U-Verse Coming!! [Text View]

juhealy

11-02-2007, 02:02 PM

Just got my Tivo HD :) and hooked it up to my Comcast :down: with no issues and loving it.

But...rumor has it that AT&T's U-Verse is coming to my neighborhood. Does anyone know if U-Verse uses cable cards? I am hoping that this would work the same as Verizon's FIOS but I am not sure.

Anyone out there with U-Verse and running a Tivo with Cable Cards?

SCSIRAID

11-02-2007, 02:07 PM

bkdtv

11-02-2007, 02:14 PM

U-Verse uses Microsoft's IPTV implementation. It will not work with anything except the AT&T IPTV box. There are no analog channels and no QAM channels. Nor are there any MPEG-2 channels; U-Verse uses MPEG-4 and downconverts their HD.

U-Verse is not at all comparable to Verizon FiOS. Verizon FiOS uses MPEG-2 on QAM just like any other cable system, albeit without all the space-consuming analog channels. Verizon passes all HD channels through as is from the content provider without any extra compression.

litkaj

11-02-2007, 02:24 PM

Verizon passes all HD channels through as is from the content provider without any extra compression.

That's actually a blessing and a curse. You get great picture quality but the HD recordings eat a ton of space.

TexasGrillChef

11-02-2007, 02:27 PM

That's actually a blessing and a curse. You get great picture quality but the HD recordings eat a ton of space.

Hard Drives are CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP!

Give me the better picture quality. I will buy more HD's if needed!

TGC

SCSIRAID

11-02-2007, 02:41 PM

UVerse boasts a DVR that can record up to 4 simultaneous shows.... BUT.... I believe its only 1 HD show at a time. I cant find a confirming reference at the moment though.

moyekj

11-02-2007, 02:48 PM

UVerse boasts a DVR that can record up to 4 simultaneous shows.... BUT.... I believe its only 1 HD show at a time. I cant find a confirming reference at the moment though. Yes, lots of limitations. Here's a good thread with all the details:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=366398&highlight=UVerse

MichaelK

11-02-2007, 05:45 PM

YUP-

verizon does fiber to the house where ATT does fiber to the general area and still has a bottleneck between the fiber and the box (that if I recall limits it to 1 HD channel at a time PER HOUSE).

When verizon started rolling out their fiber everyone else mocked them that it was stupid and an unnecessary waste and it would take forever to make the money back for running fiber the last mile.

Well looks like verizon got the last laugh because they said in their last conference call they expect their fiber to break even in 2008. I believe that's like less than 3 years since they started deployment outside of trials. There's not too many new technologies that break even in 3 years. Just ask Tivo (only made a profit like 2 quarters) and satellite radio (bleeding money yet without break even in sight - claiming they need to merge to survive). Even DBS took like 6-8 years to break even.

So now verizon will have a next generation infrastructure in place while no one else is even close. Cable will need to move to like it's 3rd generation (or more depending on how you look at it), and even ATT will need to move to their second gen video platform to compete with HD in the future.

MichaelK

11-02-2007, 05:45 PM

man I wish we had verizon here....

20TIL6

11-02-2007, 06:30 PM

Yeah me too. We are regionalized for AT&T service. As such, I am getting blitzed with U-Verse marketing mailers weekly. I wish I could get FiOS. Comcast is doing OK for now, but they don't have the pipes that Verizon has.

I read somewhere that U-Verse is NOT penetrating the market well at all. They show a very low number of subscribers. Meanwhile AT&T continues to dance with the thoughts of acquiring DISH or DTV. So that pretty much tells you what they think of U-Verse themselves.

aaronwt

11-02-2007, 07:20 PM

1 HD channel at a time? :eek:
Sometimes I'm recording 8 HD shows at once.
It looks like U-Verse was still born with those pathetic capabilities.

pmiranda

11-03-2007, 09:04 AM

U-Verse uses Microsoft's IPTV implementation. It will not work with anything except the AT&T IPTV box. There are no analog channels and no QAM channels. Nor are there any MPEG-2 channels; U-Verse uses MPEG-4 and downconverts their HD.

Just because they use MPEG-4 doesn't necessarily mean it's downconverted, but given how sucktacular the service is in other ways, I wouldn't put it past them.
Having said that, it they allowed 2 HD streams per house and directly interfaced with my S3 with a simple software update, I'd definitely consider them, but the same is true for the satellite guys.

litkaj

11-05-2007, 11:35 AM

Hard Drives are CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP!

Give me the better picture quality. I will buy more HD's if needed!

TGC

Yeah, and as soon as Verizon rolls out more HD channels (I've heard 60 by the end of 2007 and 150 by the end of 2008) I'll be upgrading.

MikeyB

11-05-2007, 01:39 PM

I absolutely love my FiOS service. It is in another league from the Comcast ***** I had before. Even when I was watching SD channels through my S3, on my old Toshiba SD 32" CRT, the picture was incomparable to the Comcast analog broadcast. Now with the S3, HD programming and my new Sharp LCD, I couldn't ask for better TV. Once Verizon adds more HD, I'll be completely happy. I'm still holding out for Discovery HD so I can watch Mythbusters in Hi-Def.