DRN94's profile

Explorer

 • 

20 Messages

Sunday, November 25th, 2012 4:54 AM

Closed

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.

Tutor

 • 

7 Messages

11 years ago

How bad is your picture quality? HD compression may or may not effect you because it all depends on your distance away from the vrad, which is a box your service comes from outside. The closer you are the less compression and higher speed profile you will be allowed. 19mg, 25mg, or 32mg being the highest with ongoing efforts to create a 4th and higher speed profile.  So the distance is a factor when hd compression comes into play, also the quality wiring performed on your initial install, the quality of your hd cable, and the resolution and quality of your hd tv.

Master

 • 

5.9K Messages

11 years ago


@DRN94 wrote:

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...


 

 

I can't attest to your visual accuity, but as far as your knowledge of the "technicalities", your profile being higher will not change the compression rate of the IPTV, it will only give you more headroom to up your internet speed. AT&T has new tech coming down the pike that is supposed to give them a major boost in speed, but i"m sure most of that new speed will be dedicated to internet access, as that is where they are severely behind the eight ball, compared to the competition. I'm sure they'll add more streams but I doubt they'll reduce the compression.

 

 

 




__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

Expert

 • 

9.4K Messages

11 years ago


@mdbyst wrote:

How bad is your picture quality? HD compression may or may not effect you because it all depends on your distance away from the vrad, which is a box your service comes from outside. The closer you are the less compression and higher speed profile you will be allowed. 19mg, 25mg, or 32mg being the highest with ongoing efforts to create a 4th and higher speed profile.  So the distance is a factor when hd compression comes into play, also the quality wiring performed on your initial install, the quality of your hd cable, and the resolution and quality of your hd tv.


 

100% untrue.  Distance has nothing to do with the HD quality.  All U-Verse IPTV customers receive the exact same HD streams.

 

One thing that can affect HD quality is a marginal in-home network that is causing corrupted or dropped packets on their way to the STB.

 

To test this, download UVRealtime from www.uvrealtime.com, and use the Stream Analyzer at your problematic STB.  Follow the directions in the user manual exactly, and it will tell you if an error-free IPTV stream is reaching your STB.

 

Tutor

 • 

7 Messages

11 years ago


@SomeJoe7777 wrote:

@mdbyst wrote:

How bad is your picture quality? HD compression may or may not effect you because it all depends on your distance away from the vrad, which is a box your service comes from outside. The closer you are the less compression and higher speed profile you will be allowed. 19mg, 25mg, or 32mg being the highest with ongoing efforts to create a 4th and higher speed profile.  So the distance is a factor when hd compression comes into play, also the quality wiring performed on your initial install, the quality of your hd cable, and the resolution and quality of your hd tv.

 

 


 

100% untrue.  Distance has nothing to do with the HD quality.  All U-Verse IPTV customers receive the exact same HD streams.

 

One thing that can affect HD quality is a marginal in-home network that is causing corrupted or dropped packets on their way to the STB.

 

To test this, download UVRealtime from www.uvrealtime.com, and use the Stream Analyzer at your problematic STB.  Follow the directions in the user manual exactly, and it will tell you if an error-free IPTV stream is reaching your STB.

 


The quality of your uverse service has everything to do with distance. Once the Uverse signal is transfered from fiber to twisted pair to the prem the distance is allocated for to provide you with an appropriate speed profile. The distance also will factor in how many hd streams you recieve, be it 2, 3, or 4.  There will be more packet loss over 3,000 feet than 500' given both lines are of the same quality performance. 

 

Anyways as you mentioned a marginal in-home network will most likely be the root of the problem for most experiencing hd quality issues. Get that wiring plan and call out a tech! lol

Expert

 • 

9.4K Messages

11 years ago


@mdbyst wrote:

The quality of your uverse service has everything to do with distance. Once the Uverse signal is transfered from fiber to twisted pair to the prem the distance is allocated for to provide you with an appropriate speed profile. The distance also will factor in how many hd streams you recieve, be it 2, 3, or 4.  There will be more packet loss over 3,000 feet than 500' given both lines are of the same quality performance. 


 

Again, NO, the quality of the signal has absolutely nothing to do with distance.  The person at 500' ends up receiving the EXACT same IPTV stream as the person at 3000' (barring any hardware problems with the equipment or the lines).

 

This is not an analog cable delivery system where the analog signal degrades while it propagates down the cable.  This is an IP network.  IP networks, by design, deliver packets to the receiver with no packet corruption, and ideally, no loss.

 

The system works just like on an Ethernet network: the person plugged into the switch with a 15' cable has no difference in the packets he receives from the person on a 300' cable run.

 

Any actual bits that are received in error by the VDSL modem are corrected due to the forward error correction algorithm in the modem.  All components in the routers and modems are optimized and buffered as well, preventing packet loss.

 

Please stop posting your estimation/guess of how the system works.  There are many things that you're obviously not familiar with, and your posting of incorrect information is not helpful.

 

Explorer

 • 

20 Messages

11 years ago

I have a technician coming over in the next couple hours.  A support rep found crosstalk between my modem and the DSLAM which could cause a degradation in the picture quality.  Not entirely convinced it's what is causing the compression artifacts but the support rep thought it would help.

Expert

 • 

9.4K Messages

11 years ago


@DRN94 wrote:

I have a technician coming over in the next couple hours.  A support rep found crosstalk between my modem and the DSLAM which could cause a degradation in the picture quality.  Not entirely convinced it's what is causing the compression artifacts but the support rep thought it would help.


 

Before the technician arrives, you may want to download UV Realtime (www.uvrealtime.com) and capture screenshots of the IP/Profile, Error Table, and Bitloading screens.  Post them here in the forum using the icon that looks like a small tree.

 

If the line errors are too high for the modem to properly correct, this could be a potential source of problems, although it usually doesn't manifest as HD picture quality problems.  Usually the effect is pixelation/freezing/loss of signal.

 

But it still would be helpful to have "before" and "after" screenshots for comparison.

 

Explorer

 • 

20 Messages

11 years ago

I already have UVRealtime installed.  I took screenshots for the before.  Waiting for him to come over before I do the after.  No errors were listed on the error table.  Not sure exactly what the side effect of crosstalk would be if no errors or lost packets have been found...

Scholar

 • 

177 Messages

11 years ago

After reading all these posts I am still sticking with what I said earlier about the Uverse HD picture being the worst of the 4 that I have been able to watch. The difference is clear. That being said I will say that Uverse does a much better job with 720p signals than it does with 1080i.

Expert

 • 

9.4K Messages

11 years ago


@Ish Kabibble wrote:
That being said I will say that Uverse does a much better job with 720p signals than it does with 1080i.

 

Just about any provider does, since the bandwidth requirements for 720p are lower than for 1080i for a given quality level.

 

Not finding what you're looking for?
New to AT&T Community?
New to the AT&T Community? Start by visiting the Community How-To.
New to the AT&T Community?
Visit the Community How-To.