in the IP Profile, Error Table, Bitloading, Coax/HPNA if connected via coax to the boxes.

Most of us that have our boxes connected via Cat-5e/6 have no problems as those with Coax connections to their RG.

The distance has ZERO effect on anything. The video is not dynamically compressed, it is a fixed stream. As a result, if you are closer to the VRAD, and have more bandwidth, you can support more HDs simultaneously. This is another place where U-Verse is a total fail. On satellite and cable systems, you can tune as many channels as you have tuners for. If you wanted to pay for the hardware, it's not hard to get over 20 HD tuners with DVR on DirecTV or cable (FIOS is cable as well). On U-Verse, you're lucky to get 4.

U-Verse's FTTH is slower than the better copper connections, as they arbitrarily limit it. Yeah, AT&T is brilliant.

U-Verse, DISH, and DirecTV all use MPEG-4. Cable, with the exception of 3D and *I think* FIOS On-demand, uses MPEG-2.

DirecTV delivers somewhere in the 5gbps of total bandwidth (all TV channels, PPV, everything) to your house, cable can deliver about the same (including internet, phone, TV, etc, etc), and U-Verse is lucky to deliver 50mbps. It's no surprise that U-Verse can't keep pace.

A properly aimed DirecTV dish will go out about 5 minutes a year. The guy who sits next to me at work was watching TV using a modern DirecTV setup during the hurricane in 60-80mph winds. He has a direct water view, with winds coming in hard off the river.

Again, BiggAW, you do not have a clue what you are talking about, when it comes to the Picture quality, or how UVerse is served to the end user, or the specifications. And no, the max is not 50meg to the homes, some have seen as high as 150-175 at times for their Downstream. So, stop while you are behind, and just drop the whole subject at this point, because you are pretty much just talking to yourself in your own little box.

I'll down load uvrealtime and share my information out there if I can...I don't know if I'll even know what it means.

ONT? FTTP? iNID? a lot of these terms are not in my vocab, sorry. What could me as a consumer do to have AT&T change my RG and STB's to all CAT5/6 and no more coax?
I know I am at least one version behind in the DVR model and probably the RG.

That's great they pair bonded one person close to the VRAD. Guess what? They don't do that normally. On the normal setups, or 3000+ foot pair bonded setups, you're lucky to get provisioned for the 32/5 that allows 24/3 internet and 4 HD's (but not at the same time). I am not talking myself into any box. The reality is that U-Verse is a wretched, bandwidth-starved POS.

The bottom line is that U-Verse is a mess, and AT&T is either going to eventually lose their customers or wake up and run GPON FTTH. Phone lines don't have the bandwidth for competitive triple-play over these kinds of distances, and never will.

Coax vs. Cat5/6 is irrelevant other than you can use one or the other if that's all you have in a room you want to put a TV. There is ZERO difference in picture quality, as it's moving around the exact same MPEG-4 stream one way or another.

ONT= Optical Network Terminal
FTTP= Fiber To The Premises
iNid= i Network Interface Device (not sure about the i, they are external boxes that replace the VDSL modem part of the RG to provide pair bonding to move their bubblegum and shoestring service out even farther away from the VRAD.

I have been a Dish subscriber for many years predating the HD channels. When Dish didn't keep up with the HD demand I switched to Cox cable and picture was defiantly worse than Dish for SD. The outrages price of Cox drove me back to Dish and enjoyed Dish's great picture for many years but I live in a wooded lot and the fight against mother nature with trimming trees and continuous loss of signal due to heavy storms drove me to U verse this summer. On my 60” set in the living room I can't tell the difference in picture quality but in my Home theater with 110” screen there is a big difference. Dish has a much better DVR, Guide and HD movie channels than U verse. But frankly none of the services can compare to a Blu-Ray so I will just rent my movies. When my year contract runs out for U verse I might go back to dish as its a much better service but I am to old to keep climbing on the roof to clear the snow and ever growing trees out of the way so U verse will have to do because I will never go back to Cox.

If you can't get good DISH service with Eastern Arc, you seriously need to call a licensed tree crew, because the angles EA uses is pretty steep, and in CT, if your trees are that close, you're going to have mold problems. If your current setup is some hybrid like 110/119/61.5, then you need to switch to EA anyways to get all the channels, and that would solve your problem.

+1

...and further, if you're getting enough snow to interrupt your reception, you ought to be cleaning it off the roof to keep it from caving it in, anyway. Even fully covered, I still get reception just fine with D* at my place with a bunch of the very wet stuff being the only thing causing any signal issues. At that point, I'm up there anyway to prevent roof damage especially considering I've seen roofs on neighboring houses give way under the stuff.

Following the big giant October storm we had in 2010 that left me without power for a week and trees down everywhere, I was still watching TV on backup power with the dish and surfing the web via wireless service.

I'm in a similar situation having moved to a heavily treed area. When i tried to have DirecTV installed, the installer said i have too much foliage to get a proper signal and he didn't even try to install a dish. Dish Network on the other hand were confident that they could get it to work, and it's going well. I do get some occasional pixellation upon changing channels on the secondary bedroom receiver (Joey), but the primary Hopper receiver has been rock solid.
Edited by PlanetAVS - 1/12/13 at 1:05pm

My trees are scrub pines and are about 50' on the south side of the house and I swear they grow another 10' each year. My first install was on 119 and second dish on 61.5 but the new install was on the EA with one dish pointing through a hole in the pines. Dish's picture qualty in the begining of 2012 was decressing as the are compressing more to get more channels. During that Oct storm some big branches came down on the roof and dish. After I cleaned it up I was watching TV on backup power. My point is none of the services are good enough for my HT and what ever I can get for the least cost will Due. Blu Ray is the only option as I am a big movie fan.

Hi,

I'm going to jump in here and I hope it's ok...

I recently took the plunge and went with ATT U-verse from insight cable. My biggest concern was internet speed, which has been great (pay for 12, and I always get around 11 when I test on speedtest.net). Before with cable, I was paying for 15M and averaged around 6 or 7!. The user-interface on uverse is welll above all cable companies around me. Love the DVR system. Lots of cool apps to go with uverse. My only concern is I can definately notice the HD picture quality not being as good as what I had with cable. Overall it seems just a little pixalated and not as crisp as what I had with cable. I have also sometimes noticed a "flickering" on certain channels. It seems to be more noticeable on movie channels if the channel has the black bar on the top and bottom of the screen. it constantly gets lighter and darker. I reset the STB and it did get better, but still occasionally happens, seems to be worse on my oldest LCD tv.

Here's what I know. I am 2700 feet from the hub or VRAD I think it's called in my neighborhood. I'm receiving 3 HD streams/and 1 SD and I have 3 STB in my home, 2 wired and 1 wireless one (I like that feature as well). Coax is being used everywhere. I would guess my coax is RG6 as it was installed only a few years ago.

I've begun doing some research on several forums and it seems there is a great deal of info on this topic. Many simply attribute att uverse's lack of picture quality to the fact they send a "compressed" signal. If that's the case, I'm guessing I'm just going to have to live with it?

I've also been reading some people saying that using Cat5e or ethernet cable to run is best. My question is does that mean running cat5e from the RG to my STB's? I didn't even know you could do that to be honest. They just used my existing copper coax from the previous cable company. I have no problem running the ethernet to my STB if it will truley make a difference in picture quality. Also is it ok to use Cat6? Finally do I need to do anything different where it comes into the house? From the box they put on the back of my house it is coax from there into the house. Would that need to be switched to ethernet as well? and if so does att have to come out and do that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It doesn't seem to bother the wife, but I'm a bigger tech nerd than her and I can't stop focusing on the picture quality... maybe I'll get used to it, but for now it's bothering me and if I can make it better I want to...
..

I too notice the issues with UVerse's signal, especially now on a brand spanking new UN60ES8000 Samsung LED, and its bugging me.

Is your system hooked up via coax or ethernet. Mine is coax everywhere. Some people on these forums have said running cat 5 or 6 helps improve the picture quality over coax, but then I've read some that say it shouldn't matter....I've already read some people saying use component cords over hdmi... that doesn't seem to make much sense to me, but I guess I could give it a try before dropping the cash on a spool of cat 6 wire. Some have also said the "homerun" - the wiring from the outside box on the house to the RG should be ethernet, and mine is definately coax...I really like the uverse as a whole, with the complaint being the picture quality. So far the internet has been perfect.

I'm also all coax...I've read the same things you have about the CAT5/6 being a better alternative. Not sure its much a difference. "Experts" say it could help. I can't have mine changed, that I know of, so its too late for that.

I have had UVerse for a few years now and its been good, better than the Cox Communications stuff I had before. The internet though is ok, I pay for the Ultimate Turbo (24mbps down), $65 a month. But I've never hit 24, the closest I've been is 21 real late at night. I am actually considering breaking up my AT&T UVerse bundle to get better products and get what I pay for. I can pay $75 for Cox's internet and get a guaranteed 55mpbs down but as my friends have proven with theirs its usually 60+ down...I've seen the speed tests in action. Then I'd go with DirecTV for Television shows and movies. Keep AT&T for my cell and home phone. Done.

Thats my thinking anyway.

I have had all three available systems ( satellite, cable and U Verse) and they all are inferior to OTA picture quality. Unfortunately I live out side the 50mi zone for good OTA. So for me I will choose the cheapest of the three with thier introductory offers and keep switching when they expire to the next lowest rate. Until I can get a system that I only pay for the channels I want (with U Verse I watch maybe 25 out of the 750 channels) and a must have DVR I won't be happy with the present services.

At least DISH would be less bad in terms of PQ. DirecTV is probably your best bet if you want to try to get better PQ. DISH is also generally the cheapest, other than new customer deals of course.

There is nothing you can do about the picture quality, other than process the signal with settings on the TV or through something like a DVDO EDGE, but at some point, there's only so much you can do with it.

I'm not sure why everyone is so confused about the inside wiring. This is a very simple thing to understand. The signal is NOT re-compressed in any way between the regional office that feeds the COs, and the box where it is decoded. It's the SAME signal whether it's running through coax, CAT-5, fiber, wifi, electrical wiring, whatever else you can think of that will carry IP traffic and bridge to Ethernet. If it has enough bandwidth, it will work. If it doesn't, it won't. Switching from one type of wire to another will NOT help.

Anyone who is saying that switching from coax to ethernet will improve picture quality is a liar and a snake oil salesman. Also, distance from the VRAD doesn't affect picture quality, it affects the bandwidth available, which affects how many HD streams you can get at the same time (up to 4 if you're close enough).

Somebody mentioned Component vs. HDMI. Theoretically, HDMI should be better, as component has to go D>A and A>D, but I'm a little dubious of this, I believe they both end up at exactly the same thing, as the bandwidth through the conversions is so much higher than the source. It's possible that going through component is softening up the picture a tiny bit, making the artifacts easier to deal with, although that's probably a stretch at best.

The bottom line is that while an IPTV system has huge promise, it would need FTTH to be effective, and U-Verse is a complicated kludge that is too bandwidth starved to compete with an HFC system, much less actual FTTH.

I like everything you said, but don't get any of the stuff above in the quotes...the acronyms I don't know. Please explain in laymen's terms. So are you saying UVerse is not as good as what? What is a FTTH system and what is an HFC system? DirecTV? Dish?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who absolutely HATES abbreviations and acronyms!!

Fiber To The Home means fiber from the provider all the way to your house, like Verizon FIOS. Hybrid Fiber Coax is like many cable tv systems where some is fiber, but the part going to your house is coax. Both have far more bandwidth than the telephone wires used by Uverse. Satellite uses coax from the Dish and would have bandwidth like cable, but not every channel is tranitted at the same time like non-SDV (switched digital video) cable.

Bottom line is Uverse has the smallest pipe of all, so it will never match satellite, cable or FIOS. It's physically impossible.

All that being said, is it a good idea? I think so. It provides quite good quality for a much smaller capital investment than running new cables to hundreds of millions of homes. That's why FIOS is in so few markets and probably won't have any more growth anytime soon.

Uverse is fiber to the node at minimum (and possibly fiber all the way to the premise.....generally this is for newer housing developments).
http://www.att.com/Common/about_us/files/pdf/HowUverseIsDelivered_2-22.pdf

I have coax buried in the yard to my house and then from my box on the side of the house inside my house to the RG (Residential Gateway), I saw them bury the coax as it was in my yard for a week before they came out and buried it. Its also been cut once, since the actual box is behind my neighbors yard and they have landscaping done and those guys dug and hit it, cutting it one day. So I guess I probably have fiber from the VRAD to that box in the neighbors yard then coax the rest of the way, not as bad of a pipe as telephone lines right?

So I guess I have FTTN (Fiber To The Node)?

Didn't realize AT&T was running coax now, much less fiber. This is a very positive development. Does this mean folks with POTS (plain old telephone service) get a residential gateway now?

Sounds like it yes.

UVerse is a "new" fiber optic service that AT&T brought to market to deliver TV, internet, and phone service. It has nothing to do with the old "POTS", which only delivered phone and DSL internet service. You'll need to call AT&T to confirm if UVerse is even available in your area, as an alternative to POTS.
Edited by PlanetAVS - 1/16/13 at 7:03pm

I can't speak for your area, I live in OKC, so you should probably call or go to a local AT&T store and ask.

You would have Telephone wire from the VRAD to the box in the neighbors yard, then telephone wire from there to your house. Coax would have been used from a iNID on the side of your house.

Newer homes have a ONT on the side, if they are FTTN. As for Coax vs telephone wiring argument, Coax has met its highest level that it can be used, so in turn, CATV providers have no further room for growth, due to the majority have expanded their systems to the highest means possible.

I have a newer house, and I know its coax from the box in the yard to my house, I saw it installed, I was hoping it was fiber to the house, so I was out there when he was setting it up. Again, more acronyms, ONT? I have something on the side...it may well be an ONT, if I knew what that was?

CATV providers run Coax from the curb to the house/structure. ATT uses Telephone wiring from the curb to the house, or as mentioned before, Fiber is ran from the curb to a ONT. ONT is short for "Optical Network Terminal".

Yeah, I realized some was fiber to node. I didn't realize some was fiber to home or coax. If AT&T is running fiber or coax to new homes, then even if the resident subscribes only to POTS, it would require an expensive gateway, which doesn't seem cost effective. I guess they only offer those homes Uverse service.
Uverse came to my town a few years ago, but not my subdivision yet. I check in a couple of times a year for updates and keep an eye out for any new VRADs. My incoming phone line definitely isn't fiber or coax. The subdivision across the street from me has Uverse using the same existing 2-wire phone lines as POTS. Only the VRAD has a new fiber feed to it.

But I'm pretty happy with cable right now. Uverse would be a step down for me in content and quality at this point. A few years ago it would have been a great option for me because my local cable company sucked, and the sat providers had less HD channels and no HD GUI on their DVRs. Now the tables have turned. Sat has surpassed Uverse on HD content and improved their DVRs, and my cable company changed to SDV, vastly improving their HD lineup and picture quality. But if the price was right, I'd certainly give Uverse a try.