Time Warner vs U-Verse

[Murphy'sBoy]

I switched from Time Warner to U-Verse and find it to be better with the exception that the HD picture quality is just not as good. The Time Warner picture was spectacular. Can anyone tell me any technical reason for this? Could my TV reception be improved? Advice?

 

[14tokihorn]

I had Uverse when it 1st rolled out; that is, there was nothing from the pole except copper tele. wire...and (obviously) that medium carried the whole signal.

I've read that the service has the signal compressed - IIRC... very compressed, in order to accomodate the bandwidth restrictions of copper (as compared to coaxial or fiber cable).

The compression method may be part of it. Of course you may be in a fiber area.

Anyway, there was some forum, saying the signal compression was the reason. If true, you can't do a hell of a lot.

 

[Clarence Iba]

Most OTA is uncompressed at 19.2 mbps (bitrate). (mpg 2)
Cableco's usually compress to 13-14 mbps (usually mpg 2)

U-Verse is using 5-6 mbps, but using mpeg-4 codec which is never technology but still not as good as the higher bitrates.

U-Verse isn't for a HD-phile, it's more for someone who really loves their DVR.

 

[wherzwaldo]

The data compression is the reason. They are cramming a lot of information over those POTS lines. Bandwidth is also the reason why the majority of customers are only limited to two simultaneous HD streams for the entire home.

I actually didn't notice that much of a difference between TW and Uverse when it came to picture quality; TW was better but not by a shocking margin. I did, however, notice increased latency on my Uverse phone conversations (hearing echos, beeps, static, etc.) that I didn't hear on my TW digital phone.

Overall, we found Uverse to be largely inferior to TW's offerings and switched back. The Uverse DVR is the only thing we missed.

 

[HornsTrue]

I guess I am the minority then because I have found Uverse to be far superior in terms of HD channels, price, and of course the DVR capacity and features. I didn't notice a significant difference in HD quality. The only negative has been the digital phone service. It is not consistent enough. I get too many lost connections and problems with the line clarity. However, we rarely use our home phone anyway, so it really doesn't matter. It is just one of those things my wife still insists on having, but we use our cell phones for most of our calling needs.