U-verse?

[jeffski]

Instead of switching to satellite tv when I get married in Feb. and moving to Greendale (UNLESS TWC adds at least 9 more HD channels by then) I may switch to Uverse. As of now it's not available in Greendale and I see nowhere on their website that shows when it would be available (btw...satellite isn't an option due to many  tall trees surrounding my fiance's house..especially se,s and sw of the house)
 Any opinions on Uverse? Also,is there a way to find out future availabilty?

[kevbeck122]

They are very tight-lipped on availability.  The only way to find out is to call or look at their availability site and put your address/phone number in.  You might be able to find an AT&T tech who will give you more info.. but any of the ones that seem like they'll tell me never respond back when I give them my address/phone#.  Check out uverseusers.com.. some of the local techs/home solutions consultants are on there.

[RLJSlick]

If you have more then one HDTV in the house you may want to reconsider.

Instead of switching to satellite tv when I get married in Feb. and moving to Greendale (UNLESS TWC adds at least 9 more HD channels by then) I may switch to Uverse. As of now it's not available in Greendale and I see nowhere on their website that shows when it would be available (btw...satellite isn't an option due to many  tall trees surrounding my fiance's house..especially se,s and sw of the house)
 Any opinions on Uverse? Also,is there a way to find out future availabilty?

[klwillis45]

If you have more then one HDTV in the house you may want to reconsider.

Or if you wanna DVR 2 HD shows at the same time. 1 HD stream at a time

[waterhead]

I tried to output the program to my PC based DVR. I couldn't get the HD signal at all. I can get the SD signal, so you could set up a PC based DVR. You would need a card like the Hauppauge  PVR-150.

I'm using MythTV with a AverTV MCE A180. It has composite inputs, but they don't work very good under Linux.

[Gregg Lengling]

2 HD streams will be available in mid 2008 along with whole house DVR...right now they are ramping up Uverse Voice (cVoiP)

[jeffski]

no,only 1 hdtv

[klwillis45]

Just got notified that Uverse is now available in my neighborhood. As soon as mutiple HD streams and whole house DVR is up I'm dropping TWC.

[gparris]

Just got notified that Uverse is now available in my neighborhood. As soon as mutiple HD streams and whole house DVR is up I'm dropping TWC.

So am I!
Now, once our "city fathers" in lovely Kenosha County decide that TWC isn't the only "game" around, that is.

Those technological "loopholes" they found will soon be gone for good as U-Verse's technology develops and I am sure it will.

With 2 HD channels to record at a time, this will do just fine on my HD DVRs!:rock:

[Gregg Lengling]

Just got notified that Uverse is now available in my neighborhood. As soon as mutiple HD streams and whole house DVR is up I'm dropping TWC.

That means you'll  be signing up in mid next year 2008.

[RonH]

What format does U-verse use?  Can you set the box to output the native format of the original signal, or do they turn it all into 1080i during mpeg4 conversion?  Turning a channel like espnhd (720p) into 1080i results in something like 720i I would guess, which is only a slight improvement over SD, and it may even be throwing out every other frame.

[kevbeck122]

I would imagine they keep the native resolution of the signal up until it gets to the box, but I'm not positive on that.  The box either outputs 720p or 1080i.. you can't do it based on the native resolution of the channel... it's just one or the other.  You can probably blame that on Microsoft.. it's their software running on the box.  It's the same way when using the media center extender on the xbox 360.

[RonH]

So then if you have a 720p tv, and set it to 720p, you are probably ok.  If you have a 1080p tv, and set it to 1080i, and then watch espn-hd, you get some upscaled 720i signal?  Yuck.

[kevbeck122]

You're probably not going to notice the difference.  The box will upscale the 720p to 1080i, then your TV will upscale to 1080p if you have a 1080p TV.  The box/TV is upscaling to 1920x1080i, not 1280x720i.  If you set it to 720p, the TV will upscale to 1080p.  I usually leave my TWC box at 1080i because it gives me the best picture quality.

[RonH]

I would think it gets the pixel up/downscaling correct regardless of how you do it, although some will be better than others.  My concern was how does the u-verse box take a 60fps 720p signal, like espnhd, and turn it into a 1080i signal with 30fps?  Sounds like every other frame is thrown out, thus negating the purpose of sports programming going with 720p.