No delay in switching channels?

[CowboyDren]

I've seen ATT U-Verse ads claiming instant channel switching, but not Dish ads.

[DishSubLA]

I've seen ATT U-Verse ads claiming instant channel switching, but not Dish ads.

Interesting, I haven't seen that one yet. I'll be on the look out for it.

The 4 recordings at once is what they really scream about, but what they really mean is 4 SD recordings at one time or only 2 HD recordings at one time.

Have you seen the ATT Uverse ads touting the small PIP changing channels as your navigate the EPG. I actually played with this at an AT&T store, and at first, I kind of liked it, but then I found it really annoying because I often prefer to have the channel I'm watching, usually the news or some other info in the picture in guide while I search the EPG.

[CowboyDren]

Have you seen the ATT Uverse ads touting the small PIP changing channels as your navigate the EPG. I actually played with this at an AT&T store, and at first, I kind of liked it, but then I found it really annoying because I often prefer to have the channel I'm watching, usually the news or some other info in the picture in guide while I search the EPG.

That does sound annoying. I'm usually surfing the guide while the recording I'm watching is in a plot lull. I pretty much never watch live TV, though, so I'm not sure how often I'd see it.

[the mack]

a friend of mine has uverse and what I don't like is that recorded shows and on demand are like half of the full screen size.

[CowboyDren]

That would indicate to me that you're watching letterboxed content from an SD feed. Pretty easy to run out of HD channels on U-Verse. They can only pull 2+2, as opposed to 4*HD on FiOS, or [way more than that on] satellite.

[BobaBird]

Have you seen the ATT Uverse ads touting the small PIP changing channels as your navigate the EPG. I actually played with this at an AT&T store, and at first, I kind of liked it, but then I found it really annoying because I often prefer to have the channel I'm watching, usually the news or some other info in the picture in guide while I search the EPG.

My Sony OTA DVR has a user configurable option to either stay on the channel or change as you navigate the guide. I chose to stay.

On one of the old Dish receivers you could left-arrow off the EPG time grid to highlight the channel name, then press Select to change the channel. Kind of a best of both worlds.

[Jim5506]

Swap on Dish DVR's in single mode is instantaneous because the receiver is buffering both channels and you are just swapping buffers.

EVERY digital channel OTA Dish Direct, Fios whatever will have a lag time because the receiver has to build the index frame to display the picture AFTER you select the channel you want.

If the receiver could buffer EVERY channel for say 2 seconds simultaneously, then it could swap to the channel buffer of the channel you select then begin real time channel buffering and have no delay - EXTREMELY unpractical if not impossible.

[DishSubLA]

My Sony OTA DVR has a user configurable option to either stay on the channel or change as you navigate the guide. I chose to stay.

On one of the old Dish receivers you could left-arrow off the EPG time grid to highlight the channel name, then press Select to change the channel. Kind of a best of both worlds.

Yes, I know that feature well. It was the old 721.