Thread: Review: AT&T U-VERSE

Hi, as a new member I must warn you that I am technologically challenged and know far less than I would like to, so hopefully will get to learn a few things through the forums - and although unlikely, may be able to share a few things learnt purely from experience.

Previously I had Dish Network which I thought was very average picture quality.
I joined U-Verse in August 08 in the Dallas area, subscribing to TV and Internet connection. Phone was not available so used the conventional AT&T phone. I joined mainly to get a fast Internet connection and hopefully better pic quality.
Picture quality is OK - average and HD quality is pretty good except for the picture size changing all the time during commercials and depending on the channel/program you are watching.
When recording programs on the DVR, I find that we nearly always get interference showing (frozen screens) during playback - and of course it's usually at a critical time in the movie - which can be disasterous! This happens too often to be a sometimes irritation.
Internet connection is 18MB - usually speedtested at 15MB and works very well when downloading files/programs.
In January I was contacted about the U-Verse phone now being available so I switched, to have the full U-Verse 'set', thinking this would be very effective.

The phone has been a disaster of epic proportions with very bad line noises and echoes that start after 2/3 minutes of a call and get progressively worse. The strange thing is that the other side (whether landline or cell) cannot hear anything and my on side, the noise recedes into the background if I talk (or blow into the phone) - and returns as soon as I stop talking.
I've had maybe 20 or more techs at various levels out here, who have switched the modem and battery backup several times and also rewired from the outside box to the modem etc., etc. Each time the only change is that the noise sounds different.

I have found that the service on the TV and Internet sides to be excellent and the phone service the opposite - erratic, unreliable and inconsistent...

I would like to change the phone and TV to cheaper alternatives that work better but I would lose the fast internet connection as they dont supply this as a stand-alone. There dont seem to be alternatives and few other fast connections appear to be for business and very much more expensive.

I have a question which someone might be able to help with...
My U-Verse DVR recorder is connected to the TV, and I also have a DVD player/VHS tape recorder/Player Combo connected to the same TV. I use this for playing Rental DVDs'.
Can I record TV programs onto a VHS tape and if so, how? With the existing setup I've tried but nothing seems to happen.

Hope some of this is of interest and I'm looking forward to hopefully learning more over time.
Cheers.

I have had UVerse for 15 months, internet, TV and phone. Sorry to hear about your phone service, I have two lines on the system and have had no problems, you would think that the tech folks could figure this out for U. As far as recording I believe that was on the Uverse forums and it could not be done, why I do not know. You might want to bring up the record issue on the U-talk Peer-to-Peer Forums. Good Luck

Been a while since I’ve been around SG but I’m back! Again, Dallas, TX based.
I’ve grown very tired of DirecTV so I called a few months ago to inquire about Uverse. Installers came out and determined that my location is just 100 feet too far and my profile would be TV with no HD. I laughed and said No, thank you! So I’ve been enjoying the Internet and phone and waiting for Pair Bonding or something to change so I could enjoy the end of Satellite.

Called again this week to get a status update and the tech said my current profile would more than support 2 HD and he didn’t know what in the world Pair Bonding was. (Tier 1 phone guy suggested I ask Sales to set me up with the Pair Bonding feature. I asked him if he even know what that was, he said "No" in a very shaky voice. I asked for a Tier 2 support guy ASAP. Funny!)

Installer looked at the line and came into the house with a long, sorrow face. He said there is no way in the world we could get HD with the amount of errors being reported on our downstream (he said it was approximately 7,000 and a bunch of garbeldy gook I couldn’t understand). He said we could try but most likely I would not be happy with it.

I am so tired of D that I said let’s go for it, and guess what? It works! 3 TV’s all with HD. I had done the hard work of wiring up many of the rooms in my home when we moved in a few years ago so all we needed were just one long shot to the back bedroom. Works like a charm on Cat-5 throughout the house for the TV’s. Tech said with this many errors, Cat-5 would be the best way to get picture consistency.

So far I am happy – much faster response time than D* and PQ appears to be the same on the network HD stuff, can’t figure out about the other stations. SD was acceptable, but I cringe watching SD anyways. Haven’t tested out the “whole home DVR” but the wife is very excited about not being forced to watch football all day Sunday.

Question for the smart people here: D* said the Sunday ticket is not refundable once the season starts. Anyone know if that is A) Legal and B) how to get a refund for the 13 weeks left in the season?

Like my Dish HD DVR now, can I hook up my antennae on the Uverse box to allow me more versatility in viewing and recording HD??

Thank you in advance

Originally Posted by hoophead

Like my Dish HD DVR now, can I hook up my antennae on the Uverse box to allow me more versatility in viewing and recording HD??

Thank you in advance

The U-verse boxes don't have antenna inputs. The only "channels" you can record are the 4 data streams coming into your house.

I have an antenna hooked to my TV that the U-verse box is attached to so if I'm recording 4 channels and wanted to watch a 5th program from over the air, I can. That's extremely rare though.

Hey, thanks for the quick reply!
Another question -
I have heard that it varies from one to four hd 'streams' depending on a person's house location .
Can you fill me in? At this time there is Uverse service in a nearby town but not here yet and was hoping for some more 'insider' information.

Originally Posted by hoophead

Hey, thanks for the quick reply!
Another question -
I have heard that it varies from one to four hd 'streams' depending on a person's house location .
Can you fill me in? At this time there is Uverse service in a nearby town but not here yet and was hoping for some more 'insider' information.

Typically it's 2HD/2SD streams per household. That means that you could pull in 4 streams maximum, and up to two of those four can be HD. There are a few areas that are only 1HD/3SD but they're being upgraded out of existence. I think it's based on distance from the VRAD because of the limitations of VDSL over copper.

As for rollout, there are probably insiders that know way more than I do. I just noticed when they installed a VRAD at the end of my street (where I know my phone line connected) and after a while I called to see if I was eligible...and I was.

I changed from Comcast to ATT UVERSE recently. With Comcast I could record programming to my DVD recorder with a full HD picture (although not in HD)...but with the Cisco AT&T box I can only record a zoomed in picture which gives leaves out some of the picture information on the sides &/or bottom & top. I have tried using the zoom feature but it will not allow me to get a setting which will show the entire HD picture as I was able to get on the Comcast box. I did ask AT&T about the problem but they were of no help. Any advice would be appreciated.
John

Originally Posted by Texasrocket

Hi, as a new member I must warn you that I am technologically challenged and know far less than I would like to, so hopefully will get to learn a few things through the forums - and although unlikely, may be able to share a few things learnt purely from experience.

Previously I had Dish Network which I thought was very average picture quality.
I joined U-Verse in August 08 in the Dallas area, subscribing to TV and Internet connection. Phone was not available so used the conventional AT&T phone. I joined mainly to get a fast Internet connection and hopefully better pic quality.
Picture quality is OK - average and HD quality is pretty good except for the picture size changing all the time during commercials and depending on the channel/program you are watching.
When recording programs on the DVR, I find that we nearly always get interference showing (frozen screens) during playback - and of course it's usually at a critical time in the movie - which can be disasterous! This happens too often to be a sometimes irritation.
Internet connection is 18MB - usually speedtested at 15MB and works very well when downloading files/programs.
In January I was contacted about the U-Verse phone now being available so I switched, to have the full U-Verse 'set', thinking this would be very effective.

The phone has been a disaster of epic proportions with very bad line noises and echoes that start after 2/3 minutes of a call and get progressively worse. The strange thing is that the other side (whether landline or cell) cannot hear anything and my on side, the noise recedes into the background if I talk (or blow into the phone) - and returns as soon as I stop talking.
I've had maybe 20 or more techs at various levels out here, who have switched the modem and battery backup several times and also rewired from the outside box to the modem etc., etc. Each time the only change is that the noise sounds different.

I have found that the service on the TV and Internet sides to be excellent and the phone service the opposite - erratic, unreliable and inconsistent...

I would like to change the phone and TV to cheaper alternatives that work better but I would lose the fast internet connection as they dont supply this as a stand-alone. There dont seem to be alternatives and few other fast connections appear to be for business and very much more expensive.

I have a question which someone might be able to help with...
My U-Verse DVR recorder is connected to the TV, and I also have a DVD player/VHS tape recorder/Player Combo connected to the same TV. I use this for playing Rental DVDs'.
Can I record TV programs onto a VHS tape and if so, how? With the existing setup I've tried but nothing seems to happen.

Hope some of this is of interest and I'm looking forward to hopefully learning more over time.
Cheers.

I had a similar issue, in that my home security system won't function with ATT IP phone. The rep said that if I had land line phone from ATT it would not affect TV/Internet price. I asked for a install (it was ATT land line before and shouldn't require anything other than throwing a switch) You might check this option.