WHY DOES U-VERSE HD SUCK SO BAD??

[CGI_1]

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Archimedes wrote:
I'm keeping U-verse because I get a lot more channels then I ever did with Charter, plus the U-verse guide and DVR is light years ahead of what Charter had, but I do miss the better PQ I got from Charter.  Hopefully ATT will be able to improve the technology so they can use less compression and get that pop my HD used to have. 

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I am also a former Charter customer and you and I agree on one thing - the HD was much better than U-Verse. There's a lot of (false) information on this board about the causes of poor HD PQ with U-verse. Its not your tv, its not your viewing distance, its the compression people!

[ILDAVE_1]

This is Probably a given, but every7one that is not happy with the HD quality, HAS THE BLUE HD LIGHT ON?? Seriously, I have been to many calls where the HD from the STB has not been turned on regardless of it being an HD channel??  If you are not sure try channel 1102 HDT and see if your blue light is on.  remember Channels in the 1000+ Numbers are HD Not Anything below????

[dhascall ACE - Professor]

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ILDAVE wrote:
This is Probably a given, but every7one that is not happy with the HD quality, HAS THE BLUE HD LIGHT ON?? Seriously, I have been to many calls where the HD from the STB has not been turned on regardless of it being an HD channel??  If you are not sure try channel 1102 HDT and see if your blue light is on.  remember Channels in the 1000+ Numbers are HD Not Anything below????

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Yes the Blue light is on, at least in my case.

The UV HD just can not compare to what I had with CC but I do see some improvement, in the year that I've had UV.  In fact, the Steelers / Bengals game yesterday was the best HD on UV that I have seen and is getting closer to what I had with CC.  The SD picture on UV BLOWS CC away, however.

[nobody_1]

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 its the compression people!

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Somewhat. Any line issues that are ongoing can wreck it due to the levels of compression involved (see: some folks here who have great HD pic) - Id bet if I ran line tests on their BAN it would come out green across the board. 

 Doesnt mean the compression levels here are 'acceptable', just that they 'can' work under ideal conditions. 

 

 

[rh1276]

I have had similar issues and techs cannot figure out the problem. They claim that I live SO CLOSE to the VRAD that it may be what my problem is. They say that if you live further from the VRAD there is enough distance in your line to correct some of the noise and pixalation. Anyone heard of that issue?

So, they are saying now they are going to add a few hundred yards of line to my part of the VRAD to make it think I live further away...

I dunno...

[ILDAVE_1]

Compression Guys, dont forget about HDMI Versions 1.1,1.2,1.3 and of course 1.3a.  I fyou have an older TV that supports HDMI version 1.2, And Uverse is 1.3a and your HDMI cable is 1.1, something aint gonna look right.

This is just an example we have run into. 

Another, was the older lady with a CRT HD TV, With HDMI, We gave her HDMI 1.3a cable, but her TV just kept going black on occaision, It was her TV  taking a dump.

One customers TV looked like total Garbage with HMDI, we changed him over toComponent, and his TV looked great.  I cant remember how old his tv was, or even what type (DLP LCD Plasma).

And one other I remember a customers HD went crappy during fast motion, and believe it or no, His contrast was up too High.  So when he woukld get alot of White, his TV would freeze.

So you can say Compression of Uverse, but what about the HDMI compression? How good is the digital processor in some of the TV's, Is the Program on the HD channel Filmed in HD?

This is a hard topic to discuss, because running a BAN number and it showing all perfectly Green, I have still seen TV's freeze.  DVR too close to the Fridge maybe? Frayed wire from PS2 Interrupting VDSL on Coax. And my Favorite the treadmill with really crappy grounding.

And there is always something new.

Unless you have the exact mathematics, compression doesnt make much sense, as everycustomer has a Constant Bandwidth profile, and if it was compression everyont would get the same crappy picture, as the compression of data does not vary from Vrad to Vrad or cu8stomer to customer.

[wase4711_1]

I went back to Comcast having having Uverse for a year for this exact reason my internet was solid, my phone service was too, but, eventually my HD PQ went from ok to sucking big time hind teatie..

had endless techs, all equip replaced, new home run, cat 5, coax, you name it, but still, artifacts, pixelation, and just a lousy hd tv picture.

Went back to comcast a few months ago, and, not a single complaint about the hd pq; its nice that I can have as many streams as I want, and, I actually save about 40 bucks a month for the first 12 months.

More and more people are having problems with the HD PQ, so UVerse needs to figure this out..I really liked the features, the SD pq is still the best out there, and I wanted to stay with Uverse forever...but, not with the PQ issues that I and so many others are/were having... 

[Archimedes_1]

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ILDAVE wrote:

Compression Guys, dont forget about HDMI Versions 1.1,1.2,1.3 and of course 1.3a.  I fyou have an older TV that supports HDMI version 1.2, And Uverse is 1.3a and your HDMI cable is 1.1, something aint gonna look right.

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Does the ATT STB run at HDMI 1.3a?  Will making sure you have a 1.3a cable really make a difference?  I know my HDMI cable is a definitely 1.2 and it's good quality but I'm not sure if it supports 1.3a.

[Roosh]

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ILDAVE wrote:

Compression Guys, dont forget about HDMI Versions 1.1,1.2,1.3 and of course 1.3a.  I fyou have an older TV that supports HDMI version 1.2, And Uverse is 1.3a and your HDMI cable is 1.1, something aint gonna look right....

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Dave, I want you to check out my AT&T picture!  The tech I usually get can't even spell HDMI.  Do you ever do the rounds in Deerfield, IL?

I get great HD picture (as long as everyone on the screen stays still).  Once there is alot of action, it pixelates (this really happens in sports, not movies).  Also, I get an audio dropout every 2-10 minutes.  I just switched from Comcast and the HD picture was better during sports (but comparable in all other situations).  The audio drop out used to happen a lot on Comcast, then they must have cracked the code and it stopped. 

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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ILDAVE wrote:

1) Compression Guys, dont forget about HDMI Versions 1.1,1.2,1.3 and of course 1.3a.  I fyou have an older TV that supports HDMI version 1.2, And Uverse is 1.3a and your HDMI cable is 1.1, something aint gonna look right.

2) So you can say Compression of Uverse, but what about the HDMI compression?

3) How good is the digital processor in some of the TV's, Is the Program on the HD channel Filmed in HD?  Unless you have the exact mathematics, compression doesnt make much sense, as every customer has a Constant Bandwidth profile, and if it was compression everyont would get the same crappy picture, as the compression of data does not vary from Vrad to Vrad or cu8stomer to customer. 

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1) Rubbish.  All HDMI versions are backward compatible with each other (per spec).  If there is an incompatibility, that is the fault of the HDMI device maker, in most cases, the TV manufacturer.

HDMI cables are not a particular version.  There is no such thing as an HDMI 1.1 cable vs. an HDMI 1.3 cable.  HDMI cables are rated by category, which is a rating of the frequencies the wires can carry.  The best HDMI cables are rated category 2, but category 1 cables support all modes that the U-Verse STBs can output, and will therefore work fine.

2) HDMI signals are uncompressed RGB.  There is no compression on an HDMI cable.

3) Every customer does indeed get the same (crappy, overcompressed) feed.  The issue is that there are many factors on the customer's end that make the compression artifacts either more or less visible than they are to other customers.  The customers with large, really good TVs will notice the compression artifacts a lot more than customers with smaller, not-quite-so-good sets.  Connection methods make a difference - HDMI can emphasize the artifacts, component can soften them.  Bad digital processing can make the artifacts worse, good digital processing can hide them.  LCD TVs can emphasize the artifacts, projection TVs can soften them.  There's dozens more factors.

But as far as the compression, the fact is that AT&T is attempting to deliver 1080i feeds in 6 Mbps of H.264 bandwidth.  This is about half of what's required for an artifact-free picture.  It's one-quarter of what is used on a typical Blu-Ray.

Do not claim that the compression is not the issue, that's simply wrong.  The picture artifacts that are visible are a direct result of the compression, period, end of story.  The fact that some customers don't see them is irrelevant.

[Archimedes_1]

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SomeJoe7777 wrote:

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ILDAVE wrote:

1) Compression Guys, dont forget about HDMI Versions 1.1,1.2,1.3 and of course 1.3a.  I fyou have an older TV that supports HDMI version 1.2, And Uverse is 1.3a and your HDMI cable is 1.1, something aint gonna look right.

2) So you can say Compression of Uverse, but what about the HDMI compression?

3) How good is the digital processor in some of the TV's, Is the Program on the HD channel Filmed in HD?  Unless you have the exact mathematics, compression doesnt make much sense, as every customer has a Constant Bandwidth profile, and if it was compression everyont would get the same crappy picture, as the compression of data does not vary from Vrad to Vrad or cu8stomer to customer. 

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1) Rubbish.  All HDMI versions are backward compatible with each other (per spec).  If there is an incompatibility, that is the fault of the HDMI device maker, in most cases, the TV manufacturer.

HDMI cables are not a particular version.  There is no such thing as an HDMI 1.1 cable vs. an HDMI 1.3 cable.  HDMI cables are rated by category, which is a rating of the frequencies the wires can carry.  The best HDMI cables are rated category 2, but category 1 cables support all modes that the U-Verse STBs can output, and will therefore work fine.

2) HDMI signals are uncompressed RGB.  There is no compression on an HDMI cable.

3) Every customer does indeed get the same (crappy, overcompressed) feed.  The issue is that there are many factors on the customer's end that make the compression artifacts either more or less visible than they are to other customers.  The customers with large, really good TVs will notice the compression artifacts a lot more than customers with smaller, not-quite-so-good sets.  Connection methods make a difference - HDMI can emphasize the artifacts, component can soften them.  Bad digital processing can make the artifacts worse, good digital processing can hide them.  LCD TVs can emphasize the artifacts, projection TVs can soften them.  There's dozens more factors.

But as far as the compression, the fact is that AT&T is attempting to deliver 1080i feeds in 6 Mbps of H.264 bandwidth.  This is about half of what's required for an artifact-free picture.  It's one-quarter of what is used on a typical Blu-Ray.

Do not claim that the compression is not the issue, that's simply wrong.  The picture artifacts that are visible are a direct result of the compression, period, end of story.  The fact that some customers don't see them is irrelevant.

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Wow, lots of great points.  You're correct about having a good TV, I have a 52" XBR4 and it's calibrated and I've seen what the TV is capable of and I can say with certainty that the feed I'm getting from Uverse doesn't meet my expectations.  You can especially see the lack of detail in the dark scenes which almost look like the rendering I'd expect from one of my 20 year old EGA PC video cards.  That is certainly NOT my TV.  It's good to know I don't need to upgrade my HDMI cables,  I'm pretty sure they were rated for HDMI 1.3 when I got them anyway.

edit - I am keeping Uverse despite all this, like I've mentioned before the extra channels and improved DVR are more important to me then the PQ with Charter because the Charter DVR is old-tech, the features are old-tech and you only get 15 HD channels, no NFL or NASA channel, among others.  I really wish ATT would improve the PQ because that is the only thing Uverse needs to be great (and you should get HBO HD  & Starz HD on demand.)

Message Edited by Archimedes on 11-19-2009 09:35 AM

Message Edited by Archimedes on 11-19-2009 09:36 AM

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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Archimedes wrote:

You can especially see the lack of detail in the dark scenes which almost look like the rendering I'd expect from one of my 20 year old EGA PC video cards.  That is certainly NOT my TV.

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You can fix the lack of detail in dark scenes by either:

1) Configure your TV to use RGB expanded range (0-255) instead of standard RGB range (16-235).  Only a minority of TVs have this setting, so you may not be able to do this.  This compensates for a bug in the U-Verse HDMI implementation.

2) Switch to component cables (Y-Pb-Pr) instead of HDMI.  This works for all HDTVs.  The component outputs of the U-Verse STB do not suffer from this problem.

[pulseman]

Don't just walk, RUN away from UVERSE if you want good HD quality service.  I used to have UVERSE and I couldn't stand all those compression artifacts and I moved to TMC and I couldn't be any happier; HD quality is crisp and clear now.

Unless they actually announce that HD quality is improved on UVERSE, don't believe their misleading ads that promise crystal clear HD picture. It looks like someone should sue them to learn a lesson and stop misleading the public with their NOT so Advanced TV.

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

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pulseman wrote:

Don't just walk, RUN away from UVERSE if you want good HD quality service.  I used to have UVERSE and I couldn't stand all those compression artifacts and I moved to TMC and I couldn't be any happier; HD quality is crisp and clear now.

Unless they actually announce that HD quality is improved on UVERSE, don't believe their misleading ads that promise crystal clear HD picture. It looks like someone should sue them to learn a lesson and stop misleading the public with their NOT so Advanced TV.

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Welcome back!  Still trying to run away the customers, I see. 

[pulseman]

Thanks, texasguy37. 

Sorry but there are so many people complaining about the HD quality on UVerse and ATT has done nothing to fix it. Instead of spending their time creating more TV apps that no one really cares about, they should first and for most andress the picture quality which is the main reason for the service. That's why they call it TV service after all. 

I haven't seen any announcements regarding that, which means they either don't care or they are hoping people will not notice. Nowadays pretty much every household will have HDTV since the prices came down a lot in the past year so you will see a lot more people complaining.

Hopefully they will fix it one day. Until then, I am happy to educate the customers with what ATT is doing to lure customers with their misleading ads. Every week, I keep getting ads on the mail that are promising amazing HD PQ quality which, is completely false and misleading.

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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pulseman wrote:

which means they either don't care or they are hoping people will not notice.

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No one is buying your false dilemma fallacy agrument here.

The fact is that unless you are a U-Verse engineer who works on their design team, you have no idea what is being done to address the HD PQ.

[ILDAVE_1]

Not to mention if your TV is a POS, dont blame the provider.

[pulseman]

 SomeJoe7777,

I will change my opinion when I see improvements in PQ quality. It has been two years and HD PQ is not improved at all and that says a lot. If I were a U-Verse engineer I will be really emparrased with the situation. How many years do they need to improve picture quality which is the most vital part of the service?

Until then, I will stick to my opinion that ATT is misleading people with their HD service and ATT should pay people(or give it for free) to watch their HD service and not the other way around if the HD quality is in a "beta" stage until it's ready for release.

[Roosh]

I have to chime in here.  I just switched from Comcast, and the AT&T HD is clearly inferior to the PQ I used to have.  Can't blame that on a POS TV or anti-AT&T conspiracy theories.  I must agree with one of the posts that said U-verse is good, but if they really want to make it great, improve the HD PQ.

[wase4711_1]

its interesting to see how so many people are not happy with the HD pq lately, yet so many think its really good..

I left 4 months ago for the same reason, and very happy with my HD PQ on Comcast now.. 

[hpmsrm]

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SomeJoe7777 wrote:

Do not claim that the compression is not the issue, that's simply wrong.  The picture artifacts that are visible are a direct result of the compression, period, end of story.  The fact that some customers don't see them is irrelevant.

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Don't know that I completely agree but that's not the point I want to make.   I don't think I've ever claimed I did not see SOME compression effects.  What I have said over and over is that upon direct comparison with OTA I see no difference.  The same picture faults are present in the OTA signals.  So it has always been my position that UV gets more blame than is deserved.

[CGI_1]

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hpmsrm wrote:

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SomeJoe7777 wrote:

Do not claim that the compression is not the issue, that's simply wrong.  The picture artifacts that are visible are a direct result of the compression, period, end of story.  The fact that some customers don't see them is irrelevant.

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Don't know that I completely agree but that's not the point I want to make.   I don't think I've ever claimed I did not see SOME compression effects.  What I have said over and over is that upon direct comparison with OTA I see no difference.  The same picture faults are present in the OTA signals.  So it has always been my position that UV gets more blame than is deserved.

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But this is subjective isnt it? Isnt it a fact that OTA has more bitrate and thus less artifacts? I think the blame is warranted since AT&T chose to compress their signal so much.

OTA was and is a far better HD picture than ANY service provider I have had (Directv, Charter, Uverse). As a matter of fact when friends come over to watch the football games, I swith to OTA.

[wase4711_1]

I agree with CGI 1000%...there is NO BETTER HD picture than OTA, and I have had EVERY PROVIDER, starting with VOOM 10 years ago, through Direct, Dish, Uverse, Comcast, you name it, I have had them..

VOOM and OTA are/were the best, uncompressed signals, without a doubt...

Message Edited by wase4711 on 11-20-2009 07:24 AM

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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hpmsrm wrote:

I don't think I've ever claimed I did not see SOME compression effects.  What I have said over and over is that upon direct comparison with OTA I see no difference.  The same picture faults are present in the OTA signals.  So it has always been my position that UV gets more blame than is deserved.

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I wasn't aiming any of that at you -- it was at that one poster whom I quoted who had posted what I considered misinformation.

I also have compared U-Verse with OTA and yes, there are faults in the OTA signal that you can see are replicated in the U-Verse signal.  So does UV get more blame than is deserved?  In some cases, yes.  However, I also notice a crispness with OTA that is lost with the UV signal, so I believe there are additional compression artifacts being introduced by UV as well.

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CGI wrote:

But this is subjective isnt it? Isnt it a fact that OTA has more bitrate and thus less artifacts? I think the blame is warranted since AT&T chose to compress their signal so much.

OTA was and is a far better HD picture than ANY service provider I have had (Directv, Charter, Uverse). As a matter of fact when friends come over to watch the football games, I swith to OTA.

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You can't directly compare bitrates from UV and OTA, because UV is H.264 and OTA is MPEG-2.  H.264 is about twice as efficient.  Another way to look at it is that H.264 should provide a picture indistinguishable from MPEG-2 at half the MPEG-2 bitrate.  However, if OTA is coming through at 16 Mbps, that means that UV should be using 8 Mbps H.264 to look identical, but they're not, they're using 6 Mbps.

OTA is indeed probably the best picture we can get from a broadcaster, although DirecTV can give it a run for the money.

[stonecrd]

Frankly I hope that more carriers like Comcast and DirectTV continue to push HDPQ as a superior aspect to their service. Direct was pushing out HDLite a couple of years ago when they lacked the birds to get the badnwidth they needed. It now looks like they fixed it. My fear would be that they all decide that PQ is less desirable than bandwidth and they all start going down hill. I don't have a ton of issues with my Uverse PQ but it is not as good as OTA or cable but then I also had a lot of issue with OTA and cable being down due to the weather is S. Fl and I have had not problems with UV in that regards. So for me slightly less crisp PQ is still better than no service.

Message Edited by stonecrd on 11-23-2009 09:55 AM

[barco13]

Sorry, but I have to comment as well The main reason I left Uverse 2 weeks ago was what I considered to be a less than satisfactory HD picture, sound drop issues, plus my year of incentives was ending.  I still use Uverse for phone & internet, but have switched back to satellite for TV.  On the first day after my install last year, I searched this forum for information regarding HD picture issues.  There were a lot of people that provided useful information such as the HDnet test pattern.  For anybody that is new to the service, here are some observations I have:

1.  Your HD quality will depend on where you came from.  Coming from a crisp HD satellite picture I was disappointed; however, there were some cool features I enjoyed about Uverse (dvr, on demand, etc)  My friend came from Comcast and thought the picture was a slight improvement.  He is now on a dish and says it is great.  The main issues I had were backgrounds.  Football is the one thing I watch a lot of.  The grass moves with Uverse (or at least on my junky Sony XBR).  If I was watching the news or a show on TV the picture was mostly good except for occasional picture freezes.  I could never correct this with any setting so my opinion was that this was due to Uverses compression.

2.  I will try any service once because I believe in competition.  I thought the incentives were great.  What drove me over the edge was the sound drop issues I started experiencing and ATT's lack of acknowledgment/ownership of this issue--they actually wanted me to pay to have somebody come out to my house to check my stereo receiver.

3.  I found the DVR software to not have as many options as I would like, mainly the # of episodes to record--I would think they would update this soon so it probably won't be an issue.

4.  I think there are people out there for whatever reason that maybe have new wiring in their homes, a great signal etc. . Maybe some luck that are very satisfied with their HD picture.  I think that is great; however, that was not me.  When my incentives ran out, I felt like I was paying way too much to test a new product.

[Scott53]

Oh for gosh sakes just go buy a better TV!  My HD is  just fine.........

[wase4711_1]

Pretty silly answer...

My tv was $5,000 and the hd pictures still SUCKED with Uverse..

Maybe spending 10 grand would have made a difference???

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

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wase4711 wrote:

Pretty silly answer...

My tv was $5,000 and the hd pictures still SUCKED with Uverse..

Maybe spending 10 grand would have made a difference???

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$15,000 would have given you a pristine HD picture!

[wase4711_1]

if only I would have known....where were ya, when I needed to know this???