uverse vs time warner picture quality

[xsqsme]

I was thinking of switching from TWC to U-verse. Can anyone tell me if the HD and SD picture quality is noticeably different?  Same, better or worse?

Thank You!

[leprechaunshawn]

I have not personally seen the U-Verse picture but from what I've read in other threads here the quality is not as good as TWC.  This was a few months ago though so maybe they have made some improvements.

[tbarney]

I have one experience with it. That was during the NCAA Playoffs earlier this year. The fast moving basketball games were too much for the picture to keep up with so it kept getting blurry or pixelated. I posted here at the time and was told it had to do with the compression that AT&T uses.  

An average TV show looked as good as my dish network setup, but the fast moving sports just couldn't keep up. If you are not a sports fan then maybe that isn't a big deal.

I assume others will join in and share their experiences, but mine was not good.

[leprechaunshawn]

I noticed the same thing watching some of the NCAA games on TWC.  I just wasnt very impressed with the CBS picture quality.

[JeffreyC2007]

Uverse is perfect on sd channels...but if picture quality with HD CHANNELS is ur only issue i think TWC still has the edge...a small edge to be exact.

[tencom]

The data rate at least for the local channels by TWC is the same as over the air. TWC preserves the original broadcast data rates. U-Verse in my opinion appears to have less soft detail then TWC of course all HDTV has some loss of soft detail or surface detail. To me the media that has the best picture quality is Blu-Ray DVD. Blu-Ray discs have a maximum data rate of around 40 megabits per second OTA broadcast ATSC has a full data rare of 19.2 Megabits per second,and U-Verse has up to a 8.5 megabits per second data rate. After watching several hours of Blu-Ray discs I have yet to see any compression artifacts and to me has the most natural looking picture when compared to broadcast television.

[ckkopenski]

I switched to U-verse from TWC in March. I agree that SD seems better, especially on older, non-LCD TV's. HD is a horse a piece to me. I'm not that picky though. We got U-verse in the beginning of March, so we saw most of NCAA on U-verse. At times, you would notice your picture not keeping up with the action well, but I think it's pretty well known that CBS has issues with their sports stuff.

I would say that a bigger issue than picture quality would be the 2HD/2SD streams. If you have a houseful of people and TV's all over the place, you might run into issues.

The whole house DVR is sweet and the fact that the DVR is 4 track is nice as well....however if the DVR is recording two programs, then it has two of the streams tied up - obviously.

Corey