Uverse Review

FRANKH

Member
Original poster
Jun 14, 2007
12
0
Midwest
Just got Uverse installed today and the picture is excellent. I love the little Silver boxes,much smaller than dishes old vip-211. I stayed away for so long hearing all the bad things people said about it and was i ever surprised when i finally got to play with it. I don't know how anyone would say it's bad, it has on demand programming FOR FREE including a channel dish seems to not want to add Fearnet. About channels, it seems like there is so many lots i never got with Dish.I got the u300 with phone and internet (6mb down) for $135 total month $175 after 12 months still at that price 40 dollars less than I was paying between dish and my previous phone/internet provider. So so far I am very pleased and unless it disconnects every 10 minutes I love it. With dish everytime it rained hard I got no signal. Some of my channels didn't even come in either including scyfy and espn randomly among others. So what I came from i could'nt be happier, This is just my review though and im pleased i encourage anyone else not to believe all the bad things that have been said about it and try it for themselves.:luvlove:
 
Glad you like it. I recently killed U-Verse TV, but retained U-Verse Internet service. I'm on DirecTV now and get the $15 bundle discount by continuing to use U-Verse for Internet. (U-Verse Internet works just fine.) Why did I switch? U-Verse HD is terrible. I suppose it is okay if you have a 40" or smaller monitor. It looked fine on my daughter's 24" monitor. Their bitrate is too slow to provide decent HD. I had started using an OTA for football games because the bitrate was way too low to keep up with the motion and I would get severe macroblocking on my 50". (you'll also notice artifacts for dark scenes) To compound the problem, I recently set up a 5.2 surround system. When setting U-Verse for surround sound, many channels have frequent changes in their sound encoding, causing my receiver to rapidly switch (relays clicking). This was very annoying, causing me to switch back to stereo in order to watch some channels. (I read up on the Internet, but apparently this has been a problem for a LONG TIME and there wasn't a solution.) Now that I'm on DirecTV, the picture is great and my surround sound works like it is supposed to.

On the upside, U-Verse is probably just fine for SD and stereo on a smaller monitor. HD is probably okay if you don't exceed ~40" or don't watch sports or rapidly changing video. It was nice to record 3 HD shows at a time; which we did. Now that DirecTV offers the HMC which I have, I can record 5 HD shows at a time. This made the switch to DirecTV more enticing. The DirecTV picture and sound are far superior to U-Verse. (again, if you have smaller monitors and only need stereo sound, U-Verse is okay) The only thing I don't like about DirecTV is their receivers don't support variable audio. This makes using them with computer monitors a little annoying as their is no way to control sound via remote control. (I'm sure I'll figure out some solution for that)

Also, U-Verse support sucks. Your calls go to India and they read their scripts. (outsourced to people that do speak decent English, but must have a gun to their heads to follow their scripts rather than really try to help you) Recently had U-Verse out to replace a receiver. (you can't go into a store like for Comcast and pick up a replacement) U-Verse blew their appointment window and failed to call. It took a lot of prodding to get them a tech out to me to swap the receiver. He was kind of arrogant, but did replace my receiver and fixed a cabling issue. (simple one, I just wasn't paying attention, used RG-59 cable in one room rather than RG-6) It sounded like U-Verse sent other techs home to cut cost and the techie they sent me had to drive a long way to get to me.

Thus far, I am blown away by DirecTV and their contractor Multiband. Multiband was running late due to heavy rains in my area. The Multiband dispatcher kept me updated as to status at EXACTLY noon. (arrival was scheduled between noon and 4) Installer contacted me later to again inform me of the delay, but finally arrived. I told him what I wanted and he set to work. He was later joined by another installer to help finish up. At the end, a Multiband supervisor arrived to check the work, take pictures of the satellite installation and to make sure I was completely satisfied. Thus far, I'm VERY happy. After fussing with Comcast and U-Verse over the years, DirecTV is a breath of fresh air. (subject to change of course)
 
Just got Uverse installed today and the picture is excellent. I love the little Silver boxes,much smaller than dishes old vip-211. I stayed away for so long hearing all the bad things people said about it and was i ever surprised when i finally got to play with it. I don't know how anyone would say it's bad, it has on demand programming FOR FREE including a channel dish seems to not want to add Fearnet. About channels, it seems like there is so many lots i never got with Dish.I got the u300 with phone and internet (6mb down) for $135 total month $175 after 12 months still at that price 40 dollars less than I was paying between dish and my previous phone/internet provider. So so far I am very pleased and unless it disconnects every 10 minutes I love it. With dish everytime it rained hard I got no signal. Some of my channels didn't even come in either including scyfy and espn randomly among others. So what I came from i could'nt be happier, This is just my review though and im pleased i encourage anyone else not to believe all the bad things that have been said about it and try it for themselves.:luvlove:

Uverse definitely has some great things about it. I still give the nod to dish over it.
But it does give you a boatload of channels and Vod at an attractive price.

Quality wise the HD has improved on Uverse. In my area they have done upgrades.
I really enjoy the video on demand.

The main reason I still give the nod to dish is equipment
and picture.
Uverse still gets grainy or choppy when too much info is on the screen.
Dish handles lots of motion with ease.
Plus while I love Uverse's watch tv anywhere.
Dish Dvrs are still the best in the bussiness

If price is a factor and you want more channel try Uverse
Quality: go with dish
 
I never saw better SD picture quality then I did when I had UVERSE. But the HD quality still has a way to go (although its much better then it use to be!)
 
I never saw better SD picture quality then I did when I had UVERSE. But the HD quality still has a way to go (although its much better then it use to be!)

Your on the money Scott!

I was told they made upgrades to the equipment down here in the South East Florida
region. Some decoding equipment at main distribution area.
It really has improved. Not way off from dish just a notch below.
But getting closer.

Some channels are stellar. Halogen and Smithsonian look outstanding.

Scott, when was the last time you have seen Uverse HD?
 
I am pretty happy with the HD picture quality on Uverse. It is not nearly as clean and crisp as a nice 1080 FTA signal, but it is acceptable. The SD is pretty solid. I have been with Uverse since October and have no complaints about the TV service through them. The Internet however is a different story. I MISS COMCAST!!!!! In fact I miss the speeds from Comcast so much I already decided that come October I will not re-up with ATT, unless of course things drastically improve. Internet streaming on a PC with 2 people watching HD content in different rooms causes serious issues for me. I don't think this is an unreasonable scenario to plan for.
 
Three years ago, I moved in with my gal friend and she had Uverse. So for the last three years, weve had Uverse. My previuos tv provider was Dish, had been with them for almost ten years. We are now on Dish here at the house. I liked Uverse, it was pretty good. But my complaints....are as follows. You can record two HD programs at once, but ur pretty much screwed in the rest of the house, for watching tv. We have Five rooms, two are HD setups. Id record hd programming in the main room, and the baby could watch sd programming, my gal could watch sd programming in her room, then it was up in the air for whomever else was gonna watch tv. If one watched tv, then the other room was outta luck. Even for on demand programming....or something that was recorded. So thats always been a major deal to me, with Uverse. The other problem with Uverse....It would go frame by frame on half of the tvs for days. The main hd tv, in the living room was always up and running. But two of the other tvs, looked like we where watching somesorta internet tv. So At&t would send techs out....this happend everyother month or so, each time nothing was done to fix the issue. It would always sorta fix its self. It didnt matter if it was on demand programming, or something that was recorded. That was a big hassle, and would last sometimes for three days! Att gave us the fastest internet packagae....18mbps and that still never fixed the issue.

Uverse is cable, so you have the deal, if somebody hits a telephone pole with a car...it can kill your services. Or if a bunch of kids/thiefs wanna steal copper wire, at&t is a target for that one to. We where without tv services for almost four days, due to somebody breakinng into there box and pulling all the copper wire out. So that sucked ass big time...lol.

Uverse was around $165 A month for there U450 package.

With Dish, we can record 6 hd programs at once, with all different receivers, watch recorded stuff if we want, or watch dish on demand, in which they have 95 networks to choose from...hbo...starz..fx...apl...history...usa....just to name a few. Its good service, we only lose signal in heavy heavy rain...and it goes out for only a min then comes right back on. Sure beats the slow...picture or frame by frame with Uverse. The price for all that dish has to offer is $75.00 a month, for a year. $104 after a year, but Ill talk them into the $75.00 for another year. Just tell them im gonna go to direct tv...lol.
 
Made the switch back to Uverse this past week first thing I noticed was a marked HD quality improvement from 2years ago. Side by side comparison of Directv could not notice any difference. One of my 3 sets is a 59 inch Samsung and I have heard a lot of complaints about Uverse on large screen HDTV as to quality I see no quality problem. After some issues with Direc Iam going to stay with Uverse as my sub expires with D in a couple of weeks. I had a lot of problems with Uverse last go around with freeze up and pixelization, have not had any so far. Also have 4 HD streams.
 
I think your on the money. Uverse has improved allot in the past two years. Especially in my area of south Florida.

I use to say Direc had the much better hd picture.
I really can't say that anymore.
Believe it or not as of now my best picture is Dish
Network on the new hopper system. Followed by
Uverse then Direc.

I love Direc for the sports. However the Hr24 is running painfully slow.

Uverse dvr and picture have risen up the ranks.
I don't think this is universal.
Some areas of uverse run better then others.

Value wise uverse tops them all
In my humble opinion.
My dish package is 50 bucks higher then the
Same package I have on Uverse.
 
I just had Uverse installed and I have a hard decision to make as to keep it or leave it. I am at the end of the line for Uverse. The installer said he could barely get it dialed in for my house. That is my problem. Because I am at the limit, I only can get 6MB download for internet and only one HD feed at a time. Sounds like an easy choice, but I LOVE the picture quality on Uverse compared to Dish. I thought my TV was just old when I compared the picture to new TVs in the store. The TVs in the stores seemed brighter and sharper than mine. Not anymore. I can't believe the difference. I like the any room DVR with Uverse mainly due to Dish is going to charge me $100 to upgrade to the hopper. The other thing is price. I know Uverse is an intro price only good for one year, but I now get phone, internet, and TV for the same price I did for Dish by itself. I don't watch a lot of TV, but when I do, I want a great picture. The kids could care less about HD since all of their shows were in SD with Dish anyways. I haven't call and canceled either one yet, but I need to soon. I do like Dish a lot. I have had them for years with no problems other than their disputes with networks and price. But I understand why they do it. Any suggestions? Any difference in a 922 and the hopper as far as picture?
 
havok72 said:
I just had Uverse installed and I have a hard decision to make as to keep it or leave it. I am at the end of the line for Uverse. The installer said he could barely get it dialed in for my house. That is my problem. Because I am at the limit, I only can get 6MB download for internet and only one HD feed at a time. Sounds like an easy choice, but I LOVE the picture quality on Uverse compared to Dish. I thought my TV was just old when I compared the picture to new TVs in the store. The TVs in the stores seemed brighter and sharper than mine. Not anymore. I can't believe the difference. I like the any room DVR with Uverse mainly due to Dish is going to charge me $100 to upgrade to the hopper. The other thing is price. I know Uverse is an intro price only good for one year, but I now get phone, internet, and TV for the same price I did for Dish by itself. I don't watch a lot of TV, but when I do, I want a great picture. The kids could care less about HD since all of their shows were in SD with Dish anyways. I haven't call and canceled either one yet, but I need to soon. I do like Dish a lot. I have had them for years with no problems other than their disputes with networks and price. But I understand why they do it. Any suggestions? Any difference in a 922 and the hopper as far as picture?

I have Uverse as well as dish. Sorry to hear your not getting the full service of Uverse.
Maybe if you call tech support they can do something.
If not, dish is excellent. I switched over to the hopper setup from my 922 and 722.
Picture is the best. Its better than what I've seen from Uverse and Direc.
People might argue that but I'm not biased toward any of them. I have all three.
The Hopper setup to me is not up to speed though. I have a two hopper setup. Plus three joeys. They all do not communicate together.
If you get one hopper and joeys its a better setup.
In any case check out dish. A great alternative.
 
I had Uverse TV about 4 years ago when they first came to CT. I only kept it about 1 yr. but kept the internet service. I am pretty sure I will be returning to Uverse TV in a month or 2. My contract is up in August and I am getting tired with the slow receivers and the DVR limitations (number of HD simultaneous viewing)! They are also now charging me for HD service. I went in to an AT&T store recently and they quoted me $102 per month for U300 and 12 MBPS internet. And they told me there was a pretty good chance I'd be offered the same rate after 12 month term. MY directv has been costing me about $89 month before taxes I believe.
My only concern is the HD picture quality. It frankly sucked 4 yrs. ago for sports...which is very important to me.
 
I had Uverse TV about 4 years ago when they first came to CT. I only kept it about 1 yr. but kept the internet service. I am pretty sure I will be returning to Uverse TV in a month or 2. My contract is up in August and I am getting tired with the slow receivers and the DVR limitations (number of HD simultaneous viewing)! They are also now charging me for HD service. I went in to an AT&T store recently and they quoted me $102 per month for U300 and 12 MBPS internet. And they told me there was a pretty good chance I'd be offered the same rate after 12 month term. MY directv has been costing me about $89 month before taxes I believe.
My only concern is the HD picture quality. It frankly sucked 4 yrs. ago for sports...which is very important to me.

When Uverse arrived in nieborhood 3 years ago HD was mediocre.
Now I can put it up with my other services of dish and direc.

At least in my area they did some major upgrades. While
I might give a slight nod to dish, I love the Uverse HD picture.
Nice thing is theres no contract. We can opt out at any time.
I love that!
 
Good hear it! Although your far from me, I share your thoughts and am ready to give Uversea try again...my Directv contract is ending soon :)
 
Took about 3 hrs. total for install. PQ is as good if not slightly better than Dish. Internet speed is good, but I may be paying the extra $5 a month for 18mpbs. The dvr may not be as good as Dish, but it sure is faster and channel changes are instant. No audio drop outs. Dish cancellation for tomorrow.:)
 
I was quoted $102 a month for 12 months for U300 w/3 tv's and 12 mbps internet...of course that's before taxes etc. With Directv the taxes etc. came to like 12 bucks a months! I'm hoping AT&T might be a bite less? Haven't scheduled my installation yet.
 
dfecarter said:
I was quoted $102 a month for 12 months for U300 w/3 tv's and 12 mbps internet...of course that's before taxes etc. With Directv the taxes etc. came to like 12 bucks a months! I'm hoping AT&T might be a bite less? Haven't scheduled my installation yet.

When I first signed up they gave me u450 plus
18 Mbps. It was a one year deal. That was three years ago.

It might be worth asking for that deal.
Are you also getting a gift card?
They gave me 200 buck visa card for having
Highest package.
I also heard they offered 100 dollar promotion as well.
It's worth looking into.
 
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