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ajairola
join:2014-03-05

ajairola to chmod

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Re: Really horrible U-Verse TV PQ.

Not really sure what all of the negative posts about picture quality are about, I've had Uverse for almost a year now and have no complaints(both my 55in tv and my 100in projector have great picture quality from the uverse boxes). What gateway/profile do you have?

gadawg
join:2006-01-27
Louisville, KY

gadawg

Member

Same here. I have had cable, Uverse and now OTA. OTA the best. Uverse and cable the same picture quality.

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH

trparky

Premium Member

Same here. I have Time Warner Cable in my area. Picture quality is just the same.

chmod
Premium Member
join:2000-12-12
Lockport, IL

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Stats here. I really want to stick with u-verse don't get me wrong. As mentioned connectivity has been rock solid. Not a single hiccup since install. I literally unplugged the Comcast box and the tech hooked up U-Verse and the difference was apparent.
Paralel
join:2011-03-24
Michigan, US

1 edit

Paralel

Member

I've never had a problem with the picture quality, but some people seem to have an issue with it.

I have a 42" TV that is ~100 inches away from me, and with my glasses my vision is 20/15. In previous years, if you looked, you could see there were a few issues with UVerse picture quality during scenes with lots of small details (confetti during a parade, etc...) and some really fast action scenes. However, the artifacts were small, transient, and had no major impact on my viewing experience. In recent years, I can find no faults, unless I'm literally less than 12" from the screen, and well, no one should be that close to their TV screen.

I'm also running a VIP 2250, so maybe that makes a difference?

brookeKrige
join:2012-11-05
San Jose, CA

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If you freeze frame during the blocky blacks, is it preserved (can post pic?, but what frame of what show to choose as reference for comparison with others?), or pause cleans up the PQ a bit?

Of course you can use disc like AVS HD to calibrate a new TV (brightness, contrast, esp. black-levels...), defeating the weird out-of-the-box settings and fancy uber modes designed for the Best Buy showroom. You must have played them all out to utter exhaustion I guess by now?

(My recollection of comcast, from so far back as now must matter little and less, was they obviously over drove the color).

What DVR model, and with what firmware version? (I assume old firmware makes a difference). Not a wireless STB, right?

What's your internet speed tier? Your upstream is oddly not cutting it for the 32/5 profile (ridiculous for 400 feet to VRAD, may be it's the old: "3801 can't handle being that close to VRAD" problem), but you wouldn't see an impact on TV PQ due to that anyway. Presume UVR error tab shows only correctable block errors?

MoeTech
@sbcglobal.net

MoeTech

Anon

Definitely needs an attenuator installed on the 3800
dipswich
Premium Member
join:2003-06-27
Raleigh, NC

dipswich

Premium Member

I wouldn't try to fix a link with 0 errors per minute with an attenuator unless there is a known issue with high signal levels causing damage to the hardware.

I think that the issue here is just sensitivity to the aggressive compression AT&T has to employ. Some people are just more attuned to the artifacts, and U-verse might not be the product for them.

My preferences are similar to the OP in that I get really hung up on blocky dark scenes or banded gradients. All digital video has this to some degree, but when I had U-verse TV it was a little more than I could bear.

chmod
Premium Member
join:2000-12-12
Lockport, IL

chmod to brookeKrige

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said by brookeKrige:

If you freeze frame during the blocky blacks, is it preserved (can post pic?, but what frame of what show to choose as reference for comparison with others?), or pause cleans up the PQ a bit?

Of course you can use disc like AVS HD to calibrate a new TV (brightness, contrast, esp. black-levels...), defeating the weird out-of-the-box settings and fancy uber modes designed for the Best Buy showroom. You must have played them all out to utter exhaustion I guess by now?

(My recollection of comcast, from so far back as now must matter little and less, was they obviously over drove the color).

What DVR model, and with what firmware version? (I assume old firmware makes a difference). Not a wireless STB, right?

What's your internet speed tier? Your upstream is oddly not cutting it for the 32/5 profile (ridiculous for 400 feet to VRAD, may be it's the old: "3801 can't handle being that close to VRAD" problem), but you wouldn't see an impact on TV PQ due to that anyway. Presume UVR error tab shows only correctable block errors?

I'll try to answer most of your questions. As far as pausing and taking a picture of the blocking I suppose I could. At one point it was strobeing grey/black. As far as calibration I've read what seems like hundreds of pages from avs forum in the master thread for my TV. There is a compiled spreadsheet of settings from different users. I found one that was nice and tweaked from there. I do however have Disney's wow Blu Ray on order. Speed tier is max plus which is 18/1.5 I believe. With two tv's on speed tests show 22/1.5. Dvr and firmware I'll have to get back to you on. My living room TV (the 60") is cat5 wired to Dvr and hdmi out to TV. The other two tv's however are wireless.
benk016
join:2011-06-05
Owasso, OK

benk016

Member

When I first got u-verse after moving from cable, i did notice the picture quality wasn't what I was used to. but I have to admit, after a month, i don't even notice it anymore. I think it is different enough that you notice it real bad at first. but then you get used to it. Yes when there is a lot of movement, or flashing lights or anything like that, it pixelates, but so does cable, or OTA. I'd say give it some time and you might not even notice it anymore.

gadawg
join:2006-01-27
Louisville, KY

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Have you tried one of your other STB's on the main tv? Hardwire it. Maybe it is a bad STB. How about changing the Ethernet cable to the dvr first? I presume picture quality is good if you were playing a DVD or Blu-ray Disc?

oneoone
join:2010-01-20
North Hollywood, CA

oneoone

Member

Just a rule the bigger your screen is the less detail you are going to get. U-Verse looked great on my 32" LED and 42" Plasma but on my 50" LCD down stairs it looks really bad. There really isn't much you can do about it, most get used to the PQ like myself while others just can't live with it. There really is no way to improve the picture quality its a bandwidth issue and nothing on your end. Hopefully in time ATT will increase the bit rates per stream.

chmod
Premium Member
join:2000-12-12
Lockport, IL

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said by gadawg:

Have you tried one of your other STB's on the main tv? Hardwire it. Maybe it is a bad STB. How about changing the Ethernet cable to the dvr first? I presume picture quality is good if you were playing a DVD or Blu-ray Disc?

I haven't tried swapping anything out yet, but I'll give it a try. Yes blu-ray quality is phenomenal.
chmod

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said by oneoone:

Just a rule the bigger your screen is the less detail you are going to get. U-Verse looked great on my 32" LED and 42" Plasma but on my 50" LCD down stairs it looks really bad. There really isn't much you can do about it, most get used to the PQ like myself while others just can't live with it. There really is no way to improve the picture quality its a bandwidth issue and nothing on your end. Hopefully in time ATT will increase the bit rates per stream.

I understand what your getting at. However this new tv was a big purchase and I would like the best pq available. I won't settle for "thats as good as it gets". Especially with what I'm getting right now, and what its capable of.

oneoone
join:2010-01-20
North Hollywood, CA

oneoone

Member

If you won't settle for "thats as good as it gets" you will probably need to change providers as nothing can be done to improve your picture quality.
ram1220
join:2009-07-03
Allen, TX

ram1220

Member

That is exactly why I dumped Uverse TV. I didn't want to settle for as good as it gets anymore. Merlin and other AT&T employees can try and spin the issue all they want to. The bottom line is that Uverse HD is still poor. Not enough bandwith is allocated for it. Yes it is improved since I had it installed in Oct 2008. It was really worse back then. But up until I canceled one month ago it was still poor. You can polish a turd but it is still a turd.

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx to Paralel

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said by Paralel:

In previous years, if you looked, you could see there were a few issues with UVerse picture quality during scenes with lots of small details (confetti during a parade, etc...) and some really fast action scenes. However, the artifacts were small, transient, and had no major impact on my viewing experience.

I had U-verse for a few years, then switched to DirecTV. My sister still has U-verse. They've definitely made huge improvements to some of the motion artifact problems that used to be present when I had it. However, the picture is still soft compared to what I'm used to on DirecTV. It's probably good enough for most people, I just wouldn't recommend it for a quality purist.

No matter how much they might improve their compression algorithms, they can only do so much with existing set tops doing the decoding. DirecTV is using the same MPEG-4 compression but with about 33% more data (~8mbps vs ~6mbps). DirectTV / DISH / even cable companies can also borrow additional bandwidth from other channels on the same transponder/QAM if there is a particularly difficult-to-encode scene ("stat-muxing"). AT&T cannot do this because the data must fit within a certain profile that is being shared with other unknown channels or activities on the VDSL pipe (there is nowhere safe to borrow additional bandwidth from).

It's still better than the garbage bit-starved MPEG-2 we had from TWC. That made U-verse PQ look pristine.

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

trparky

Premium Member

said by djrobx:

It's still better than the garbage bit-starved MPEG-2 we had from TWC. That made U-verse PQ look pristine.

You got that right.

brookeKrige
join:2012-11-05
San Jose, CA

brookeKrige to djrobx

Member

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said by djrobx:

if there is a particularly difficult-to-encode scene ("stat-muxing"). AT&T cannot do this because the data must fit within a certain profile that is being shared with other unknown channels or activities on the VDSL pipe (there is nowhere safe to borrow additional bandwidth from).

Hmm. TV borrows from internet BW as needed anyway. Frankly, absorbing dynamic TV encoding overages would seem tailor-made for that.

By comparison to sat/cable channel bundles, this should yield fewer degradations from synchronized high-activity between neighboring streams.

They might still have same-as sat/cable channel bundling bottleneck elsewhere upstream, but I doubt last-mile is a constraint in that way.
Craiger
join:2012-07-05
Chesterfield, MO

Craiger to djrobx

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Would UVerse's PQ be the same as DirecTV's with FTTP and an all Ethernet connection? I think DirecTV just improved HD PQ with their latest update to the HR-24 DVR that I have.