DRN94's profile

Explorer

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20 Messages

Sunday, November 25th, 2012 4:54 AM

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HD Compression Here To Stay?

I thought I was getting unusual amounts of HD compression.  Had a technician come over who ran tests.  Everything came through with flying green colors.  He said the compression is designed so that at the optimal viewing distance of the TV, little to no compression artifacts can be easily made out which is partly true when I stand at the optimal distance for my 46" which is 10.5'.  I sit at my desk which is immediately to the right of the TV.  So I'm up close when working and glancing over at the screen.  The compression artifacts are just awful up close. 

I can understand trying to save on bandwidth but just barely squeezing by for the optimal viewing distance is unsatisfying.  I've been up close in front of my friend's TV which has Comcast hooked up and the picture quality has a "wow" factor.  I don't get that wow factor at all with my AT&T U-Verse picture quality.  I've exhausted optimazing the settings on my TV, trying different cables, ports on the router, and even replacing the box only to get the same picture quality.  Honestly, HD should be provided for free by AT&T.  That's how sub-par the quality is to the competition.

A supervisor on the chat support said that the sales department may be able to increase the bandwidth to get better picture but I think he was giving me the run around.  Sales was closed when he referred me so I'll have to wait until Monday.

After doing some research I've noticed many people have noticed the sub-par HD quality all because of the compression with discussions dating back to 2008.  It looks like AT&T is doing little to nothing to try and improve the picture quality.  Their cabling and hardware is more than capable of delivering clear, crisp HD picture but they choose to bottleneck the bandwidth in order to save money.

If AT&T increased their bandwidth 2x for each HD stream, AT&T would be the best TV service provider by a mile.  The compression artifacts are the only con holding them back from being great.  I consider AT&T U-Verse TV as tolerable.  I hate going over to my friends house now because his HD picture is so clear and crisp.  I was embarrased when he genuinely thought something was wrong with my TV when he noticed how bad the quality was.

AT&T fix this.  It's easy and you'll be king of the crop.

Accepted Solution

Official Solution

Expert

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9.4K Messages

11 years ago


@mdbyst wrote:

 

I am not guessing and I could make the same assumption regarding your opinions. Im just stating facts trying to help out other viewers not trying to argue with someone who apparantly likes to argue to feel more important about himself.

The person at 500' is on a 32mg profile and the further your distance between the vrad and prem the lower your max attainable rate gets. As the max attainable rate on your line drops the higher the capacites get on your line which effect downstream and upstream bitrates.  Hence as I mentioned before the limiting hd streams as your distance is increased.  

 

Yes these ip based designs were implented to prevent packet loss but distance WILL effect it. Verizon Fios is an all fiber system however Uverse isnt and distance limits the availability of Uverse so you shouldnt post your estimation/guess of how the system works. 

 

Again the quality of the lines are more important than their distance, and that goes the same for the in home networking quality as well.


 

Yes, you are guessing.  Because you don't know how the system works, while I do.  You have 5 posts and registered 2 days ago, and 3 of your posts have posted incorrect information.

 

The root of your problem is that you are confusing line rates with video rates, which have nothing to do with each other.

 

The LINE rate varies with distance.  This affects the maximum total data (IPTV + VOIP + Internet) that can be transferred to the home.  Closer to the VRAD, the line rate is 32/5.  At medium and most far distances, the line rate is 25/2.  A few people from the old days have a 19/2 line rate.  And Internet-only customers have a 13/1 rate.  The line rate also affects how many different HD and SD channels you can tune simultaneously in your house.

 

The VIDEO bitrate does NOT vary with distance.  It is a constant 5.7 Mbps for every HD channel for everyone, regardless of distance (2 Mbps for every SD channel for everyone, regardless of distance).  This is the only rate we've been talking about in this thread, since the original poster's problems have to do with HD quality, in that he believes it's overcompressed.  The compression does NOT increase with distance.  There is only ONE video encoder at the head end per channel, and it outputs a fixed bandwidth stream that goes to everyone.

 

Since the compression does not increase with distance, it is physically impossible for the distance to affect the HD quality.  5.7Mbps is 5.7Mbps, no matter how long a wire it travelled down.  And again, there is no packet loss in a properly working U-Verse system.  In fact, the multicast UDP nature of U-Verse's video delivery REQUIRES an error-free network for proper function.

 

I do not like to argue.  I like to put out correct information.  You, on the other hand, seem insistent on continuing to claim things that aren't true, and like to generalize your basic knowledge of the system to advanced topics to which you're unfamiliar.  If you want to continue making a fool of yourself, by all means continue posting so that I may correct you some more.

 

Official Solution

Explorer

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20 Messages

11 years ago

So I got in touch with chat support and the guy took 20 dollars off my already promotioned bill.  So I'm paying 71 bucks a month for 12 months.  I guess that's good compensation for the bad HD picture quality.  I'm not thrilled to look at the picture but for such a low price I can't really complain?

Explorer

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20 Messages

11 years ago

I've had AT&T U-Verse for over 4 years now.  Just recently upgraded to HD.  We switched from Comcast due to outrageous bills and awful treatment and lack of respect.  I will NEVER go to Comcast a billion years.  I have and always loved AT&T U-Verse's features.  Like I said, the picture quality is the only thing I have a gripe with.  And I'm not the only one.

I'm going to the AT&T store and looking at their demo TV's.  If the demo TV's have crisp clear picture, I will not stop until AT&T is providing me with the equivalent crisp clear picture that is advertised in their stores.

I've been given the run around too much.  I've spent all day waiting for a technician who abruptly cancelled only to be given the run around from him.  I'm not blind and I know the techincalities behind this stuff.  I'm simply not allocated enough bandwidth for clear crisp picture.  I'm also going to get onto a 32:5 profile because my loop length allows it.  Seems like AT&T hasn't been giving me the best possible service available for my location...

Scholar

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104 Messages

11 years ago

Couldn't agree more with the original poster.

Scholar

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177 Messages

11 years ago

I used to have TWC. My brother has Cox and I watch at his house once in a while. I see Directv often at all the sports bars. Uverse is definetly the worst HD picture of the four. I'm not sure I would go as far as to call it embarrasing.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

11 years ago

Most people want the biggest TV without thinking about what it's going to look like.  The bigger the TV the farther away you need to be for it to look "good".  In my home office I have a 32 inch 720p which is about 4 feet from me and it looks great on HD.  Now if I put my 52 inch TV in place of it, it would look like crap because it's too big for the room.

 

Here is a recommended TV size to viewing distance chart:

 

Screen SizeRecommended Range
26" 3.3' – 6.5' (1.0 m – 2.0 m)
30" 3.8' – 7.6' (1.2 m – 2.3 m)
34" 4.3' – 8.5' (1.3 m – 2.6 m)
42" 5.3' – 10.5' (1.6 m – 3.2 m)
46" 5.8' – 11.5' (1.8 m – 3.5 m)
50" 6.3' – 12.5' (1.9 m – 3.8 m)
55" 6.8' – 12.8' (2.1 m – 3.9 m)
60" 7.5' – 15.0' (2.3 m – 4.6 m)
65" 8.1' – 16.3' (2.5 m – 5.0 m)

ACE - Master

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6.9K Messages

11 years ago


@Ish Kabibble wrote:

I used to have TWC. My brother has Cox and I watch at his house once in a while. I see Directv often at all the sports bars. Uverse is definetly the worst HD picture of the four. I'm not sure I would go as far as to call it embarrasing.


I've had Dish and Direct and TWC, if you are sitting right on top of the tv then they all look like crap.  As for UVerse,  the picture quality is just as good as the others and I've had no complaints. I'm on my 3rd installation and I've not had a bad picture quality issue yet.

Explorer

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20 Messages

11 years ago

I appreciate the effort but I watch BluRay movies from my computer desk and use my TV as a 4th monitor and the quality is amazing.

On commercials with AT&T U-Verse HD when there is nothing but text on the screen and a plain back ground the text is so crisp and clear you can see the individual un-antialiased pixels.  But as soon as more detail comes on screen or there is a lot of motion the compression and bandwidth cap immediately degrade the picture quality. 

AT&T's equipment is more than capable of delivering crisp clear picture but they limit the bandwidth by a factor of 2 than what it should be.  I've done research and other providers use bitrates of up to 11-12 mbps while AT&T is limited to 5-6 mbps.

I'm almost appalled that AT&T is allowed to get away with being so poor with their HD quality.  They cut their bandwidth costs in half to increase profit when they could easily become the best TV service provider by pumping that money to it's consumers.  And if the chat support brings up loop length excuses they are full of crap.  Where I'm at I have over 20,000 kbps headroom over what I'm given in my package.  That is more than enough to squeeze a few more dozen kbps for much better HD picture.  AT&T is simply being cheap.

Like I said, I'm going to go the AT&T store near me.  If their demo TV's have better picture quality than what I'm getting I will not stop until AT&T is providing me with the equivalent crisp clear picture that is advertised in their stores. 

Don't give me ideal viewing distance run around because I'm a foot away watching my friend's Comcast and it's still crisp and clear as can be.  I shouldn't have to settle for sub-par HD because I'm "supposed" to be so far away from my TV.  All I get is bogus excuses for the poor quality.  No consumer should have to put up with this.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

11 years ago

I'm not technical enough to explain to you why Uverse uses what they do BUT if one of the resident experts Somejoe7777 sees your post I'm sure he will enlighten you.

 

Good luck and stay tuned!!

Contributor

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1 Message

11 years ago

I agree that the visual artifacts -like blurry halos around each football player except for closeups - really take away from the HD experience. It's not acceptable at a distance - it should be like a "window" into reality - as it does with other providers and blue-ray. It's not really HD
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