Nice. 
Hope that the 32/5 profile spreads pretty quick.
SomeJoe7777 wrote:Nice.
Sure will be glad when Houston gets it.
Nothing yet here in Chicagoland except I did see this yesterday if you login to your account then click on account and my products it says this:
"
We have recently enhanced our network which may allow certain upgrades to your AT&T U-verse experience. Please call 1-888-803-2456 for more information."
Whatever that means........
I see that on my account all the time, call it and see what they tell you. Probably upgrades to the RG. 
Chris
Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-983-2811 to avoid Mr. Voice Recognition
YRMV IMHO Simply a U-verse user, nothing more
rhodesep wrote:
32/5 in Pensacola Florida (Mobile AL Market). Watching BCS National Championship Game and Picture is much better not smeared as most football games (compression).
Picture better??? Hmm... game is on ABC, which is always slightly better since the transmission is 720p. But, there is no reason the 32/5 profile in and of itself would make the picture better. It's doubtful ATT is compressing less... yet..
SomeJoe7777 wrote:My bandwidth meter is showing a steady 5.95 Mbps for the BCS championship game on ABC. This is AT&T's standard HD bit rate. The 720p broadcast helps reduce the artifacts, but the bandwidth has not changed.
6Mbs for HD encoded with H.264 seems to be about the bare minimum to be called "HD". I guess this would be "roughly equal" to MPEG2 encoded at about 12Mbs, from what I have read.
Given that the actual source (for local broadcasts) is generally 18-20Mbs MPEG2, it should give people a good idea of what we all are missing.
Joe, do you think ATT will ever try to get the H264 streams up to the 9-10Mbs range, and give us the real HD experience, or will HD-lite be all we ever get? 
gbh62 wrote:
6Mbs for HD encoded with H.264 seems to be about the bare minimum to be called "HD". I guess this would be "roughly equal" to MPEG2 encoded at about 12Mbs, from what I have read.
Given that the actual source (for local broadcasts) is generally 18-20Mbs MPEG2, it should give people a good idea of what we all are missing.
Joe, do you think ATT will ever try to get the H264 streams up to the 9-10Mbs range, and give us the real HD experience, or will HD-lite be all we ever get?
I doubt the overall bitrate will increase much above 6 Mbps, but it's possible. I only have U200, so I don't get any of the premium channels, but other members have posted that the HBO channels are sent at 7.5 Mbps (quality level mandated by HBO). I also observed NFL RedZone come in at 7.5 Mbps one Sunday in October 2009. So, they definitely have the capability of sending higher bitrates if desired.
More likely, we will see an evolution in the encoder technology. There are some techniques they could use that would maximize the use of that available 6 Mbps in a more effective fashion, but doing it requires encoders that have more processing power to be able to "look ahead" in the video stream and determine the best way to allocate the available bitrate. They can also increase the buffer sizes in the STB which will make momentary high bitrates for high-motion scenes more available.
The target, at least in the short term, is more streams rather than more quality. After 32/5 profile is rolled out and 3HD is rolled out, they might look at the new encoders, but I doubt the bitrate will go up much.
