Explorer
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29 Messages
Is the receiver truly this crippled?!?
I'm now slightly under a week away from installation, and played with a friend's U-verse box last night for a couple of hours. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't seriously underwhelmed and disappointed.
Problem #1: no apparent way to tell the box, "Show me content in its native format" -- ie, leave 1080i60 as 1080i60, and 720p60 as 720p60. The box seemed determined to force everything to one or the other. Is there truly no way to force it to be native?
At the very least, do discrete remote codes exist to directly select 720p60/1080i60/480i60, or can you program macros on a thirdparty remote to quickly and deterministically blast through the menus and change?
Problem #2: no apparent way to hide SD shadows of HD channels... or even visually distinguish HD from SD in search results without actually clicking on each result one at a time to see whether it's HD or SD. Can you at least go in and set up a list of favorite channels by hand (to reduce the size of the realtime tv guide), and is there a way to search for programs that limits itself to either channels in that 'favorite' list, or only shows HD channels?
Along the same lines, does the box perhaps cooperate with a Logitech Revue to improve things a bit? I have one that I haven't really bothered with lately (it ended up being more of an annoyance than anything), but if it can shake hands with AT&T''s box and improve it, that would be an option worth considering.
On the other hand, does the box and AT&T have an official or reverse-engineered API for searching/grabbing program data in XML format over the internet (or directly from the box over tcp/ip), and/or any way to directly do things like change output resolution/mode via TCP/IP, so that thirdparty Android apps could work around and overcome its limitations?
skeeterintexas
ACE - Expert
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27.7K Messages
12 years ago
Here's what I don't get: I've got 3 HD tvs (37"-15"). My nephew has a larger HD TV (42") plus a few smaller ones for the kids. He's a real techno-nerd. We both have Uverse. He doesn't seem to have a problem with what's broadcast or the ratio or the whatever.
My daughter & SIL have a 72" (ridiculous IMO) and they now have Verison Fios and previously had TWC. There's never been any comment about quality or ratio or whatever.
But perhaps I only know I D I O T S when it comes to this stuff and we just ain't smart enough to know any better.
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oz_1
Master
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4.2K Messages
12 years ago
I guess I am thankful my Panasonic 55ST50 can handle what I throw at it source wise
OTA or Uverse content looks pretty amazing second only to Blue-Ray content.
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SA_TX
Contributor
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3 Messages
12 years ago
I think everyone is being way too harsh on the original poster. He simply wants an easier way to toggle between 720p and 1080i outputs, knowing he can minimize transcoding artifacts if he delivers native format to his TV. Ideally, this should be automated. I think it's a great idea.
A programmable remote might be able to capture the multiple steps needed to switch between settings, but I haven't tried it myself. Let us know if you're successful and if the output results are significant.
I think future receivers should eventually have that functionality. Do the competitors' products do that today?
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bitbang3r
Explorer
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29 Messages
12 years ago
^^^ Thank you. Finally, somebody Gets It, even if AT&T sadly doesn't. 😉
Personally, I wish STBs would strike a compromise and add an option to leave the TV in the current resolution/framerate mode when changing channels (to avoid the 3-5 second blackouts that occur when changing modes), but display an icon (maybe a red exclamation point that's sheared apart with comb artifacts or something to make it obvious what it's indicating) in a corner for a few seconds if the channel's native format doesn't match the box's current output mode... then disappear. To switch the box to the content's native mode, you'd triple-press the center select/ok button. Or if it had a cheap accelerometer, maybe press and hold the select/ok button, then pivot the remote back and forth a few times like a windshield wiper until it took the hint and triggered the "switch the box to the content's native mode" function.
That way, people who genuinely don't notice the artifacts (like my Mom) could just change the channel and watch TV, but people like me could surf around without modechange delays, THEN lock in the proper and optimal video mode for actual viewing.
(addressing others)
Insofar as my TV goes, the unfortunate fact is that it was an extraordinarily high-end TV purchased in 2007, which means that it's simultaneously very, very good at deinterlacing and making native 1080i60 and 720p60 content look good, but it's a very brittle victory that falls apart the moment you feed it poorly-transcoded content.
New 120hz and 240hz TVs aren't as sensitive to the problem, because they don't actually HAVE to deinterlace their content the way older LCD and DLP TVs have to... they basically render each field repeatedly while fading and blending them the same way a real CRT used to. Except they look a lot better, because they ALSO do light deinterlacing and selective bobbing to avoid interline flicker of narrow horizontal details.
This is part of the reason why true plasma TVs looked so much better than LCDs until fairly recently, and why 120Hz plasma TVs look about as good as 240hz LCD and DLP TVs... they have their own phosphor persistence and fade, so they don't literally have to emulate the fade and blend from start to finish. Unfortunately, plasma was out of the question for me, because you CAN NOT safely do extended pillarboxing or letterboxing with a plasma TV, and distorted aspect ratios bother me even more than mismatched resolution (the manufacturers lie... give me a "burn-proof" plasma TV, and I guarantee I can leave it with visible burn-in scars after a single weekend).
Anyway, I went down my list of favorite channels, and it looks like all but one are 1080i60, so I'll probably be able to tolerate making a pair of macros to switch the box back and forth between 720p60 and 1080i60 output. Besides, now I have a bigger crisis to agonize over right now... carrier-grade NAT, and AT&T's apparent plans to impose it in the immediate future. Sigh. Sometimes, I envy people like my brother (who'll happily surf the net from a laptop that's so pwn3d and infected, you'd have to wear a biohazard suit to touch it... completely oblivous to problems like NAT traversal and ipv6).
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oz_1
Master
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4.2K Messages
12 years ago
All CRT's and Plasma's are subject to mild IR and if the contrast and brightness are not set to torch mode IR will not turn into burn in but go away very quickly and unless you are looking at solid color slides it would be hard to detect.
I have only seen two sets that come close to plasma quality and that was the new Elite's and Sony Hx 929 both cost over twice as much in comparable size to the ST,GT and VT Panasonics which are the current leaders in flat panel shoot outs.
Of course if you throw budget out the window and can afford JVC's DILA projector and Draper Screen then you have what I call the ultimate HT.
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