Explorer
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20 Messages
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.
DRN94
Explorer
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20 Messages
11 years ago
Well the guy came and said there's nothing he can do about crosstalk and that crosstalk is normal for the copper wiring they use and that it should have little to no affect on picture quality as long as my modem reaches certain thresholds. Again he did the same tests as the last guy and everything passed with flying green colors. The only bad thing was some bitloading drops on certain frequencies but he said that shouldn't impact my service unless it's across the entire spectrum and that the amount of drops I'm getting is normal if not better than most.
He gave me a free HDMI cable and left. So I'm guessing that I'm getting the best possible picture quality AT&T U-Verse has to offer. And quite frankly I'm unimpressed. Mind you I've had U-Verse for over 4 years and upgraded to HD recently after a friend convinced me with his Comcast HD picture quality.
Supposedly the technician's Comcast at his house has worse picture quality than what I'm getting but I'm not really sure if that is truthful. My friend has Comcast and his picture quality is crisp and clear. Possibly Comcast's quality degrades more over distances than TVIP does. Who knows? All I know is I'm getting the best possible picture quality from AT&T U-Verse and in my opinion it stinks. I guess I'll have to just tolerate it and hope it gets better in the future.
I love AT&T U-Verse's features for my TV and internet, it does everything me and my family wants but the only con is the HD picture quality. I've said it and I know others have too. I've exhausted every effort to get better picture quality and nothing has worked. I'm throwing in the towel.
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dian1950
Scholar
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101 Messages
11 years ago
There is great HD on DISH , DirecTV , COMCAST and then there is U-verse, the absolute worst HD PQ availabe.
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dwinth
ACE - Professor
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2.5K Messages
11 years ago
Dian1950 aka Larry11 aka Paul 416 aka numerous other nicknames:
Comcast is not available in my area. What should I do? As an executive with Comcast, can you expand their coverage area? Since you are such a believer in Comcast as shown by your bi-weekly commercials, I want to experience the superiority of Comcast that you get to enjoy.
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DRN94
Explorer
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20 Messages
11 years ago
I can't get the stream analyzer to detect any streams. Put the correct WAN, egress, and ingress profiles right. Enabled the gathering of STB channel/Stream Data. My computer is plugged into the same 2wire DSL modem/router that the DVR is plugged into. What else do I need to do?
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SomeJoe7777
Expert
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9.4K Messages
11 years ago
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DRN94
Explorer
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20 Messages
11 years ago
Meh. I don't think it's worth going through all that and spending money on a LAN switch. Apparently I'm getting the best U-Verse TV has to offer. I've given up. I'll just have to live with it...
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mdbyst
Tutor
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7 Messages
11 years ago
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.
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mdbyst
Tutor
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7 Messages
11 years ago
Unfortunately you may have to deal with it but it may be possible to reach a resolution.
First of all, I have to rely on the fact that the tech did give you honest feedback regarding your green status.
But you can look over a few things first. Start with your Residential Gateway (RG) i.e.. modem.
The new model is the 3801 and is recommended for customers over 2200' in loop length from the vrad. This would have shown up on the techs tests and if necessary would have been replaced. Though the 3800 silver and black rg's are fine, if this is the type of rg you have and are experiencing issues I would have it swapped for the newer version.
Secondly, if you look at the back of your rg, are there any wires connected to the green rj-11 jack? It's best if the rg is fed with twisted pair to the green vdsl rj-11 jack. After that feeding the set-top boxes (stb's) comes to personal preference mostly in regards to using CATV or coax.
Do you notice poor hd quality on all your hd tvs'? Are they just not as crisp as you would expect?
What is your brand TV or model number?
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DRN94
Explorer
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20 Messages
11 years ago
So there is nothing I can do to get a higher bitrate? I can't make a special request or something?
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SomeJoe7777
Expert
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9.4K Messages
11 years ago
If AT&T eventually increases the line rate for the majority of its subscribers through technology upgrades, then there's a chance that they might be able to increase the video bitrate and still maintain the stream count, but this would be far in the future.
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