AT&T To Offer Three HD Streams Reduce HD bandwidth consumption from 6-8Mbps to 5Mbps Monday Sep 22 2008 08:53 EDT 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. |
XBL2009------ join:2001-01-03 Chicago, IL 1 edit |
What a wasteWe could have some awesome 25mbps speed access but instead they are trying to squeeze HD through it when cable and satellite are better for video purposes.
Just upgrade to fiber at&t or give us VDSL internet at 25-50mbps like it was designed. | |
| | 88615298 (banned) join:2004-07-28 West Tenness
1 recommendation |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2008-Sep-22 9:09 am
Re: What a wastesaid 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. | |
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Re: What a wastesaid by 88615298: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. | |
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Re: What a wasteSadly 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. | |
| | | | morboComplete Your Transaction join:2002-01-22 00000
1 recommendation |
to NewMariner
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 |
en102
Member
2008-Sep-22 11:48 am
Re: What a wasteI 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. | |
| | | | | | djrobx Premium Member join:2000-05-31 Reno, NV |
djrobx
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 12:33 pm
Re: What a wasteI don't think FTTN was a bad choice. The bigger problem is AT&T's 25mbps, 3,000 foot target.
Had they placed the nodes closer to homes, they could easily have 50mbps or more per home. That would have given them much more wiggle room for more advanced internet speeds, better HD quality, and more streams.
The physical size of the nodes could have been a lot smaller if they were serving fewer homes, too.
I would love have to have 3 HD streams, but count me in as being skeptical about the quality implications of reducing the bandwidth. | |
| | | | | | | en102Canadian, eh? join:2001-01-26 Valencia, CA |
en102
Member
2008-Sep-22 1:33 pm
Re: What a wasteI 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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| | | | El Gaupo Premium Member join:2006-07-15 Buckhorn, NM |
to morbo
they only bring fiber to the home,Inside wiring remains the same | |
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| | | Matt3All noise, no signal. Premium Member join:2003-07-20 Jamestown, NC 1 edit |
to NewMariner
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/200 ··· analysis | |
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Re: What a wastesaid by Matt3: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/200 ··· 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 Miami, FL |
wierdo
Member
2008-Sep-23 1:26 pm
Re: What a wastesaid 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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| | | 88615298 (banned) join:2004-07-28 West Tenness 1 edit |
to NewMariner
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. | |
| | | | wierdo join:2001-02-16 Miami, FL |
to NewMariner
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. The distance between the CO and your home may be (more than, actually) halfway covered, but you seem to fail to grasp that there are several hundred drops to be made from each of those RTs. There is far more than half (probably more like 80%) of the wire feet left to pull. The only savings here is saving the CEO the bonus reduction involved in a major capex project. | |
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to 88615298
said by 88615298: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. | |
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Re: What a wasteI 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). | |
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to MyDogHsFleas
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 |
to 88615298
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. | |
| | pandora Premium Member join:2001-06-01 Outland |
to XBL2009
AT&T needs fiber to the home, and needs to roll out new services 100% to each community they serve. Currently in my area, Uverse is not available to me, but is available a short distance away.
Greater compression often comes with more artifacts, and with signal degradation at the display device. How degraded a HD signal will AT&T customers accept before they realize it isn't HD anymore? | |
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to XBL2009
You would hit that 250GB not there but really there cap to quickly if they gave you that much bandwidth. | |
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LaughableHmmm.... Joke-Verse's "6-8Mbps per HD stream, to around 5Mbps" (gotta love that copper!!!) and on the other side we have Verizon's 19.2Mbps per HD stream. Wonder which service will offer the better picture quality? | |
| | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 9:25 am
Re: LaughableYou're discussing MPEG2 versus MPEG4 compression schemes. Not really a fair comparison. | |
| | | tiger72SexaT duorP Premium Member join:2001-03-28 Saint Louis, MO |
tiger72
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 10:43 am
Re: Laughablesaid 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. | |
| | | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 11:04 am
Re: LaughableNever 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 |
to openbox9
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. | |
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grydlok
Member
2008-Sep-22 11:52 am
Re: LaughableSo since HBO switched to Mpeg4, it's not HD they are uplinking to all providers that you been watching, and haven't noticed. So you call it HD light, because it isn't mpeg2. » www.engadgethd.com/2007/ ··· it-rate/ | |
| | | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
to toby
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 Kaneohe, HI 1 edit |
to toby
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 duorP Premium Member join:2001-03-28 Saint Louis, MO |
tiger72
Premium Member
2008-Sep-23 8:24 am
Re: Laughablesaid 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. | |
| | | | | | MchartFirst There. join:2004-01-21 Kaneohe, HI |
Mchart
Member
2008-Sep-23 2:32 pm
Re: Laughablesaid 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. | |
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jjoshua Premium Member join:2001-06-01 Scotch Plains, NJ
1 recommendation |
jjoshua
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 9:03 am
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. | |
| | aaronwt Premium Member join:2004-11-07 Woodbridge, VA Asus RT-AX89
1 edit |
aaronwt
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 4:27 pm
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. | |
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to jjoshua
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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Matt3All noise, no signal. Premium Member join:2003-07-20 Jamestown, NC
1 recommendation |
Matt3
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 9:08 am
Quality?I wonder what the quality will be? Even when compressing to the current 6-8Mbps per stream, (not specific to U-Verse, just MEPG-4 compression in general) you lose something. It's usually noticeable in fast action scenes, or the colors seem muted overall. | |
| quetwoThat VoIP Guy Premium Member join:2004-09-04 East Lansing, MI |
quetwo
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 9:13 am
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... | |
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Proximity to Chief Executive OfficerWhat does the distance to the company's CEO have to do with the number of streams you can get? | |
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Re: Proximity to Chief Executive OfficerDang! Beat me to it.
-Chosen1 | |
| | FFH5 Premium Member join:2002-03-03 Tavistock NJ 1 edit |
to mierwins
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. | |
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maartenaElmo Premium Member join:2002-05-10 Orange, CA |
maartena
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 9:42 am
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..... | |
| Fishie join:2003-01-14 Riverside, CA |
Fishie
Member
2008-Sep-22 10:01 am
Quality Goes DownhillFor 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. | |
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Re: Quality Goes DownhillAs 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. | |
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Mr Anon to Fishie
Anon
2008-Sep-22 12:22 pm
to Fishie
What are you watching that is doing this? | |
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honey I shrunk the HD feedAt 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. | |
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njeske1
Member
2008-Sep-22 12:51 pm
it's all relativegoing 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. | |
| | djrobx Premium Member join:2000-05-31 Reno, NV |
djrobx
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 2:23 pm
Re: it's all relativequote: 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.
It's 6-8mbps of MPEG 4 now. » www.uverseusers.com/comp ··· ,2821.0/According to the above poll, most people are satisfied with the quality, but they can tell it's not quite as good as what they had before. I fall into this category too. I don't see too many problems with lots of action or complex scenes. I do, however, see lots of problems in the backgrounds of nearly still images. Pixels seem to get "lazy" and move once per second. I can compare to the same channel on Time Warner and those artifacts aren't present. I think that's something that's fixable in the codec, since it happens primarily when there's not much action going on. Nobody seemed to notice a dramatic drop-off in quality when they made the switch over to a lower rate for the 2HD streams. People actually seem to feel that the HD quality has improved over the last year. Football fans in particular have reported less artifacting problems. I'm skeptical, but hopefully they can pull that trick off again. | |
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Silly AT&TWhile 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. | |
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Cart before the horseTo 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. | |
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Not for me -- but it'll sell to the massesCurrent 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. | |
| | 67845017 (banned) join:2000-12-17 Naperville, IL |
67845017 (banned)
Member
2008-Sep-22 2:47 pm
Re: Not for me -- but it'll sell to the massessaid 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. | |
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hahaatttsux
Anon
2008-Sep-22 2:36 pm
???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! | |
| | ••••• | dvd536as Mr. Pink as they come Premium Member join:2001-04-27 Phoenix, AZ |
dvd536
Premium Member
2008-Sep-22 10:11 pm
5mbpsyou think it looks like shit at six to 8 megs. ouch! thats going to be ugly at five. | |
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oolisfast
Anon
2008-Sep-27 1:01 pm
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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