AT&T To Offer Three HD Streams Reduce HD bandwidth consumption from 6-8Mbps to 5Mbps AT&T just began offering two HD streams to customers, something that forced them to adjust their TOS so it was clear that customers too far from the VRAD could struggle with capacity (oddly somehow confusing many news outlets into thinking AT&T was following Comcast's throttling lead in the process). Next year, AT&T says they'll deploy a new MPEG-4 compression scheme that will allow them to deliver three HD streams to customers. The new scheme will decrease current bandwidth use from around 6-8Mbps per HD stream, to around 5Mbps. Faster VDSL data speeds via line-bonding are also supposed to make an appearance sometime in 2009.
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  XBL2009------
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL
1 edit |  What a waste
Just upgrade to fiber at&t or give us VDSL internet at 25-50mbps like it was designed. | |
|  |  BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Re: What a waste said by XBL2009:Just upgrade to fiber In the end at&t will have not choice but to that and it will cost 2X-3X or more per household that what it cost Verizon by doing it the half-assed way they are doing it now. Everyone laughed at Verizon and idiotic short sighted investors got pissed off but in the end Verizon made the smarter move when it came to deploying fiber. Going "cheap" in anyhting hardly ever ends up being cheaper in the long run. | |
| | | | | Re: What a waste said by BF69:said by XBL2009:Just upgrade to fiber In the end at&t will have not choice but to that and it will cost 2X-3X or more per household that what it cost Verizon by doing it the half-assed way they are doing it now. Everyone laughed at Verizon and idiotic short sighted investors got pissed off but in the end Verizon made the smarter move when it came to deploying fiber. Going "cheap" in anyhting hardly ever ends up being cheaper in the long run. Nice try..however your completely wrong. It wont cost 2x-3x more to run fiber to the home when ATT finally decides to do so. Att is now running fiber to the node which is halfway. All they have to do is finish from the node to the home. By the time they start running fiber to the home, fiber will be cheaper not more expensive.
And guess what, there are talks amongst investors on pulling the plug on Verizon due to profits not being where they are supposed to be..so only time will tell what happens. But I bet Verizon caves soon...Especially in todays financial market, where it doesnt need to loose investors. | |
| | | |
1 edit | Re: What a waste Sadly investors are short-sighted, so I think Verizon may cave to pressure to stop deploying fiber, which in the long run will probably be the best thing for them (FTTH, that is).
However I think avoiding investing in FTTH by AT&T is likely going to put them so far behind cable companies that they may never catch up.
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OASAASLLS | |
| | | |  morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | fiber to the node is the easy part. it's wiring customer residences that's the most expensive and time consuming part. so, yeah, AT&T will eventually have to wire every household for fiber. at x2 cost. possibly 3 if you factor in the wasted $ on u-verse deployment. | |
| | | | |  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: What a waste I tend to agree.
FTTN is 'relatively' inexpensive (compared to FTTH) and much faster to deploy.
FTTN upside:
Low(er) initial cost of deployment
Higher speed of deployment
Easier to fund (due to above), as noted, investors want quicker return
Able to cherry pick next gen upgrades easily.
TV/Internet/VoIP can run over this infrastructure today, and upgrade to FTTH or other can be paid for by existing FTTH/Uverse deployment.
FTTN downside:
Band-aid approach (i.e. doesn't get it all in one shot)
Requires infrastructure upgrades (pair bonding)
Limited reach (3000')
Will eventually require a complete rework (FTTH or other from FTTN)... swapout last mile of copper, and the last mile is the most expensive.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: What a waste I don't think FTTN was a bad choice either.
FTTH is very slow and expensive to deploy.
FTTN can subsidize FTTH as needed. FTTH as a first round needs huge $$$ from nervous investors.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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| | | | El GaupoPremium
join:2006-07-15
Buckhorn, NM | they only bring fiber to the home,Inside wiring remains the same | |
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| | |  MattAll noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12
1 edit | said by NewMariner:And guess what, there are talks amongst investors on pulling the plug on Verizon due to profits not being where they are supposed to be..so only time will tell what happens. But I bet Verizon caves soon...Especially in todays financial market, where it doesnt need to loose investors. Verizon is not going to pull the plug on installing fiber. Since day 1 there have been "talks" among the STOCKHOLDERS of pulling the plug, but they won't do it. FiOS TV is doing well, FiOS Internet is doing very well, and now they have bendable fiber to work with, so MDUs are much easier. If they stop installing fiber, they would effectively stop offering service to new customers. They aren't going to redesign their entire backend for FTTN at this point so your assumption is ludicrous.
»www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/veri···analysis
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Linux Haters Unite! | |
| | | | | | | Re: What a waste said by Matt:said by NewMariner:And guess what, there are talks amongst investors on pulling the plug on Verizon due to profits not being where they are supposed to be..so only time will tell what happens. But I bet Verizon caves soon...Especially in todays financial market, where it doesnt need to loose investors. Verizon is not going to pull the plug on installing fiber. Since day 1 there have been "talks" among the STOCKHOLDERS of pulling the plug, but they won't do it. FiOS TV is doing well, FiOS Internet is doing very well, and now they have bendable fiber to work with, so MDUs are much easier. If they stop installing fiber, they would effectively stop offering service to new customers. They aren't going to redesign their entire backend for FTTN at this point so your assumption is ludicrous. » www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/veri···analysis Never once did I say Verizon would rewire their network. I simply stated that if investors pulled the plug on Verizon,(stopped the cash flow) then FiOs would simply come to a grinding halt or near halt. They may launch in the more profitable areas to increase subscribers to generate more revenue.
I like how you link to an article that is two months old now, before Freddie and Fannie have been bailed out, before AIG, before now the government forking out 700 BILLION dollars to stop our economy's freefall. Yeah right, my assumption is ludicrous at this point. Obviously you havent paid close attention to the financial sector. Once the banks stop lending(which is what the government is trying to prevent) Verizon's money dries up. Investors will start backing out of the stock...
This is only the beginning with our economy, expect it to get worse. I hope our next president has a plan. | |
| | | | | | wierdo
join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
 ·Cox HSI
 ·T-Mobile US
| Re: What a waste said by NewMariner:Never once did I say Verizon would rewire their network. I simply stated that if investors pulled the plug on Verizon,(stopped the cash flow) Investors don't bring cash flow. Customers do. At least in the absence of a new stock issue, which I don't believe is on the table.
All of the ILECs are still so ridiculously profitable (especially those with wireless, but even landline only) they are like money minting machines. They can afford to do most anything they want.
When SBC and BellSouth bought ATTWS in 2004, SBC had enough cash on hand to pay for their 60% share of it, plus had another $20 billion or so left over. BellSouth had most of what they needed, but decided they'd rather raise some extra funds by selling off some of their latin american wireless operations to Telefonica so they wouldn't be running low.
Of all the companies in the world, the telcos least need to worry about their stock price.
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It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word.  | |
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| | | BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
1 edit | said by NewMariner:Nice try..however your completely wrong. It wont cost 2x-3x more to run fiber to the home when ATT finally decides to do so. Att is now running fiber to the node which is halfway. All they have to do is finish from the node to the home. By the time they start running fiber to the home, fiber will be cheaper not more expensive. If you think building things piecemeal is cheaper then you are crazy. Fiber maybe be cheaper in 10,12 15 years, but the labor costs won't be. See it costs money to pay the workers to deploy the fiber. Perhaps you forgot about that.
By then FiOS and cable will be so far ahead of at&t it won't matter they would have lost potential customers forever. Besides by then it won't be long after at&t decides to start finally going to FTTH before people will be getting thru the internet. They're starting to that now with Hulu and other sites. In 10, 12, 15 years or whenever at&t decides to join the 21st century it will be too late. Personally I don't see myself using cable or satelite, FiOS, U-verse to get my TV in 15 years.
And guess what, there are talks amongst investors on pulling the plug on Verizon due to profits not being where they are supposed to be..so only time will tell what happens. But I bet Verizon caves soon...Especially in todays financial market, where it doesnt need to loose investors. BS. I don't where you get your facts from. Fantasyland I suppose. | |
| | | | |
| | Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by BF69:In the end at&t will have not choice but to that and it will cost 2X-3X or more per household that what it cost Verizon by doing it the half-assed way they are doing it now. Everyone laughed at Verizon and idiotic short sighted investors got pissed off but in the end Verizon made the smarter move when it came to deploying fiber. Going "cheap" in anyhting hardly ever ends up being cheaper in the long run. You are talking through your ass.
Your 2x-3x figure for "FTTN first, FTTP later" vs. "FTTP first" is just made up.
Verizon right now is spending 2x more per subscriber than AT&T ($2K vs $1K). And AT&T's per-passed-house cost is way, way lower than Verizon (well below $400) specifically because they are reusing copper.
Do you really think that incrementally adding FTTH is going to blow their costs up that far ahead of Verizon? No, it won't. All the costs of running the fiber to the neighborhood are completely re-used when you run it the last mile.
In addition, by doing FTTN, AT&T has the ability to stage their brownfield FTTP rollout, rather than being forced to run fiber just to get a subscriber up and running.
And, AT&T has lots of headroom to increase speeds BEFORE running FTTP. They can use VDSL2, and deploy more VRADS closer to the homes, and crank the speeds up by a factor of 2-4x, without running FTTP. | |
| | | | | | Re: What a waste I agree FTTN is that bad when it comes to cost and time required to get a significant speed increase to the customer. When ATT starts to roll out ftth, they can look at the problems verizon faced in rolling out their fiber, never mind the cost of fiber and new fiber technology in the future. Also who says the huge VRAD cabinents are wasted money? Someone how I doubt they will just 'throw' them away, I would think they would just ship them off to a location where FTTN is being deployed once FTTP is deployed. This also assumes that the VRADs are only caple of the VDSL fiber interfacing.
I read so much FUD and crying when it comes to fttp here. You'd figure that the only people here are 3 year old spoiled brats that think they deserve everything first or people pulling numbers from you know where in an attempt to downplay something (just like this 2x-3x factor). | |
| | | | | | Verizon's upfront costs are much more than 2x AT&T.
Actually, I've come round to the view that FTTN isn't such a bad strategy. They are now managing 2 HD streams (a must) and decent Internet speeds (10 mbps) right now in 2008. They have a killer multi-room DVR ... and they are competing with cable companies, and satellite, not Verizon.
AT&T's number one goal is to ensure they still have wireline customers left and U-Verse provides another hook to entrench existing customers and slow the face to black of twisted pair households.
At some point, of course, 50 mbps Internet with simultaneous 4 HD streams will become table stakes but that is quite far down the road yet and AT&T will have the opportunity, in the meantime, of holding on to a large customer base and delivering more advanced services when there is a genuine, economically rewarding reason to do so.
Make no mistake: U-verse FTTH is a defensive move and, based on the rollout these past 18 months, reasonably successful. Again, compared to most cable U-Verse directly competes with, AT&T has a very good story to tell consumers. | |
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| | impala
join:2008-03-08
Clemson, SC | Awww, don't screw it up ATT! If UVerse isn't even satellite quality, then I have no use for it. Two HD streams would be enough for many, many people. You do have to watch the recorded content eventually, else you don't need to record it.
They could give the option to dynamically turn the internet off to get a third HD stream, if the node is smart enough.
As for FTTH vs FTTN; they should be installing dark FTTH in new developments. And I hope they are deploying enough potential bandwidth to the node so they don't have to add more fiber from the CO to the node when they ultimately do FTTH. To not do either of these would make upgrade to FTTH more expensive than it needs to be, and take much much longer. | |
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| XBL2009------
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL | As I said VDSL isn't bad so long as it's for Internet but AT$T trying to use it for IPTV is just silly and has no long term future. | |
| | | | | | You would hit that 250GB not there but really there cap to quickly if they gave you that much bandwidth. | |
|
| | Laughable | |
| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: Laughable You're discussing MPEG2 versus MPEG4 compression schemes. Not really a fair comparison. | |
| | |  tiger72SexaT duorPPremium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
kudos:1
·T-Mobile US
| Re: Laughable said by openbox9:You're discussing MPEG2 versus MPEG4 compression schemes. Not really a fair comparison. Yes it is. 5mbps re-encoded Mpeg4 is never going to be as good as source-stream, full-bandwidth Mpeg2 HD.
DirecTV's Mpeg4 works very well because they're sending that at 7-8mbps. Starve a few more megabits (like ATT will) and you'll see image degradation.
--
"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? ...If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
-United States Secretary of Defense (1961-1968) Robert S. McNamara | |
| | | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: Laughable Never say never. Until the transmissions are compared, neither of us can make a determination. | |
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| |  tobyTroy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA | AT&T's is not HD, it certainly was HD before they re-encode it from mpeg2 to mpeg4.
It is might be HD-light, just like DirecTv does theirs.
BUT it is not HD. | |
| | | | | | | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | What qualifies content as HD? Bitrate, resolution, format, etc????? Based on your comment, content must be transmitted in MPEG2 to be HD? | |
| | | |  MchartFirst There.
join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL
1 edit | said by toby:AT&T's is not HD, it certainly was HD before they re-encode it from mpeg2 to mpeg4. It is might be HD-light, just like DirecTv does theirs. BUT it is not HD. You do realize that mpeg4 is capable of a much higher level of compression without looking worse when compared to mpeg2, correct? This is why you can download a 1.4GB mpeg4+mp3 AVI that looks just as good as your typical dual-layer DVD mpeg2 release.
A 5mbps mpeg4 stream is DARN good folks. Of course, what ATT should have really done is move to h.264 to begin with. A 5mbps h.264 stream is astoundingly good. Sure, the STB's would have been more expensive - But the payoff would have been great. | |
| | | | | tiger72SexaT duorPPremium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
kudos:1 Reviews:
·T-Mobile US
| Re: Laughable said by Mchart:said by toby:AT&T's is not HD, it certainly was HD before they re-encode it from mpeg2 to mpeg4. It is might be HD-light, just like DirecTv does theirs. BUT it is not HD. You do realize that mpeg4 is capable of a much higher level of compression without looking worse when compared to mpeg2, correct? This is why you can download a 1.4GB mpeg4+mp3 AVI that looks just as good as your typical dual-layer DVD mpeg2 release. A 5mbps mpeg4 stream is DARN good folks. Of course, what ATT should have really done is move to h.264 to begin with. A 5mbps h.264 stream is astoundingly good. Sure, the STB's would have been more expensive - But the payoff would have been great. 5mpbs mp4 is NOT, however, equal to the full 19.2mbps HD source. The bitrate is just getting too low. Mpeg4 is a fantastic compression technique, but it aint a miracle-worker. If you bitstarve you're still going to see compression artifacts on action, sports, and other shots with lots of movement. When it comes to consumer-level HD, this stuff matters a LOT. It's already an issue with DirecTV at 7mbps. It's not going to get miraculously better when ATT tries it at 5mbps.
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"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? ...If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
-United States Secretary of Defense (1961-1968) Robert S. McNamara | |
| | | | | | MchartFirst There.
join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL | Re: Laughable said by tiger72:said by Mchart:said by toby:AT&T's is not HD, it certainly was HD before they re-encode it from mpeg2 to mpeg4. It is might be HD-light, just like DirecTv does theirs. BUT it is not HD. You do realize that mpeg4 is capable of a much higher level of compression without looking worse when compared to mpeg2, correct? This is why you can download a 1.4GB mpeg4+mp3 AVI that looks just as good as your typical dual-layer DVD mpeg2 release. A 5mbps mpeg4 stream is DARN good folks. Of course, what ATT should have really done is move to h.264 to begin with. A 5mbps h.264 stream is astoundingly good. Sure, the STB's would have been more expensive - But the payoff would have been great. 5mpbs mp4 is NOT, however, equal to the full 19.2mbps HD source. The bitrate is just getting too low. Mpeg4 is a fantastic compression technique, but it aint a miracle-worker. If you bitstarve you're still going to see compression artifacts on action, sports, and other shots with lots of movement. When it comes to consumer-level HD, this stuff matters a LOT. It's already an issue with DirecTV at 7mbps. It's not going to get miraculously better when ATT tries it at 5mbps. No, a 5mbps mpeg4 is not going to look as good as a 19.2mbps mpeg2. Of course, then you have to ask the real question as to why they aren't offering 19.2 mbps mpeg4. | |
|
 jjoshuaPremium
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ
kudos:1 | Hooray! 3 streams. What's next? 4 streams. A technological revolution!
I guess when you have 2 soup cans and some string, you have to set your expectations accordingly. | |
| |  aaronwtPremium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
 ·Verizon FiOS
1 edit | Re: Hooray! said by jjoshua:3 streams. What's next? 4 streams. A technological revolution! I guess when you have 2 soup cans and some string, you have to set your expectations accordingly. This seems like a joke. I have several HD sets. I couldn't imagine using Uverse myself, but especially if you have a family of four or five.
You can only watch or record two HD programs at time yet you have several HD sets. That makes absolutely no sense. | |
| | | | said by jjoshua:3 streams. What's next? 4 streams. A technological revolution! I guess when you have 2 soup cans and some string, you have to set your expectations accordingly. Actually, AT&T is soon to announce 1 gbps speeds on UVerse. It'll be in service sometime in 2020. Yes, it is FTTH, BUT, still Uverse!
Cox provides like 6+ HD streams so Uverse kinda sucks, doesn't it?
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Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
-Supergirl | |
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MattAll noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 |  Quality?
--
Linux Haters Unite! | |
|  quetwoThat VoIP GuyPremium
join:2004-09-04
East Lansing, MI | Line-bonding? Wasn't 2008 supposed to be the year of DSL Line-Bonding for the big T? I mean, other smaller CLECS have been doing it for years... | |
| | | Proximity to Chief Executive Officer What does the distance to the company's CEO have to do with the number of streams you can get? | |
| | Chosen1
join:2001-08-05
Orange Park, FL | Re: Proximity to Chief Executive Officer Dang! Beat me to it.
-Chosen1 | |
| |  Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4
1 edit | said by mierwins:What does the distance to the company's CEO have to do with the number of streams you can get? I give up. What does that mean?
Edit: never mind. I see where Karl said CEO instead of CO. | |
|
 maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1 | Milking that copper.... They surely are milking the copper as much as they can. 5 Mbps for an HD video stream? I for one am never going to switch to uVerse.....
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Obama 2008 - Because McCain is more of the same! | |
| Fishie
join:2003-01-14
Riverside, CA | Quality Goes Downhill For those of us who have seen the current quality of HD from Uverse, we will be depressed to hear this news. It's already pixelated and breaks up very quickly when complex scenes are displayed. Such as, if you see running water, slight action, trees, macro blocking very quickly follows. If you visit Uverse forums, you will find a lot of people who think AT&T's Uverse HD should be free. I, for one, agree. | |
| | | | Re: Quality Goes Downhill As far as I' concerned just another nail in the coffin for UVerse being TV service if they think this is HD. Why not just downgrade the HD to SD and save even more bandwidth. | |
| | | | What are you watching that is doing this? | |
|
Gunner
join:2004-01-29
Carmel, IN | honey I shrunk the HD feed At what rate does Comcast send HD feeds, 7 or 8 Mbps? Comcast's compression, macro-blocking, and generally subpar HD feeds already piss me off. I can't imagine what trying to shrink it to 5 Mbps would do. Can't be good. Guess that erases any thought I had of switching to Uverse. | |
| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: honey I shrunk the HD feed MPEG2 vs MPEG4. MPEG4's compression scheme is more efficient than MPEG2's compression. You can't compare the two strictly based on bandwidth used for transmission. | |
| | | | said by Gunner:At what rate does Comcast send HD feeds, 7 or 8 Mbps? Comcast's compression, macro-blocking, and generally subpar HD feeds already piss me off. I can't imagine what trying to shrink it to 5 Mbps would do. Can't be good. Guess that erases any thought I had of switching to Uverse. 12.67 Mbps on average if it on a 3:1 mux.
19 Mbps on average if it is on a 2:1 mux
Assuming QAM256 quantization
And those numbers are averages, actual bit rate is source dependent. | |
| | | Gunner
join:2004-01-29
Carmel, IN | Re: honey I shrunk the HD feed Are you sure those are the rates hitting my cable box? They seem awfully high. 19 Mbps is OTA broadcast quality. I know Comcast isn't sending a bunch of untouched broadcast quality feeds to us. Those might be the rates hitting the satellite dishes before being distributed, but it's hard to believe those rates are being fed to the customer. | |
| | | |
1 edit | Re: honey I shrunk the HD feed said by Gunner:Are you sure those are the rates hitting my cable box? They seem awfully high. 19 Mbps is OTA broadcast quality. I know Comcast isn't sending a bunch of untouched broadcast quality feeds to us. Those might be the rates hitting the satellite dishes before being distributed, but it's hard to believe those rates are being fed to the customer. Again, if you are assuming QAM256, you have 38 Mbps per QAM Allocation (Channel). It is simple math from there. Again, I will point out, that beyond the average bit rate that I have posted...the actual bit rate is source dependent. If HBO is only sending 10 Mbps, then Comcast only sends 10 Mbps.
My locals are indistinguishable from OTA. If it looks bad OTA (i.e. NBC) it looks bad on Comcast. | |
|
| | it's all relative going from 6-8Mbps of MPEG2 to 5Mbps of MPEG4 will probably actually be an improvement in HD quality. It still won't be as good as DirecTV or FIOS, but it should be an improvement. Plus it lets them offer a 3rd stream which is a bonus. Granted, that extra bandwidth could be used to increase internet speeds, but not all Uverse customers want/need more speed and many will be more interested in being able to record/watch 3 HD streams at once. | |
| | |
| | Silly AT&T While their FTTN idea works well in areas that don't have much choice in broadband I really think AT&T should do FTTH buildouts in highly populated areas or places where they might face DOCSIS 3 head on if they hope to survive. | |
| | | Cart before the horse To me, it sounds like they are gettinmg the customers but unable to sustain the product quality with the current equipment out there. Hopefully, they get it worked out. The throttling bandwith does not seem to be the way to go. Thats just a band aid. | |
| Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Not for me -- but it'll sell to the masses Current U-verse HD service is not as good as a decent Cable or Satellite HD service. I experienced this personally.
However....
Current U-verse HD is not awful or unwatchable. Most customers will be satisfied with it, even though it's not as good. It's still pretty decent.
Personally, I could not stand knowing that the picture quality wasn't there. But I am a lot more picky than most people.
Most people, in fact, have a hard time telling the difference between stretched SD on a 16x9 screen, a Stretch-O-Vision HD broadcast, and an actual HD broadcast.
I have lots of friends and neighbors and believe me this is the case.
Assuming this codec improvement plus bitrate reduction does not *seriously* degrade picture quality... I think this will be a net plus for U-verse. Their success will continue, despite all you technophiles here who think their FTTN + Video over IP strategy is some kind of flaming disaster (it isn't ... it's actually quite successful).
Just remember... WE ARE NOT THE TARGET MARKET. | |
| |  GooberPremium
join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
kudos:4 | Re: Not for me -- but it'll sell to the masses said by MyDogHsFleas:Most people, in fact, have a hard time telling the difference between stretched SD on a 16x9 screen, a Stretch-O-Vision HD broadcast, and an actual HD broadcast. Those make me feel the same as if I were motion sick for some reason. | |
|
| | ??? again why did att in this day and age roll out this crap excuse for a service that doesnt even surpass incumbent cable co. service? at least verizon gets it and is doing it right! | |
| | GooberPremium
join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
kudos:4 | Re: ??? They didn't want to spend the money. | |
| | | aaronwtPremium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
1 edit | Re: ??? they are clueless. | |
| | | |  Ima
join:2003-10-23
Little Rock, AR | Re: ??? Clueless? How so? You clearly don't understand the market, and that in fact makes you clueless.
Once you finally understand that you are not the target market, and by that I mean you won't be satisfied by anything less than a FiOS like offering because you're too much of a technophile, you'll be much better off.
AT&T is fine for most people. Again, these are people who don't need cutting edge technology. But what I'm really confused on is why bash AT&T repeatedly? As if it will some how change AT&T's game plan? I'll never understand it, but I'll continue to question it because it honestly makes no sense to me. | |
| | | | | aaronwtPremium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
1 edit | Re: ??? said by Ima:Clueless? How so? You clearly don't understand the market, and that in fact makes you clueless. Once you finally understand that you are not the target market, and by that I mean you won't be satisfied by anything less than a FiOS like offering because you're too much of a technophile, you'll be much better off. AT&T is fine for most people. Again, these are people who don't need cutting edge technology. But what I'm really confused on is why bash AT&T repeatedly? As if it will some how change AT&T's game plan? I'll never understand it, but I'll continue to question it because it honestly makes no sense to me. I know several families that aren't technophiles, yet they have several HD sets connected to HD DVR boxes from Comcast and FIOS. They have several people in their family and many times are watching HD content on multiple TV sets.
They just know the DVR works and they would be highly pissed if they were limited to a total of two HD streams at a time for the entire household. | |
| | | | | | GooberPremium
join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
kudos:4
1 edit | Re: ??? We're one of those. We use 4 HD streams with no problem. I'm sure that'll be 5 as soon as our youngest is old enough in a year or two. | |
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 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | 5mbps you think it looks like shit at six to 8 megs. ouch! thats going to be ugly at five.
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
| | | Low bitrate HD is more like SD.. its the constant squeeze, stop saying another HD channel, how good.. crystal clear, just as sharp, or pixelized or worse, filtered down to hide it.
come on, lets deliver a reasonable education.. lower bitrate means less information, at some point you basically have a picture with SD quality and an HD label to it.
I am so tired of seeing these companies squeeze down the quality of these signals and just call them HD cause they conform to it. | |
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