AT&T U-verse HDTV - Page 120

Makes much more sense.

My HDMI output is not working on my main box, lightening damage. Now that the remote boxes can pause live-TV, does it really matter where the main box is? Can it easily be on another TV that doesn't need HDMI?

(I have recordings on my box that I do not want to lose.)

Will I lose any other functionality?

Thank you,

Jack G

It shouldn't matter where your main box is so long as it goes where another working box was located and you shouldn't lose any functionality. I would be a little cautious to get my recordings backed up to another format though as the box might fritz out in the future due to the lightening strike. I would only move my box as a temporary measure until I got my recordings backed up and would then call customer service to have them bring me a replacement DVR. Your recordings would be lost but all of your season pass data is saved on AT&T's servers and pushed back out to your new box in case of a replacement.

Some of the best HD PQ I've seen on U-verse for a sporting event is the US Open on ESPN2.

Good crisp colors and no noticeable macroblocking or compression artifacts. Hopefully, U-verse can give us more like this.

Not quite sure why you think U-verse has anything to do with the PQ on a single event on a single channel. I highly doubt they did anything special.

Ok, U-verse's compression didn't screw up this event on this channel. You happy now?

I wasn't unhappy before, but I think that is a much more realistic view on what you saw.

I didn't say U-verse did something magical to the feed. After watching substandard sporting events for over a year on U-verse, this happens to be quite acceptable. I want to see more. How about we just leave it at that?

Watching college football this weekend across multiple networks will be the big test - and possibly dealbreaker - for me. The NFL preseason games haven't impressed me so far.

You're right, football is the ultimate test, and I can't wait to gorge on a weekend of college football. I intend to pay close attention to which games are on channels broadcasting 720p versus 1080i since that seems to be a significant factor in how well U-verse handles the PQ.

scolumbo, you and I have run into each other a few times throughout the thread. We seem to be in agreement about being frustrating with U-Verse's inconsistent HD picture quality, but we've also admitted there are things we continue to like about the U-Verse product.

I'm curious... what's keeping you with U-Verse instead of another provider? I've had U-Verse since January, and despite all the HD frustrations along the way, I've always thought I'd keep it through at least one football season. I've considered switching to DirecTV many times, but their lack of two or three key HD channels (AMC-HD, specifically) has kept me from making the switch so far.

However, current word is that DirecTV may be adding AMC-HD as soon as next week. If that announcement comes, I'll probably put in an order for DirecTV that same day. I'll keep U-Verse internet but will drop television. So if that happens, I may only have to potentially suffer through one or two weekends of football on U-Verse. What would be your breaking point with keeping U-Verse?

That's a question that I ask myself just about every month. I initially switched from Comcast to U-verse a little over a year ago. The main factors were a much better HD line-up at a significantly cheaper cost. This was at least partly due to the introductory pricing, but even now, it' still a little cheaper with U-verse (U450 package) than my Comcast service (Platinum package or whatever it's called these days). I think at the time, my Comcast market had about 35 HD channels. High quality but limited in the number of HD channels. I was also on a DSL internet service and the U-verse internet has been far superior.

Before Comcast, I had DirecTV at my previous location, but my current house is located amongst a large tree canopy and I'm not sure DirecTV is an option for me now, so it's either stay with U-verse or switch back to Comcast.

Since the time I switched, Comcast has tripled the number of HD channels in my area, and it now has just about all of the channels I care about. I actually came close to switching back to Comcast immediately when I first realized U-verse didn't have AMC-HD when I initially switched. Of course, that's a moot issue now.

I also have the issue that the rest of my family is not really into sports and they are relatively satisfied with U-verse so they don't see what the fuss is about, although my teenager in the house does notice the PQ issues for some of the action movies. The one other factor that has held me back is that the whole house DVR from Comcast was not available in my area until just recently and I was using 3 DVR's previously with Comcast.

I wanted to give myself another chance to see if I could live with the PQ for the football season so that's where I'm at now. I try to avoid watching NFL pre-season games. Once college football starts this weekend, and the NFL next weekend, I'll give it one last chance. If I'm not satisfied I can live with it for another season, the call goes to Comcast and I'll keep the U-verse internet.

Hello Everyone,

I am a current DTV subscriber, have been for years. I have been looking into Uverse, since moving into a new residence and it is offered in this subdivision. I like the idea of having tv, internet, and phone from one provider.

The person in this residence before me had it, so this home is wired for it and ready to go, though I had DTV installed as I moved in.

Now, once again, I am thinking about trying Uverse. The one thing holding me back is this discussion of Uverse's HD picture quality. Now, let me see if I have this right. The PQ is equally bad or good across the country. It is not better say in New Orleans LA as opposed to say, Austin TX or vise versa?

And from what I'm beginning to see from this thread is that the PQ is not very good at all.... Do I have it right? Help me out here....

You have it right. If PQ is important to you, don't even bother with U-verse. If you want a ton of HD channels at a relatively cheap price, then U-verse is what you want.

But remember, a ton of poor-HD channels (or HD-Lite as someone put it) is not the same as a ton of high quality HD channels. As I seen noted several times, no one has it all ... low price, quantity of HD, and quality of HD. It all comes down to your priorities in that "triangle".

Rats: Why does something so simple as Uverse have to be so.. um..... underachieving? There, that is it. I do have to admit, I had my hopes up. So, with that in mind, I'm going to go with their internet service and forget about their HD television offering. I am a tad disappointed. But at the same time, DTV has provided a very adequate service. Now, if they can just kick it up a notch, so as to add a couple of the more obvious HD channels that really need to be added in my opinion. That would be great.

:\\

If you do switch back, Comcast has some attractive double play bundles. Not sure how you feel about their HSI but a few months ago I switched from DSL to cable for that (already had Comcast TV) and got a bundle price of $80/mo. for two years, which included all non-premium channels and 20mb HSI. If you keep U-Verse internet, your offer to switch will not be as good IMO.

That sounds like a pretty good deal. I'm reluctant to change ISP when U-verse internet has worked well for me, and the hassle of changing e-mail addresses, but I might consider it for that kind of savings. What type of data cap do you have?

All Comcast residential customers are capped to 250GB/month. And you should really just switch to an independent email provider like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. Makes switching ISPs painless, the way it should be.

For personal use I do. But I have a long-standing e-mail address that all of my professional contacts have, numbering in the several hundreds, that would require converting. I've been able to delay the inevitable for many years. In fact, it has a bellsouth.net domain that AT&T still allows although Bellsouth is long gone.

In most cases AT&T allows you to keep your old email address after disconnecting your service. I know they have with me and many others. They even state such on their site/literature. I believe it's being hosted by a third-party so they are basically out of the loop.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

Uverse has no commitment beyond the first 30 days so the best thing to do if you want to check out Uverse is have it installed and see for yourself. You can keep DirecTV so you can compare side by side or if you don't want to pay for both put DirecTV in suspend until you make your decision. If you keep Uverse then simply cancel DirecTV. If you go back to DirecTV then reactivate your account and send the Uverse stuff back. Simple.

As for PQ, that's why I said view it with your own eyes. I have no problem with the HD PQ on Uverse, none at all even during football. And I had DirecTV for many years and got my first HDTV in 2002 when there were only a couple channels in HD. It's all fine for me so check it for yourself instead of being scared by the "Uverse HD sucks" crowd. It may indeed suck for you, but you won't know until you try. And AT&T will *pay you* to try it so there is no downside.

Good luck!

AT&T email is actually thru Yahoo.

This is not really that clear to me, so I'm not sure if it'll affect you or not, but:

http://www.att.com/esupport/article....id=ByUy4KiJ7fW

FYI, there is a new regional sports network coming. It will be FSN San Diego, the new home of the San Diego Padres for 2012 & beyond. While it might not be a big deal to people outside of San Diego, within San Diego, Cox & Time Warner Cable were the only providers in San Diego to carry Padres baseball on Cox owned 4SD. Cox which owned the rights did not distribute it to AT&T or the satellite providers. Hopefully AT&T will have a much easier time with dealing with FSN and get to show Padres games in San Diego.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...principle-fsn/

I'm pretty sure that you get to keep your existing AT&T email (or any of the 9 or so domains used prior) if you leave. What happens is that the email address is migrated to Yahoo's free servers after 60-90 days with more ads and no POP access included.

Little tidbit - AT&T provides their own email services for new DSL customers and has for a few years. Only U-verse customers are hosted primarily on Yahoo as part of an agreement struck after the merger between AT&T and SBC. AT&T actually hosts the email accounts and portal for one of the largest cable providers in the country. Probably not hard to figure out which one if you are one of their subscribers. Such is the telecommunications industry

Tomorrow is the big day! I'm looking forward to watching games across a variety of networks. I saw parts of the Thursday night games last night on ESPN and ESPN2, and while neither looked outright bad, they didn't look so great either. But of course night game lighting can vary greatly and affect how a game looks on tv.

Regardless of how well U-Verse passes tomorrow's football test, I've already started the process of jumping ship. I saw this morning that DirecTV has begun testing their feed of AMC-HD, which should go live sometime next week. That was enough to finally tip the scales for me, so I went ahead and ordered DirecTV and scheduled installation for next Wednesday. If all goes according to plan, the second week of college football should be a better viewing experience for me than the first.

It will be interesting for the few days I've got both services at once. I may have to do some back-and-forth PQ testing between U-Verse, DirecTV, and OTA.

I watched some of my Jaguars last night - not so good, PQ-wise, or the team. I switched to ESPN and ESPN2, and I agree, they weren't awful but could be better. They were definitely better than the Jaguars on CBS, which was a pixelated mess. Unfortunately, I don't have an antenna set up currently to compare to OTA.

The picture quality of football on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU was better than I expected, but still not what I'd call "great" or nearly as good as what I was accustomed to for the years before I got U-Verse. Still, it was "good enough" that I probably wouldn't drop my service because of it.

However, the picture quality of the LSU vs Oregon game last night on ABC was laughably, embarrassingly bad. It honestly looked like a low-quality YouTube video. It was almost unwatchable. I know local channels can vary greatly - although it was a national ABC/ESPN Sports broadcast - but it was still unacceptable.

I forgot to flip over to NBC yesterday to watch any of the Notre Dame vs South Florida game, so I can't comment on how it may have looked.

There weren't any games on CBS yesterday, since they're covering the US Open. So no football comparison there either.

Regardless, I'm glad I'm getting DirecTV next week. Otherwise, I think it would be a frustrating football season.