AT&T U-verse HDTV - Page 125

I have comcast right now and just signed up for Uverse - turbo max (24 down), U300, $100 gift card, free install, hd fee - total came to $108 for first six months. I think that's a pretty standard deal, right ? It's a lot less than I was paying for Comcast.

- is ATT good about renewing my current pricing with the same discounts after the promo period? This is the most important thing.
- do Internet speeds suffer with tv, e.g. I have multiple hd recordings?
- are the speeds reliable? I'm lucky to be in an area where Comcast is not over subscribed.
- I'm getting free install, should I switch to self install if it will save me money?
- I bought my own cable modem, it increased my speeds a lot and saved the rental fee. should I do the same for Uverse and if so which device is recommended?

Thanks

Answers below

Harley got you good answers, couple of my comments below.


Yep, that's a pretty good deal. What you get in terms of gift cards (I got $200) all depends on what promotions they are running at the time.


I've heard they are pretty good about it but won't know for sure myself for another few months.


Very reliable. Best Internet I've ever had. You get all the speed you pay for.


There isn't anything you can buy yourself. Remember that Uverse isn't like cable, it's a form of DSL so your cable modem you bought won't work. Plus as Harley noted, you have to use their box for TV. It's more then a modem, it does Internet, phone and TV. I wasn't aware they even charged a monthly lease fee, I don't.

Thanks guys. I looked into buying the RG and it costs 149, monthly rental fee is $4, so it's not worth it.

How do you tell if it's going to be 3 HD or 2 HD streams? It's the same bandwidth for all TV users, right?

I don't think they know until it's actually installed and the line is tested.

Not quite sure if I understand the question correctly, but all of the channels are sent out at the same bitrate for everyone. So it's not like if your line is lower quality, you'll get a lower bitrate. You'll just be limited to two streams.

As Jeremy said you won't know until you get it installed. You can go to the Uverse forums and see what people get in your area for an idea of the max you can get. But how much you personally get typically depends on 1) How far away you are from the VRAD and 2) What max provisioning they do in your market.

For me I'm provisioned for 3 HD/1 SD *however* I could do a 4th HD on another TV, just can only do 3 HD on the main HD DVR at a time. It's expected for us to get a full 4 HD at some point in the future.

Good rule of thumb is that if you qualify for 24M of Internet, you get the 4HD streams (3 recording, 1 on another TV). The people that qualify for 18M of Internet typically get 3HD streams (2 recording and 1 on any TV) but there can be some variance on that.

Yeah, I have the 18MB service (turned down when trying to upgrade to 24) and can record 3 HD at one time.

I have the Turbo Max (24Mbps) with a 3HD/1SD profile. The tech told me I should get 4HD but for some reason its not enabled in my area.

Why is the Uverse guide and UI so slow? e.g. I can't press down in the guide 3-4 times and have it catch up, and it frequently misses keys. Hitting the dvr key takes a while for it to come up.

Motorola or Cisco boxes? Response isn't always speedy, but in my 2-yr experience with U-verse Motorola boxes, both the DVR and set top boxes are a bit slow anytime there is an upgrade or if they have just been reset. Try a hard reset (just unplug the DVR or set top box), let it boot up, and see if it's a bit quicker after 5 or 10 minutes. These things are powered -- or should we say under-powered -- by WindowsCE. Not a lot of speed, but they are pretty reliable for weeks on end without a reboot.

I'm suddenly having some pretty severe connection issues in st Louis the past couple nights. It's like my whole connection is having issues, tv and internet. Am I alone here?

Supposedly there are some upgrades being performed that require reboots of the gateway to resolve. Apparently hasn't happened to me yet as I'm not having any issues.

Motorola VIP1216. I initially had the 160GB hard disk, tech swapped it out for a 250GB, which he said makes it identical to a VIP1225 box.

Will try a reset when I'm home.

Hey Harley_Dude is there any news on AT&T making any significant improvements on its Uverse HD picture quality?

Lol

Well I figured with that being the number one complaint on here about Uverse, they must have plan on addressing the HD picture quality.

U-verse doesn't target their product at the people who post here. And there's not a whole lot they can do about their PQ.

It is being addresed as much as possible.They are in the process of upgrading their encoders to the latest Motorla SE-6600. Top VHO's have been upgraded to those for OTA channels and I can already see improvement. My local channels look exactly now as off air. Of course if OTA channels look like crap, nothing will improve it.

Also they are starting to put those encoders on national HD channels. It will take few months to complete.

I had U-verse installed three weeks ago. Many problems with the installation.
3 Tvs, internet, and 2 phone lines. After the initial installation, the tech was going through the remote with my wife and me, and the picture on the tv in the kitchen started to freeze. He had already been at the house for over 5 hours. He said call back and ask for him, he will come out and fix it (it was after 7pm).

The next day, all the tv's started freezing. I also noticed that my second phone line was never hooked up and now doesn't work. I called AT&T and they said the soonest they could fix the phone was two weeks. The tech for the tv problems could come the next day.

The next day the same tech came out. He was a very nice guy. He was going to replace all ends on the coax cables and try to find a splitter that he thought was hidden somewhere that may be causing the problems. When he left, the picture was still freezing, but not as much.

The next day a called and had another service tech come out. Within an hour he had the tv's working. He changed the ends of the coax in the walls as well as did something on the box outside.

Since then, the picture has been fine. Another tech came out on Oct 18, to fix the phone line. That is now working fine.

In regards to picture quality. I had Dish before this. The general picture is very good, about the same quality as Dish. Football can be a problem, but it depends on the channel and the day. Some games had noticeable pixelation, but others where fine. Tennis has been fine. In general, the picture is ok for me.

I did recalibrate the TVs to optimize the picture. The tv guide is good and not too slow for me. I like the features it has. The Dish guide was slow and changing channels on the Dish took forever. Channel changes are quicker with U-verse. Internet has also been ok. I am in Connecticut.

That response is totally idiotic. You have no clue as to what AT&T is or isn't doing, nor the tech plans going forward. To suggest that compression technology is static denies the improvements made to same over the past 20 years.

I'm basing my opinion on what they've done in the past. And all of their past moves have shown an almost complete lack of regard for HD PQ.

I never suggested any such thing. I said there's not a whole lot they can do, and that is true. Sure they can upgrade their encoders, but the improvement will be marginal. Compression technology hasn't gotten that much better in the past few years. It's not like they'll suddenly be sending flawless MPEG4 video.

I'm trying to find out if U-Verse is going to offer the ability to watch my DVR from a computer. The guy is saying yes you can, but he doesn't know what I'm talking about. I don't want to drop $250 on a Slingbox and 2 months down the road I can watch my DVR from my phone or a PC. I hate people that don't understand english


end of rant

As far as I know, they haven't announced anything like that.

You can watch selected content today on your phone or tablet over 3G/WiFi. There are some updates coming to that feature that greatly expand its capabilities, I can't give details but stay tuned. That said, I am a long time SlingBox user and nothing any provider ever gives you for remote streaming is going to be anywhere near as feature rich.

But that's content from U-verse's online library, not from your DVR. The web remote access app for U-verse only lets you view the list of recordings on your DVR, schedule recordings, and access the program guide.

Yes, that is what I meant by selected content. There is more to come in the near future.

I don't want to spend $250 on a Slingbox and have it be useless in a couple months

Why would it be useless in a couple of months?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...All-Categories

If U-Verse offers the same service, where I can watch my DVR from a pc