Trying Uverse

[picopir8]

On avsforum.com forum almost all persons that have tried U-verse thinks the HD quality is bad.  And it is with 1 HD feed.  Adding 2 HD feeds will just make it even worse.  I believe U-verse uses MS software so I am not so surprised.

I have had U-Verse, D*, and TWC.  In my opinion, TWC has the best HD picture, followed by U-Verse, and D* is the worst.  For SD, U-Verse and D* are about the same and TWC is in the rear.  U-Verse quality was a bit iffy up until about Aug of last year, but since then, the quality has gotten much better.  I suspect most people who complain are subscribers in new service areas where they are still working out network bugs.  Personally, I expected issues given U-Verse was new to the Milwaukee area.  But the service has been more reliable than anyone else.  In fact my wife insists that if we move, it must be to another U-Verse serviced area.  They have also added channels

As for the two HD feeds, no it did not make it worse at all.  They increased the overall bandwidth which allowed them to add the second HD stream w/o increasing compression.  In fact there is some extra bandwidth left over which means we could get a lower compression which would further increase the picture quality.

But don't take my word for it.  They have no contracts so you can sign up, keep your existing provider and then cancel one after doing a side-by-side comparison.

[UncleMeat]

I have had U-Verse, D*, and TWC.  In my opinion, TWC has the best HD picture, followed by U-Verse, and D* is the worst.  For SD, U-Verse and D* are about the same and TWC is in the rear.  U-Verse quality was a bit iffy up until about Aug of last year, but since then, the quality has gotten much better.  I suspect most people who complain are subscribers in new service areas where they are still working out network bugs.  Personally, I expected issues given U-Verse was new to the Milwaukee area.  But the service has been more reliable than anyone else.  In fact my wife insists that if we move, it must be to another U-Verse serviced area.  They have also added channels

As for the two HD feeds, no it did not make it worse at all.  They increased the overall bandwidth which allowed them to add the second HD stream w/o increasing compression.  In fact there is some extra bandwidth left over which means we could get a lower compression which would further increase the picture quality.

But don't take my word for it.  They have no contracts so you can sign up, keep your existing provider and then cancel one after doing a side-by-side comparison.

I canceled UVerse in May, I didn't have it pre-August 07, but I still though the HD quality was fairly unimpressive.  It wasn't bad, just was pretty clearly compressed and lacked the appeal of TWC or OTA.

[sp44again]

I tried U-Verse and now will be keeping D*. The HD picture is noticeably better on D*. Since that is what I mostly watch and D* is the king of HD I'll pay the extra dough to keep it. I also like the D* interface better. U-Verse has a couple little cool things with the PIP and the rolling program info but that's not enough. Not to mention the one box gives out a piercing sound that makes all the dogs in the neighborhood bark.