Poor HD quality & DVR disappointment

Terry R. · ‎10-29-2010

I see quite a few posts on poor HD quality here, but I had to add yet another.

I have been a Uverse customer for less than two weeks. After finding many things not offered on Uverse (no slo-mo, really?), I think I hit a wall. The NBA season started the day we were connected. The HD looks only slightly better than SD, especially when compared to what we had with Dish (someone here told me Uverse had the best SD. I can see boasting about that now in light of lousy HD). I've had two friends over in the past week to watch a game, and both commented on how the games were so crystal clear LAST season. I didn't even mention we had a new system. They remembered how impressed they were watching games, and both said the motion was not smooth now, and when asked to replay something in slo-mo, I had to tell them I'm with Uverse. There is no "WOW factor" in our HD now. It makes our fantastic Sony TV look like a Target special.

I thought the occasional pixelation on Dish during bad weather was frustrating. I've had more DVR audio/video glitches in this 10 days than we had all year with Dish. Audio glitches that take out portions of conversations, video lapses that lose 5 to 10 seconds of programming (not cool during a sports game). What is that all about? I've called my "tech" installer twice and he hasn't returned my calls (he told me to call him rather than ATT). Probably because he knows there is nothing he can do about the HD quality.

And to top it off, three of our most watched weekend channels went away last night. FoodTV, DIY, HGTV. Gone. Lovely thing to find out on the 2nd Saturday of your new service.

I hate change. I moved from Dish after 11 years because of programming issues. Now I get the same crud with Uverse in less than two weeks. And poor HD to boot. After reading dozens of other posts on this subject, this is something customers have to live with.

hpmsrm · ‎09-14-2009

Sorry to hear that you are having problems. We too have a Sony....the 55" SXRD....and our HD quality is sharp, realistic color and excellent gray scale from near-white to black. We have the capability to do direct comparison with over-the-air picture quality and the Uverse HD quality is just as good as what we see directly from the local stations. We have an off-brand 19" 720p HDTV in the kitchen and it is also super sharp and clean HD from Uverse.

Have you noticed the post at the top of this section regarding some easy steps to calibrate your TV for best results on Uverse? Many of us have reported improved images after following the procedure suggested by SomeJoe7777.

Regarding the missing channels that were recently dropped......

I suspect they'll be back. It's the old story of the program supplier wanting to charge a lot more than the carrier wants to pay. The negotiations will probably continue. If the cost of the program services keep going up you know who's going to get stuck in the end. The subscribers.

Regarding the dropouts and pixelation problem. Yes...I've been told before to just call the tech who came to our home and I have never had one of them return the call. So your best bet is to contact customer service using the phone number in my sig. This number will get you right through to a person without all the recorded messages, etc. At least it did for me the last time I used it. Sounds like they need to get someone back out to your home and do some more checking on incoming lines and cables & connections in the house. We've been subscribers since December of 2007 and we rarely experience these symptoms. I won't say NEVER.....especially where CBS is concerned....but it's pretty rare.

Need help? Call AT&T at: 1-800-288-2020 then follow recorded instructions.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

Terry R. · ‎10-29-2010

hpmsrm wrote:
Sorry to hear that you are having problems. We too have a Sony....the 55" SXRD....and our HD quality is sharp, realistic color and excellent gray scale from near-white to black. We have the capability to do direct comparison with over-the-air picture quality and the Uverse HD quality is just as good as what we see directly from the local stations. We have an off-brand 19" 720p HDTV in the kitchen and it is also super sharp and clean HD from Uverse.
Have you noticed the post at the top of this section regarding some easy steps to calibrate your TV for best results on Uverse? Many of us have reported improved images after following the procedure suggested by SomeJoe7777.

Regarding the missing channels that were recently dropped......
I suspect they'll be back. It's the old story of the program supplier wanting to charge a lot more than the carrier wants to pay. The negotiations will probably continue. If the cost of the program services keep going up you know who's going to get stuck in the end. The subscribers.

Regarding the dropouts and pixelation problem. Yes...I've been told before to just call the tech who came to our home and I have never had one of them return the call. So your best bet is to contact customer service using the phone number in my sig. This number will get you right through to a person without all the recorded messages, etc. At least it did for me the last time I used it. Sounds like they need to get someone back out to your home and do some more checking on incoming lines and cables & connections in the house. We've been subscribers since December of 2007 and we rarely experience these symptoms. I won't say NEVER.....especially where CBS is concerned....but it's pretty rare.

Thank you for the reply. I too had time to compare, since I didn't disconnect Dish service until 5 days after install. The direct comparison was shocking, really. I (we) thought HD was HD. Boy was I wrong. I also thought a DVR is a DVR. But the Dish DVR is superior. The only thing I've seen that is nice on the Uverse DVR is that I can pick up a recorded program where it was left off when pushing "Last", as with Dish I had to go to the recorded shows and press "Resume". But not having a fast, "All Channel/All HD/All Subscribed" view list, and no slow motion really makes the Uverse DVR more like a VCR.

I understand about the lost channels. Those were in my list of "must haves" when signing with Uverse, and no one mentioned the dispute when I was making sure those channels were available.

I don't see any phone number in your sig. Am I missing it?

Thanks again.

Terry R. · ‎10-29-2010

hpmsrm wrote:
Many of us have reported improved images after following the procedure suggested by SomeJoe7777.

Also, I clicked on several links regarding the suggestions by SomeJoe7777, but all of them take me to the Community home page and not directly to the link. I've tried searching the name, but too many to locate the exact post.

hpmsrm · ‎09-14-2009

I removed the number because "suddenly" it became a non-working number. Just discovered that yesterday. So we're stuck with the old numbers. You might try 800-983-2811. On the subscriber's manual they gave me at time of installation that number is on a label stuck to the front cover.

It IS strange that some folks have really great HD quality from Uverse and others do not. I'm a stickler for picture quality....a serious photographer for most of my life. Our HD is razor sharp. On those occasions when I've viewed HD TV on my oldest son's 50" LG plasma it looks about equal to SD. He has Time Warner cable service so I don't know if it's his TV or the cable company that is lacking. But it sure doesn't look HD to me after what I'm used to viewing from our Uverse service.

In addition to the previously suggested calibration procedure you might download SomeJoe7777's "Uverse Realtime" application....install it.....run it....and post screen captures of the results. We have guys on this forum who can then give you some idea of where your problem might be. (don't look at me...I'm a dunce) Also you might contact DAVID. He heads up a team of tier 2 techs who try to help out with difficult problems. You can find information on him and a number at the top of the "lounge" section of this Uverse forum. They've helped a lot of folks.

As you've certainly already discovered......all HD channels are grouped above 1000. SD channels are below 1000. If you wish you could go to the options menu and use the channel options to hide all the SD channels. Then you would not have to see them in your guide. This doesn't make them inexcessible as they can be brought up by keying in the proper channel number on your remote. It just makes them disappear from the guide. I've done this, for example, to most religious & all rock music, country and western noise and children's channels as we have zero interest in them.

RE slow motion. Well....yeah...that one's missing. Not a loss to us but I can see where big time sports fans might consider it a necessity. As for claiming that the Uverse DVR is no better than a VCR.....well, we've got both and I totally disagree with you on that.

Then...too....if all else fails there is always just going back to your previous provider. I'm sure that is what my wife and I would do if we ever became thoroughly dissatisfied with our Uverse service.

Sorry about the bad phone number. That one caught me by surprise and I didn't get it removed from my sig. until last night.

Need help? Call AT&T at: 1-800-288-2020 then follow recorded instructions.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

SomeJoe7777 · ‎01-30-2008

Terry R. wrote:

Also, I clicked on several links regarding the suggestions by SomeJoe7777, but all of them take me to the Community home page and not directly to the link. I've tried searching the name, but too many to locate the exact post.

Use the links in my signature, they have been updated. Due to the inept forum move by Lithium, all links posted in older threads no longer work correctly.

wcleve1 · ‎10-03-2010

I've given up on Uverse TV and will be returning to DirecTV shortly. We had DirecTV for a decade before making the change to UVerse (due to perceived savings with a bundled UVerse plan). As it turns out, returning to DirecTV won't cost us any more than the TV portion of the UVerse package. But the reduction in problems will be a relief. When I first looked into UVerse, and based on what was said by UVerse technicians, I had the mistaken impression there was a connection between DirecTV and UVerse TV for the television portion of the service. There isn't. These are two distinct technologies designed to accomplish the same thing.

But that’s the problem. They don't accomplish the same thing. My experience with UVerse TV, in the few weeks I've tolerated them, has convinced me that UVerse TV isn't really ready for prime time. I've experienced numerous reception and equipment problems and have had 5 service calls during the first month of service including upgrading wiring and a replacement HD/DVR. AT&T's Support tried to help but was limited in scope (see below) and I think it's a lost cause. I still get dropouts, freezes, sound sync and pixelation problems. The HD/DVR receiver is among the worst pieces of television technology I've used. The interface is inferior to DirecTV on practically all counts. You practically need a rifle sight on the remote in order to be reasonably sure - but never completely sure - that the button(s) you press will be interpreted properly by the receiver (curiously the non-DVR receivers work better in this regard). Documentation is so simplistic it’s nearly useless. Simple tasks are inordinately complicated. DirecTV had (has) its problems too but none to this level of severity. There are enough peripheral issues to fill a small novel. Suffice to say, I'm tired of feeling like Sisyphus while trying to get UVerse TV to work the way it should.

I'm putting these comments here because AT&T Support provides essentially no feedback options beyond boiler-plate surveys and comment forms that may or may not get to the right people. E-Mail support appears non-existent. Telephone support appears heavily dependent on scripted sets of questions and responses. Service techs, while courteous and diligent, have told me nonsensical things when they can't provide solutions. Did you know that the HD Receiver remote can fail because of excess IR from the TV (!?) and that if the room is too bright it overloads the remote's IR signal (What the frak?). The TV, BTW, is a Panasonic TH-50PZ800U plasma which works superbly with other inputs. The most help has come from posts in user forums but customers from a company as large as AT&T shouldn't have to laboriously search for answers in forums nor should they have to resort to doing their own troubleshooting. Technology flaws are bad enough but having limited support options is throwing salt in the wound.

I would be very hesitant to recommend UVerse TV to anyone and I'm dropping this part of our UVerse package to slow the growth of more gray hairs, of which I already have a full head.

vincentfam · ‎12-22-2008

Terry R.,

IMHO, through my experience, which is extensive, I observed and evaluated Uverse's picture quality and compared it to other services either personally obtained or via family and friends' cable service. In my opinion, depending on your location, etc., Uverse PQ is slightly lower than other services. As hard as I tried, I never achieved that "crystal clear" picture that others boast about. Even rewired by own house and purchased another newer hdtv. On occasion, depending on which compressed uverse channel that is on tv, uverse PQ delivered the "wow factor", but too few and far between. Is my picture perfect? The answer is a qualified yes. Qualified because it is something that I simply gotten used to. Why do I not switch services? My wife loves uverse and doesn't care about PQ.

Good luck in your adventure in obtaining true picture quality and thank you for your post.

Vincentfam, no longer the hermit

Terry R. · ‎10-29-2010

vincentfam wrote:
Terry R.,

IMHO, through my experience, which is extensive, I observed and evaluated Uverse's picture quality and compared it to other services either personally obtained or via family and friends' cable service. In my opinion, depending on your location, etc., Uverse PQ is slightly lower than other services. As hard as I tried, I never achieved that "crystal clear" picture that others boast about. Even rewired by own house and purchased another newer hdtv. On occasion, depending on which compressed uverse channel that is on tv, uverse PQ delivered the "wow factor", but too few and far between. Is my picture perfect? The answer is a qualified yes. Qualified because it is something that I simply gotten used to. Why do I not switch services? My wife loves uverse and doesn't care about PQ.

Good luck in your adventure in obtaining true picture quality and thank you for your post.

Vincentfam, no longer the hermit

Hi Vincent,

Thanks for your reply. After going through two weeks now of NBA games, I realized that Uverse has a long way to go in the HD area. It is just unacceptable to have the pixelation around players as they move around when watching the full court. Close ups are OK, but action viewing is too poor.

I'm looking into getting the basic package back from Dish for only the HD TV, and possibly using Uverse for the other two TV's. If I can balance out the cost, that seems like the only way to get the HD quality that every user deserves.

I'm surprised that this issue hasn't raised more complaints from users. Maybe like you, people feel it's "good enough", or they just don't notice it. It stands out to my family and friends. Maybe it's because ATT seems more interested in users being able to watch TV from their 4" cellphone screens than improving the quality that is sorely missing on a 52" screen. My eyes deserve better.

993deck · ‎08-06-2009

Terry R-I left U-verse TV this past July due to the poor HD picture quality (I kept U-verse phone and internet). There are those on this forum who have had no problems with their HD PQ and others like you and I who have have had problems. I put up with poor HD for a little over 11 months, going through all the suggested fixes (calibrations, service calls, etc.) to no avail. Frankly, when I spend $1800 (on sale) for a current model HD TV I expect excellent picture quality and do not expect to have to rely on a peer-to-peer forum to get help adjusting that picture quality when a service technician(s) cannot fix the problem. I switched to DirecTv and my HD picture quality is excellent, far superior to U-verse and that is without "tweaking" anything. I have no idea where the problem lies with U-verse, whether it is equipment, wiring, or technology itself, but there is definitely a problem that needs correcting. On a side note, I noticed yesterday for the first time that I had no pixelation problems on my HD TV when my wife used the coffee grinder in the kitchen. With U-verse TV, when she ran the coffee grinder the picture would pixelate terribly until she turned the switch off. I have heard of treadmills causing U-verse pixelation, but ours didn't bother the TV, only the coffee grinder. Perhaps those of us who have had problems with HD PQ are having those problems due to electrical interference within the WHDVR/STB boxes.

mibrnsurg · ‎07-15-2008

Terry R. wrote:

After going through two weeks now of NBA games, I realized that Uverse has a long way to go in the HD area. It is just unacceptable to have the pixelation around players as they move around when watching the full court. Close ups are OK, but action viewing is too poor.

I'm looking into getting the basic package back from Dish for only the HD TV, and possibly using Uverse for the other two TV's. If I can balance out the cost, that seems like the only way to get the HD quality that every user deserves.

I'm surprised that this issue hasn't raised more complaints from users. Maybe like you, people feel it's "good enough", or they just don't notice it. It stands out to my family and friends. Maybe it's because ATT seems more interested in users being able to watch TV from their 4" cellphone screens than improving the quality that is sorely missing on a 52" screen. My eyes deserve better.

Maybe it's because users do not see that pixelization that you see. Here on my 42" Panasonic plasma hockey, basketball, Nascar Sprint Cut and Nationwide races are clear during movement.

My viewing conditions:

I have a 42" Panasonic plasma w/an anti reflective screen and 480hz sub field drive. I use 4 different TV picture settings (3 customized, 2 for lightening dark shows/scenes) on HDMI. I sit at the far viewing distance (3 x diagonal distance-10.5') as that's the way my apartment lays out. All cat5e/ethernet patch cable install.

Essentially the artifacts I see are 'football grass' slight movement and increasingly fewer backgrounds 'moving slightly'.

I'd contact David and his tier2 team here:

http://www.uverseusers.com/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=36&id=david

Follow the directions under TROUBLES w/UVerse or install problems and hopefully they will solve your pixelization problem, good luck.

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, Press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

ram1220 · ‎10-05-2008

Or maybe some of you just haven't seen good HD. Or have just accepted the poor HD PQ from Uverse. But saying that others do not see that pixelization is wrong. There are many many reports of poor HD PQ here in this forum. So yes there are others that see the problem. And from my experience AT&T Uverse HD PQ is the worst I have ever had. Voom was the best and DirecTv was next. Dish I have never had nor have I have TWC or Comcast. But Uverse is clearly the worst. No pun intended.

mibrnsurg wrote:

Maybe it's because users do not see that pixelization that you see. Here on my 42" Panasonic plasma hockey, basketball, Nascar Sprint Cut and Nationwide races are clear during movement.

My viewing conditions:
I have a 42" Panasonic plasma w/an anti reflective screen and 480hz sub field drive. I use 4 different TV picture settings (3 customized, 2 for lightening dark shows/scenes) on HDMI. I sit at the far viewing distance (3 x diagonal distance-10.5') as that's the way my apartment lays out. All cat5e/ethernet patch cable install.

Essentially the artifacts I see are 'football grass' slight movement and increasingly fewer backgrounds 'moving slightly'.

I'd contact David and his tier2 team here:

http://www.uverseusers.com/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=36&id=david

Follow the directions under TROUBLES w/UVerse or install problems and hopefully they will solve your pixelization problem, good luck.

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, Press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

SomeJoe7777 · ‎01-30-2008

Out of Voom and DirecTV, yes, U-Verse is going to lose that battle in terms of PQ. But U-Verse isn't the worst I've seen. They're still better than Comcast, at least here in the Houston area.

michail77 · ‎09-21-2010

Ah, Voom. Those were the days

But I wonder if mibrnsurg has some sort of mpeg noise/artifact reduction on that Panasonic? I'd sure love to do something to not be able to see the U-verse encoders failing so often.

They must have stats or something on those Motorola encoders to indicate how often they are clipping data.

SomeJoe7777 · ‎01-30-2008

There's several different measurements you can apply to an H.264 stream to gauge it's quality.

One thing I've done is attempt to recompress the stream to H.264 again, using the freeware x264.exe program. You can have this program compress at a fixed quality level, and then look at the resulting bitrate. This gives you a real good idea of how much detail is actually present in the picture.

When I've tried this on footage from a really good Blu-Ray, like Saving Private Ryan or I, Robot, a quality level of 22 (which is perceptually slightly below the original quality level on these two discs) results in a bitrate in the 12 - 14 Mbps range. (It's actually higher on Saving Private Ryan due to film grain, but we'll ignore that here).

Doing the same thing on a U-Verse 1080i HD feed results in bitrates in the 4-5 Mbps range, so you can infer that the U-Verse feed has around 1/3 of the detail level of these Blu-Rays.

oufanindallas · ‎02-08-2010

ram1220 wrote:
Or maybe some of you just haven't seen good HD. Or have just accepted the poor HD PQ from Uverse. But saying that others do not see that pixelization is wrong. There are many many reports of poor HD PQ here in this forum. So yes there are others that see the problem. And from my experience AT&T Uverse HD PQ is the worst I have ever had. Voom was the best and DirecTv was next. Dish I have never had nor have I have TWC or Comcast. But Uverse is clearly the worst. No pun intended.
mibrnsurg wrote:

Maybe it's because users do not see that pixelization that you see. Here on my 42" Panasonic plasma hockey, basketball, Nascar Sprint Cut and Nationwide races are clear during movement.

My viewing conditions:
I have a 42" Panasonic plasma w/an anti reflective screen and 480hz sub field drive. I use 4 different TV picture settings (3 customized, 2 for lightening dark shows/scenes) on HDMI. I sit at the far viewing distance (3 x diagonal distance-10.5') as that's the way my apartment lays out. All cat5e/ethernet patch cable install.

Essentially the artifacts I see are 'football grass' slight movement and increasingly fewer backgrounds 'moving slightly'.

I'd contact David and his tier2 team here:

http://www.uverseusers.com/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=36&id=david

Follow the directions under TROUBLES w/UVerse or install problems and hopefully they will solve your pixelization problem, good luck.

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, Press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

Chris is correct, not everyone experiences the same issues. I have great HD. I've had Dish, Direct, TWC and UVerse and my UVerse is every bit as good as the others.

” Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports … all others are games.”- Ernest Hemingway

vincentfam · ‎12-22-2008

A solution?

Terry R.,

For your pixeling, a solution that worked for me is: Take some pliers and tighten as much as you can the fittings on the splitter, if you have more than one tv on uverse. Loose fittings, at least on my system, cause the pixeling. When I ultimately tire of uverse services, I plan on loosening the fittings to cause pixeling in the hope of aggravating the wife and thusly convincing her to switch services. However, I am not that devious, . . . yet.

Vincentfam, no longer the hermit.

mibrnsurg · ‎07-15-2008

michail77 wrote:

Ah, Voom. Those were the days

But I wonder if mibrnsurg has some sort of mpeg noise/artifact reduction on that Panasonic? I'd sure love to do something to not be able to see the U-verse encoders failing so often.

They must have stats or something on those Motorola encoders to indicate how often they are clipping data.

Funny, I do have an MPEG NR setting, on/off gives the exact same picture.

But, the most important items in my viewing conditions:

1. 42" Panasonic plasma-of all consumer main line electronics, Panasonic has continually had some of the best electronics in it's TVs. Also 42" is about optimum for Uverse, larger and you might start seeing more of the artifacts due to compression rates.

2. Picture settings-Even though ATT 'solved' the crushed black problem, I had to remove the washed out look in my lightening settings and still use them today on dark scenes/programs. The dark areas are where the backgrounds do the wiggle due to compression.

3. Sit at the far viewing distance-3 x diagonal measure of the TV.

4. All cat5e/ethernet patch cable install-it either works or doesn't, no multitude of coax problems to deal w/causing pixelization/freezes.

Again I have very good HD under these conditions. I do not see pixelization during scene changes or during sports/racing listed in my first post.

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, Press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

ram1220 · ‎10-05-2008

I am looking to get a bigger TV for my living room. I now have a 32" LCD. I am seriously thinking of a Panasonic Plasma 42". I have always liked Panasonic items. I really wish I didn't have the poor Uverse HD PQ here. But I do. And I know it's not my TV because I have had other HD services using the same TV and they have looked great. I also have an OTA antenna hooked up to this 32" TV and the picture looks great. It's a problem with Uverse.

I am glad some of you don't have a problem. But many of us do. I honestly don't feel it will improve until AT&T ups the bitrate. And I don't want to go back to DirecTV. But if I see that same poor HD PQ on my new TV I will be going back to the dark side.

Bob

Terry R. · ‎10-29-2010

ram1220 wrote:
I am looking to get a bigger TV for my living room. I now have a 32" LCD. I am seriously thinking of a Panasonic Plasma 42". I have always liked Panasonic items. I really wish I didn't have the poor Uverse HD PQ here. But I do. And I know it's not my TV because I have had other HD services using the same TV and they have looked great. I also have an OTA antenna hooked up to this 32" TV and the picture looks great. It's a problem with Uverse.
I am glad some of you don't have a problem. But many of us do. I honestly don't feel it will improve until AT&T ups the bitrate. And I don't want to go back to DirecTV. But if I see that same poor HD PQ on my new TV I will be going back to the dark side.

Bob

Bob,

If you see the poor quality on your 32", getting a higher quality 42" will only make it worse, I'm sure. I have a 52" Sony, and what used to be amazing HD on Dish now is only so-so on Uverse. If I was to rate HD quality, Dish would get a 98 and Uverse would only get 60. Not impressed at all.

michail77 · ‎09-21-2010

Sometimes I wonder if we might be getting different feeds but from what I understand is all national channels share the same multicast stream.

Perhaps Chris is in a market where they are experimenting?

mibrnsurg · ‎07-15-2008

michail77 wrote:

Sometimes I wonder if we might be getting different feeds but from what I understand is all national channels share the same multicast stream.

Perhaps Chris is in a market where they are experimenting?

Nope, that's usually Austin, TX.

Just happens my viewing conditions give me a very good HD picture. Being 400' from the VRAD gives me a very stable signal, not causing any problems.

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, Press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

Terry R. · ‎10-29-2010

Well, after three service calls and many wasted hours sitting around waiting, today I was finally told there isn't anything more that can be done to improve the HD quality. ATT admitted there is an HD problem (even Last Chance Support admitted it), yet they said some don't seem to experience it. I'm sure many don't watch HD sports action or they have a smaller screen TV, so the issue probably slips by undetected.

The service people all want to make sure I rate them highly. While I don't have a problem with the people I've dealt with (other than the door to door rep and phone rep that both told me On Demand covered local channel series shows), it's hard to rate someone when what you want accomplished fails multiple times. Very disappointed.

vincentfam · ‎12-22-2008

Terry R.:

You may think that you have wasted your time in trying to obtain quality uverse HD. But your experience is not wasted. Rather, you have confirmed our long known suspicions that uverse quality is below other services. You need not fret any further. Just know that I soon will be joining you in the search and switch to better quality service.

Your friend in HD quality,

Vincentfam, no longer the hermit.

vincentfam · ‎12-22-2008

You know, this is the first time that I noticed that my uverse icon is designated as a skunk. Perhaps because of my critique of uverse quality. Not only am I insulted, that icon guarantees that by January 2011 I will no longer be a uverse customer. To whom ever thought it was funny, . . . thanks.

Vincentfam

wendigo · ‎02-12-2009

No one has the power to change your icon. What probably happened is that it was reset during the merger. Feel free to change it to something less stinky.

-Wendy

vincentfam · ‎12-22-2008

Wendy,

Your comment is more insultive than the first. You are using a phrase for me to change the icon into a "less stinky," but "stinky" nonetheless, which isn't proper to use in describing a "customer." You could have instead said "change the icon into something else." I hope that this is amusing to you, as an administrator, as indicated by your "smiling face" at the end of your comment. I will not file a complaint, I will not do a follow up, etc., just know that by January 2011 I will no longer be a uverse customer. It's the principle of the matter.

Vincentfam

cheffjeff · ‎11-23-2010

I have been a Uverse customer for over a week and I am extremely unhappy with the HD Picture quality. Having had both Comcast & Directv expertly installed to my two high-end tv's, I can uneqivocally state that U-Verse's picture quality is way sub-par. After two service calls, and one long conversation after another, I have come to the conclusion that this is way it is and I "either must deal or switch providers"

This is upsetting as now I have to switch services, cancel the bundle and waste more time & money dealing with this. Comcast was cancelled because of horrid equipment and service, directv was cancelled because of a move, now U-verse will be cancelled after only a week because it renders my 3,000$ LED pointless. Guess I'll be going back to directv, at least I'll get a non-overly compressed HD picture.

I mean, AT&T quit advertising your HD service as:

"Spectacular Crystal Clear Signal

You'll be amazed at the sharper, crisper, and detailed pictures. Visual information on HDTV is up to 6 times more detailed than standard television."

So frustrated. Really, I feel duped, mislead and cheated.

on to the next one....

michail77 · ‎09-21-2010

vincentfam wrote:
Wendy,

Your comment is more insultive than the first. You are using a phrase for me to change the icon into a "less stinky," but "stinky" nonetheless, which isn't proper to use in describing a "customer." You could have instead said "change the icon into something else." I hope that this is amusing to you, as an administrator, as indicated by your "smiling face" at the end of your comment. I will not file a complaint, I will not do a follow up, etc., just know that by January 2011 I will no longer be a uverse customer. It's the principle of the matter.

Vincentfam

I see nothing insulting about about about what Wendy said. U-verse may have some PQ issues but it isn't necessary to take out frustration on the forum moderator.

milkman · ‎03-17-2009

vincentfam wrote:

Wendy,

Your comment is more insultive than the first. You are using a phrase for me to change the icon into a "less stinky," but "stinky" nonetheless, which isn't proper to use in describing a "customer." You could have instead said "change the icon into something else." I hope that this is amusing to you, as an administrator, as indicated by your "smiling face" at the end of your comment. I will not file a complaint, I will not do a follow up, etc., just know that by January 2011 I will no longer be a uverse customer. It's the principle of the matter.

Vincentfam

You have blown a simple sentence way out of proportion. AT&T did not pick, choose or alter your icon. There is no devious plot to mock or destroy your image here at the Forum. The smiley face is a way of showing the humorous intent of Wendy's statement. Not that you personally stint but that skunks themselves stink.

If you wish to leave UV that is your choice. But don't blame a one sentence statement from a Moderator as your reason after many posts complaining of picture quality. Filing a complaint? Really?! Again, that's your choice. But IMHO that would stink.